Long version
Jassem Hindi is a Palestinian/Breton performer, sound artist and choreographer, born in Saudi Arabia and based in Norway. el Hindi has an education in philosophy.
At the center of his work, el Hindi looks at the relation between haunting and hospitality, in an effort to incarnate and apprehend epic scales of violence and slow revolutions, through the use of death poems, dance, and sound. His work is made out of broken dances, broken sounds, broken texts.
He reflects on the political weight of folk dances, as fragments collective imagination, and ruins of utopias.
His work is often accompanied by death poems from West Asia and Scandinavia (Etel Adnan, Aase Berg, Tor Ulven, Laila Malik). His dance pieces are an intimate relation between his work as a sound artist and as a choreographer: manipulating time and betraying material.
Jassem’s collaborations have won numerous awards and nominations (Bessie, Dublin Fringe, PICA, Hedda pris, 8:tension). His recent collaborators are Mia Habib, Elina Waage Mikalsen, Harald Beharie, Ofelia Ortega, Ligia Lewis, Keith Hennessy, Sina Seifee, Clara Furey.
He also gives lectures internationally, on utopia and slime, and on the concepts of hospitality and hauntology in philosophy. He is running The Palestinian Agency, supported by KORO.
His last recent performances make use of the relation between ruins of folk dances and poems from Bretagne, West Asia and Scandinavia, in order to create dance performances as immersive environments, in dark, nervous, and overlayered atmospheres. His work is hybrid, and extends to a variety of forms of expression.
With Mia Habib they have founded a research/performance group about migration and minorities called Stranger Within.
His recent collaborators are Lara Kramer, Clara Furey, Elina Mikkelsen Waage, Harald Beharie, Ofelia Jarl Ortega, Mira Adoumer, Sina Seifee. Since two decades, he also designs and creates music for choreographers all over the world.
He also gives lectures and workshops internationally, on utopia and betrayal, on folk dance and politics, and on the concepts of hospitality, body, and hauntology in philosophy.
He is the recipient of the KORO grant for public art 2025 - 2027, and founded the Palestinian Agency, a public arts project from Palestine to Norway.
Influences:
He is influenced by folk dances from Bretagne, West Asia and Norway, pre-islamic cosmology, Gisele Vienne, Marlene Freitas, Ralph Lemon, Keith Hennessy, doom style, butho and the conclusions of Preciado and M’bembe.
He has long lasting collaborations with the works of poets Nazik el Malaika, Aase Berg, Etel Adnan, Ida Börjel, Leila Malik, Ingeborg Bachman, Tor Ulven and the writers Ahmad Bouanani, Pierre Guyotat and Reza Negarestani.
Current performances:
Laundry of Legends, a choreographic adaptation of The Arab Apocalypse by Etel Adnan.
Sun Eaters, a contemporary folk dance about the relation between Oil culture and Petromagic.
His work is shown internationally, and his collaborations have won numerous awards and nominations (Bessie Award, the Dublin Fringe Jury prize, Hedda pris, 8:tension, the PICA Portland Jury’s choice...).
He also gives lectures internationally, on utopia and slime, and on the concepts of hospitality and hauntology in philosophy.
More info:
My work is cast in nervousness and necessity, using broken texts, broken dances and broken sounds.I am haunted by others' voices: I use, edit, corrupt and celebrate. I am not a musician, nor a dancer, nor a visual artist. There should always be something I'm missing in my practice. I believe that any virtuoso act is an act of foreclosure, and I am much more interested in unstable systems, offering space for other things to happen, and thus always flirting with failure.
I use extended techniques of poetry-telling to revisit what the potential of a poem is, more particularly death poems, and how they can be used as an actual collective political practice. These performances are not speculative lessons, things to do in the future; they are political practices for the here and now - not delaying the moment to be together.
SHORT VERSION
Jassem Hindi
french/palestinian born in Saudi Arabia
Lives in Norway
Sound artist, performer, choreographer
Jassem Hindi's work is about the bond between haunting and hospitality. His work is made out of broken dances, broken sounds, broken texts.
His latest dance pieces; Laundry of Legends & Sun Eaters, are about how to incarnate epic and slow cycles of violence. What to dance in times of war? He reflects on the political use of folk dances, as fragments of collective imagination, and ruins of utopias.
His work is often accompanied by death poems from West Asia and Scandinavia (Etel Adnan, Aase Berg, Tor Ulven, Laila Malik). His dance pieces are an intimate relation between his work as a sound artist and as a choreographer.
He also creates sound pieces for numerous choreographers around the world. Jassem’s collaborations have won numerous awards and nominations (Bessie, Dublin Fringe, PICA, Hedda pris, 8:tension). His recent collaborators are Mia Habib, Elina Waage Mikalsen, Harald Beharie, Ofelia Ortega, Ligia Lewis, Keith Hennessy, Sina Seifee, Clara Furey.
He also gives lectures internationally, on utopia and slime, and on the concepts of hospitality and hauntology in philosophy. He is running a public arts project, The Palestinian Agency, supported by KORO for 25 - 28.