BIOGRAPHY
CONFIGURING ANIMALS
Evrim Akyay and Su Güzey first got together as freelance dancers for Aakash Odedra Company (UK)’s piece ‘’#Je Suis’’ in 2016, which won the International Amnesty Award of Freedom of Expression on 2017, and its been touring since.
Working as individual choreographers, we started researching, experiencing, relationing together and created our first piece ‘’kitty kitty’’. By the sponsorship and support of Akbank Sanat, the work in progress got a chance to meet with the audience in April 2019. With this inclined progress, it got accepted to premier in IKSV 23rd Istanbul Theatre Festival, and toured in Lisbon, Portugal in December 2019 sponsored by Zaratan Residency and Largo Residencias, in which we continued working together on a new creation called ‘’small talk’’ and premiered in Lisbon in end of December 2019.
In May 2019, we got together and presented our second piece 'rattling', as a work in progress in the A Corner in the World Festival, commissioned by SALT Beyoglu.
In November 2020, ‘kitty kitty’ got accepted to Aerowaves Twenty21 Choreographers.
In August 2021, 'rattling' got accepted to the artist residency of Neimenster, Luxembourg, to be performed in the Aerowaves Dance Festival Luxembourg.
EVRİM AKYAY
Evrim Akyay was born in 1980 in Istanbul. Started dancing in the High School years with traditional dance. In 2001 he started performing with "Sultans of the Dance" and in 2002 with "Hurrem Sultan Dance Project" which were both traditional dance based big productions. Started his training in the Yildiz Technical University modern dance department in 2003 and the following year started performing with the CRR Dance Theater, directed by Geyvan McMillen. In 2008 he was awarded the JFK Performing Arts Exchange scholarship and visited NY and Washington DC. Between 2006 - 2012 he worked as a dancer with Zeynep Tanbay Dance Project. He became the assistant choreographer for "Araz" created in 2010 with the company. In 2013 he performed with the Jerusalem Dance Theater for two seasons. His collaboration "Heva" with Korhan Basaran was one of the finalists of the Copenhagen Choreography Competition in 2014. He performed at BAM, NYC with "Unsettled" in 2014; a collaboration of American, Armenian and Turkish artists as a part of the DanceMotion USA program. His choreographies so far include; Don (2009), Routine (2010), Cage'd (collaboration with Korhan Basaran, 2015) , Simple Present (2016), One by One (2017), TAK (for Visegrad Cultural Festival, 2017), Salı (2018) and Hadi (2019) for Istanbul State Contemporary Dance Company ‘MDTistanbul’. He is still working with Aakash Odedra Company as a freelance dancer in the piece ‘#Je Suis’. Currently he is living in Istanbul, Turkey.
SU GÜZEY
Born in 1991, Su Güzey started studying in Management of Performing Arts Department Performing Arts branch in Bilgi University in 2009. In 2011, she entered MSGSÜ State Conservatory Contemporary Dance Department, from which she graduated in 2015. In fall term of 2014-2015 study year, she went to study in Konservatorium Wien Privatuniversitat in Vienna, with Erasmus+ program. She is currently living in Philadelphia, USA studying for her MFA in Dance at University of the Arts, and teaching Yoga, Embodied Yoga Anatomy classes and advising Senior Thesis Works at UArts School of Dance.
She premiered her first choreography “Store My DNA, So They Can Regenerate My Soul” in İKSV 19th İstanbul Theatre Festival in 2014.
She started teaching dance to elementary children after her graduation in 2015, and is still a certified teacher working both with kindergarten and elementary children. She also teaches contemporary dance technique to adults and professional dancers, gives Performance Project workshops to all who are interested in composing movement and Movement Analysis workshops to dancers, dance students, workshop and technique class attendees of any level. Su is also a Yoga Alliance 200hr Certified Yoga practitioner.
Su worked with Aakash Odedra Company as a freelance dancer from 2015 until 2020, in research projects, and the piece '#Je Suis' created in this process by Aakash Odedra Company. The piece had its world premiere in NYU Abu Dhabi in January '18 and its Europe premiere in Birmingham Hippodrome; performed in Sadler's Wells, London, and had its UK and Germany tour, with more than 50 performances in total.
She performed in pieces of many artists such as Jerome Bel, Isaac Chong Wai, La Fura Dels Baus, Korhan Başaran, Slobodan Dan Paich, Aydın Teker, Willi Dorner, Mustafa Kaplan.
Su created and organised Visibility in Art Festival in 2014 in collaboration with Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University; the festival started in İstanbul and in İzmir in collaboration with budalasultan collective, until 2018.
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