DEATH AND THE DERVISH: FROM SUFISM, THROUGH THE NOVEL, TO CONTEMPORARY BALLET
DEATH AND THE DERVISH: FROM SUFISM, THROUGH THE NOVEL, TO CONTEMPORARY BALLET

Summary/Abstract: The text offers an explanation of the complex channels of resemantisation through which the rituals of Sufism coded in Selimović’s novel become parlance of the body language in crisis in the contemporary ballet “Death and the Dervish”, produced by CNT Split in 2017. The text is in fact a theoretical reflex of the artistic product:as the author of the choreographer’s text for this production, I operationalised both the novel and the doctrines of Sufism to create a “performance text” for this contemporary ballet. The text was transcribed into parlance of the body language in crisis by choreographer Igor Kirov, and in audio-visual semantics by costume designer Aleksandar Noshpal, stage designer Slaven Raos and composer Goran Bojchevski — in order to create the completeness of the performance / contemporary ballet. This text emphasizes on the one hand the links between tradition and the contemporary treatment/reading of tradition in contemporary ballet, and, on the other hand, provides a review of the technologies and methodologies through which tradition is transcribed, through prose narration (Meša Selimović’s novel) and the doctrines of Sufism, in the contemporary stage-performance form.

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