I am usually not so into opening or interval acts as even if they usually are spectacular or even fun they seldom leave any lasting memory. Last night's Close encounters of a special kind by Ahmad Joudeh and Dez Maarsen is an exception. I loved every minute of it even if I'm not into ballet or modern dance.
Maybe it's because of Ahmad's backstory that I knew well thanks to great documentary film Dance Or Die, that everyone should search and watch (For the Finns out there it's here).
This Emmy 2019 award-winning touching documentary tells Syrian born Ahmad's journey into world consciousness. At home in war-torn Damascus, he was threatened with death until the Dutch National Ballet offered him who defied death the opportunity to dance and live, albeit still under many mental and physical pressures. Directed by Dutch Roozbeth Kaboly this short film was released in 2018.
Dance or Die depicts him dancing in the ruins of the camp where he had grown up, visiting his family's former home in Palmyra, which has been destroyed, with his mother, and the ancient Roman theater of Palmyra, where he dances. Joudeh also takes the filmmakers to his dance studio in Damascus, where some of his young students talk about their lives, and what dance means to them. The ancient Roman theater in Palmrya was subsequently destroyed by ISIL.
Born in 1990, Joudeh grew up in Yarmouk, a Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus, His mother is Syrian, his father Palestinian. Although his father did not approve of his interest in dance, Joudeh persisted, studying dance in Damascus.
From 2007 until 2016, he lived in Damascus, studying dance, and teaching ballet to support himself, and to orphaned and disabled children free of charge. His mother still lives in Syria. His father is an asylum seeker center in Germany, where father and son recently reconciled after an estrangement of eleven years.
In 2014 he was a contestant in the Arab version of So You Think You Can Dance. He made it to the semi-finals. But because he was a Palestinian without national identity, he was told he could not win. Nevertheless, his appearances brought him to the attention of Dutch filmmaker Roozbeh Kaboly, who produced a documentary that aired on Dutch television.
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