the Sky above, the Mud below

After Hidden in Plain Sight, the Hungry Sharks dance company returns to imagetanz in 2018 showing an urban dance solo entitled the Sky above, the Mud below. In her performance, hip-hop dancer Farah Deen breaks new ground in terms of individual technique and improvisation. After Hidden in Plain Sight, the Hungry Sharks dance company returns to imagetanz in 2018 showing an urban dance solo entitled the Sky above, the Mud below. In her performance, hip-hop dancer Farah Deen breaks new ground in terms of individual technique and improvisation. Venturing into a theatrical context rather uncommon for urban dance, she embarks on a journey through the cultural and social conflict zones of religion and womanhood. In her one-hour solo, she confronts a world view defining the man as the human norm with her female perspective. What if Leonardo da Vinci had chosen a woman for his representation of idealised proportions?

 Choice of topics, approach and development of the play are all based on elements of the solo dancer’s own life. Farah Deen grew up in Salzburg. Her mother having being born in Carinthia and her father coming from the overly Muslim Sri Lanka, she has been practicing and experiencing the influence of both cultures, their compatibility and clashes in her own social environment. Based on her own range of personal experiences, Farah Deen examines polarising social categories and sheds light on their boundaries and grey areas. the Sky above, the Mud below presents a dancer’s evolution in a search of new personal authenticity that cannot be measured by any gauge.

The urban dance company Hungry Sharks was established by choreographer Valentin Alfery and producer Dusana Baltic in 2011. It has since been expanded to 19 team members and awarded multiple decorations. Aiming to establish the movement vocabulary of urban dance styles in theatre, the company regularly produces feature-length urban dance pieces and shows them in Austria and other countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Croatia, Romania, Italy and Turkey.