  Zaria Rajha Dancer, Choreographer, and Researcher of the Body Hailing from Damascus, Syria and currently based in Treaty 7 Calgary, Alberta. She grew up learning Hip-Hop, jazz, and contemporary. Later, Zaria became a graduate of The Higher Institute for Dramatic Arts, Damascus, Syria where she held her bachelor’s degree in dance movement. Zaria is deeply drawn to absurd theatre studies and to her research about human existence. In 2018, She worked as a professional performer with Leish physical theatre troupe Damascus, Syria and choreographed many dance productions based on the idea of contradiction by combining two opposites movement, themes, methods together.During her career journey Zaria trained in multiple theatre, mime and dance techniques. In 2022, together with her husband Mario Obeid co-choreographed and performed works for Quick+Dirty Festival (Dancer Studio West) awarded “the audience choice prize”, the Grand Residency Cabaret (Grand Theatre) and Fluid Festival (Springboard Performance). Most recently, she and Mario Obeid have co-collaborated with Kawalease Act to create movement workshops that introduce people to the art of dance and choreography.  Mario Obeid Movement Artist and Choreographer Having discovered dance through bboying and breakdance, Mario played a significant role in the establishment and strengthening of both urban and rural hip hop dance communities in Syria before receiving training in contemporary, classical ballet and jazz at the Damascus Institute of Higher Arts. Together with Zaria Rajha, Mario has recently co-choreographed and performed work for Quick+Dirty Festival DSW (they win the festival selection award), The Grande Residency (Theatre Grande) and FluidFest (Springboard Dance). Mario is interested in how the dance expresses the body's yearning for both freedom and connection through the scales of our deepest relationships and the communities through which we find belonging. What are you up to? Zaria: We’re just about to head out to buy the costumes for our show, our own production, which we are rehearsing on right now. Tomorrow is the photo session that we’ll use for the posters and promotional material, so we have to decide on the costumes!  Photo by: Mike Tan Tell us more about yourself and the amazing projects you are currently working on. Zaria: Funny enough, we have pretty much the same artist bios. We are both dancers and performing artists. We both studied at the Higher Institute for Dramatic Arts in Damascus, Syria. I moved here three years ago and then sponsored Mario to come here as well and he moved here a year ago. We have a degree from back home but here of course it was all a new community for us. We realized there were a lot of really great opportunities here as we started getting into festivals and cabarets last year. Mario: We had a chance to meet artists and showcase our work so we are excited to share more and more about our dance background! We are currently focused on contemporary dance.  BLUFF - Fluid Festival, SpringBoard - Photo by: Mike Tan Can you tell us about the people that have made the most impact in your life and on your practice since you arrived in Calgary? Mario: Everyone! The community here is so helpful and generous. Everyone seemed to be willing to help and clearly getting excited when they saw new artists in the city. Zaria: I feel like ICAI played a great role in that during the Immigrant Arts Mentorship Program, allowing us to make big progress through the people that we met. We also had support from people we met when we performed at the Fluid Festival at Spring Board. Mario: We met more people at every performance we were at and the connections started organically spreading and evolving. More opportunities started arising as we were trying to develop our career here and excited about continuing our work on new land. We were lucky to meet all of the artists working in dance or any other art field. It felt surreal to get all of those opportunities just in one year especially after COVID, when everything suddenly opened back up and it was a very busy summer for us.  You took part in IAMP! How did you hear about the Immigrant Arts Mentorship Program? What were your expectations? Zaria: I heard about the program through ICAI’s website as I was doing a lot of research on how I can establish myself here as an artist here and I found this opportunity. I got excited about it with Mario and we applied together! We realized it’s a good opportunity for us because of course we are still very new here and wanted to evolve here in our artistic practice. Mario: I believe we can learn more about the culture here and the community here through such opportunities. We got to engage with our mentors and we are so lucky to have those relationships and that built rapport with them.  Zaria: Our goal was to learn more about the arts community here from IAMP. That was what I was expecting, meeting more people in the arts as well as understanding how things actually work here, so IAMP was really helpful in that regard. Mario: We found there were a lot of differences between the communication here and the way things are back home. The struggle in the beginning was the most complicated, when we didn’t really know where to start, knowing how to go about grant writing here, achieving well written components and just knowing what the steps are within the local processes. So it's good to create these kinds of networks of support. We needed to understand how we should position ourselves here in order to be listened to and to know the steps and the methods.  Zaria: It’s definitely different from back home. The way you build your connections here is completely different in comparison to back home, even to the small important details of the first introductions. Back home, most people already know you and are familiar with you from the community but here it’s all totally new. Mario: The more we learn about the land we are on, the more we know about the original caretakers of this land, the better our adjustment is here. So overall IAMP was a great experience in that aspect as well.  Zaria: Art is directly related to culture. How can one pursue the arts without understanding the culture here? So I think ICAI has lent us a lot of knowledge about the land, the original caretakers, and the more you know about these things, the more engaging art you can create. How did your relationships with your mentors impact your work and your practice in Calgary? Mario: Best friends! Even after the mentorship program, we are still very much connected and often check in on each other and get together. Zaria: Truly! We became really good friends by the end of it. If you ask them even one thing, they would go above and beyond for us with resources. They would say why don’t you go to this event, would help us with research, and connect us with the community. It really helped knowing what is happening around us and the festivals around that we could fit into. They also introduced us to grant writing which was a big help. Our mentors gave us the maximum amount of information about everything they know here. Zaria: We went to Elaine’s performance! She did a performance at the Festival of Animated Objects. I haven’t seen her properly on stage before so it was really cool to see her creation in action. She was my mentor!  IAMP 2022 CELEBRATION What was it like being the first couple in the program? Mario: It was actually really cool to bounce around off of our individual experiences with our mentors and each other. Zaria: Our mentorship experience was still different. Mario’s mentor was different from my mentor but it's nice to share stories of how both of our experiences in the mentorship program have been developing.  Mario: Sometimes we would catch each other in between our meetings with mentors and catch up. Zaria: I’ve also joined Mario and his mentor once when they were having a meeting so that was really cool that I got to know his mentor as well. Mario: And sometimes we would combine our mentor meetings where it would be the four of us all together, which was really interesting too.  IAMP 2022 CELEBRATION What were the key takeaways from your IAMP experience? Zaria: Going to the graduation was really important for me. After this whole process and having the chance to have a final celebration and actually showcase myself to an audience here and be upfront about what I do was a huge achievement.  I told our community that I am here and I am ready to create! Zaria: Saying that was the best moment for me. It was personally important to show the people here that I exist here now as well. Mario: It was the same for me and there was a moment with my mentor Jordan where we dove deep into the details of my personality and he was very helpful with translating my thoughts onto paper. He was great at listening and understood me completely even when I wasn’t sure how to communicate it, how to be precise about my artistic personality and my artistic practice.  Mario: That was one of the moments that made me understand why I am doing what I am doing. He gave me the chance to look deeper to find the true answer for myself. I was able to learn more about who I am as an artist, and my ideas as an artist. This to me is invaluable.  iamp 2022 celebration We felt that our mentors were an extension of our voice. Zaria: We would talk to them about ourselves and they would get an idea about you and be able to break it down. It’s also nice to hear what the perception is like of who you are in the eyes of other people, how they see you as an artist. That builds your personality more and more. Do you have any advice for newcomer artists? Mario: We have lots of advice! Actually, we had a newcomer artist connect to us recently! She reached out to us asking about our experience and for resources. We were so excited to help! Our advice is to not think too much about it and to not be hesitant. Just go for it! Zaria: If you see a dance performance happening, whether it’s theatre, or anything else, try to attend. Attend as many events that interest you as you can and introduce yourself! That’s how we got all the opportunities we’ve gotten so far, by introducing ourselves. Show them the excitement that you have! When other people see the excitement in you, they will definitely support you! When you are passionate about something, it will show. So be honest with yourself. Stay tuned for ERROR 404 (coming up in June 2023!) Give us more juice about your project! Mario: A 404 Error page user experience occurs when you are trying to locate a specific destination, opening up a web page but you are taken somewhere else. You are on the site but not on the page itself. This notion and direction is inspired by our situation as immigrants. Zaria: When we first landed here, there was definitely a struggle and a disconnect in the communication and connection happening between us and the local community. In this project, we wanted to explore the struggle that it takes to overcome this disconnect and out own personal relationship with that experience. Zaria: We are working with dancers from different backgrounds; from Polish, Canadian, Japanese, German, Russian. We have Rita working with us too, who is also Russian and was in the same cohort of the Immigrant Arts Mentorship Program. She was working with Col and is also a dancer. So IAMP was really great for that. It’s amazing that we connected and now Rita is in our project!  Col Cseke and Margarita Rebetskaia, IAMP celebration 2022 Zaria: She was working with Col and is also a dancer. So IAMP was really great for that. It’s amazing that we connected and now Rita is in our project! Mario: We are still looking for more people to help us with the production who have more technical skills which we don’t have. Zaria: Me and Mario are doing choreography for the show as well as of course, we’ll be dancing together. We will be six dancers in total. We are talking about different cultural backgrounds and how these diverse communities can coexist and the struggle of getting there.  error 404 dancers Physical dance movement and pure creation! Zaria: It will all be performed in a contemporary dance format. There will be pure creation, just to get a sense of actual humanity. It’s the sentiment of not just being a dancer but being a human as well. Where and when can we come watch you in action? GRAND Theatre 14 June, 2023 at 7:30 Get Your Tickets! Comments are closed.
|
