{"id":650504,"date":"2026-10-18T22:20:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T22:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/650504\/"},"modified":"2026-10-18T22:20:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T22:20:12","slug":"dance-is-not-for-us-review-desire-and-defiance-as-one-revolutionary-mover-sweats-it-all-out-dance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/650504\/","title":{"rendered":"Dance Is Not for Us review \u2013 desire and defiance as one revolutionary mover sweats it all out | Dance"},"content":{"rendered":"

In August 2019, Omar Rajeh sat in his bedroom, listening to the sound of pounding percussion with his world in crisis. In the midst of political instability, Citerne Beirut, a theatre and cultural centre Rajeh had founded in his native Lebanon<\/a>, was forced to close, dismantled by order of the local government, who planned to build an incinerator on the site.<\/p>\n

Heartfelt \u2026 Omar Rajeh in Dance Is Not for Us. Photograph: Tristram Kenton\/the Guardian<\/p>\n

Rajeh tells us that as a teenager, coming of age at the end of the Lebanese civil war, dance had always seemed like the most revolutionary thing he could do. Now here he is, more than three decades later, still dancing \u2013 out of frustration, defiance, resistance and a desire to connect. As the percussive score gains momentum, Rajeh\u2019s busy body builds up a sweat. In this danced stream of consciousness, Rajeh is not always an especially elegant mover, but he dances like it\u2019s a necessary thing to do.<\/p>\n

Part of this year\u2019s Dance Umbrella festival<\/a>, Dance Is Not for Us is a solo that appears at times like an explosion of physical instinct, but it is mostly calm, considered musings on the nature of choreography, with all its workings exposed. Rajeh sits and taps at a keyboard as his thoughts appear on screen, all the inspirations, decisions, vacillations and U-turns that go into creating a performance.<\/p>\n

He tells us of the first \u201cchoreographies\u201d he ever saw: a fight between two men, people gathering in the streets to protest, bodies making choices and organising themselves in space \u2013 which is what choreography is, after all. The creative and the political are one to Rajeh, who is now based in Lyon, a major loss to Lebanon\u2019s creative life. This piece is an insight into a choreographer\u2019s mind, and it\u2019s a heartfelt appeal to gather, to witness, to share our pain and loss \u2013 to look and to listen.<\/p>\n

Dance Umbrella festival<\/a> is at venues across London and online until 27 October<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In August 2019, Omar Rajeh sat in his bedroom, listening to the sound of pounding percussion with his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":650505,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[146,85,46],"class_list":["post-650504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}