Ziya Azazi describes himself not as a dervish, but as an artist. His name means "light." He carries this light through dance, which resembles more of a mystical ritual. According to the poet and philosopher Rumi, spinning around one's axis while dancing is a way for the soul to escape bodily weight and turn towards the divine.
Interview with Aleks Krasteva from Btv
Sofia, Bulgaria, 2024.02.12
Who is Ziya Azazi?
I was born in Turkey in 1969, as part of the Syrian minority. I studied engineering. I am the son of a tailor. While studying engineering, I also had an interest in gymnastics and dance. I tried various things, such as modern dance. In 1994, I moved to Vienna, Austria - to work as a dancer. And over the years, I began to contemplate what dance means to me, what art means to me, and how I want to move. This led me to start searching for my own movement. One day, I found spinning. Since then, I have been integrating the East and the West, the past and the present, into my dance.
Is it difficult to achieve this?
Surrendering is difficult because we create "bubbles" in our lives. We want to create a solid shell around ourselves, which we call personality. But to choose a new path, we must tear down the walls, we must surrender. This part is difficult. But when you open the doors, everything becomes much easier.
Art, religion, spiritual path - what is the dervish dance?
While studying engineering, we often talked about carbon. Carbon can appear in different forms: coal, lignite, anthracite, or diamond. Despite these different forms, it's always carbon. The same goes for consciousness and spirit, in my opinion. Despite various struggles, as you age, it's about turning knowledge into wisdom; like carbon atoms turning into diamonds after enduring millions of years of harsh conditions. Art, science, and spirituality also work in the same way. Understanding this and expressing it individually makes you artistic, spiritual, and/or scientific.
Why did you decide to share the dervish dance with the audience? What do you want to give to people?
Because if we stay connected to the past, we create a strong foundation. And on this foundation, we can build a better future. The East is my origin, but we live in a Western-oriented world. When I explored myself, I realized my interest in Sufism or spirituality, if you will. Eventually, I became a contemporary dancer who connects his movements with the spiritual - with spinning. To reach today's project, Dervish In Progress.
What are people looking for when they come to your workshops? Who comes?
Completely different people come to me - of different ages, professions, genders, backgrounds, social statuses. I always ask each of them - why are you here? I get different answers, but the common thread is always that they are seeking themselves because, in fact, we are lost.
Why?
Before we started the interview, we talked about the speed of life. Today's life is much faster and more demanding than before, but our body has limits. We spend all our time and energy focusing on our internal barriers instead of removing them. When we don't take time for ourselves, we don't know who we are. We get lost. Eventually, we're here for a reason, but we spend all our time and energy on something else, not finding ourselves, but ideologies, myths, formats we've been indoctrinated into.
What happens to the body and mind during spinning?
Spinning is a physical activity that engages the body and brain to the maximum. In our normal lives, we live on gravity. Right now, we're sitting in chairs - that's our basic physical state. When we start spinning, we create centrifugal force, we feel pressure, friction occurs. We create multiple physical realities. In fact, we recognize these from our normal lives. For example, we experience centrifugal force on bends, pressure when diving, friction when falling while walking. But during spinning, we experience all of these - together. That's why the body and mind experience multiple physical realities. This is a challenge for us. When we learn to spin, we create new connections in our brain and produce different biochemistry. This is where all kinds of (physical, mental, and emotional) transformations begin.
Does dance heal?
If we consider spinning as a physical activity, it certainly does heal. Because the body loves to move. Moving engages muscles, bones, organs, and systems, making the body healthier. The question is, what do we do when we achieve this health? If we use this health to serve the whole (the system called humanity) as a better version of ourselves, great! But this new way of life, supposedly contemporary, has been indexed to all kinds of individual consumption, so even our healing is targeted only for individual profits. That's why DIP makes participants question which direction to take with this healing.
What do we need to be happy?
Happiness is very relative. Sometimes a chocolate can serve that purpose, sometimes even a whole vacation might not be enough. If we return to the human body, if we create balanced biochemistry, our body begins to transform. I always give the example of the "lip line." This line moves up and down, about a centimeter. When it goes down, things aren't going well. When it goes up, everything is fine. So all we have to do is keep this line up. This can be achieved with the right biochemistry. So happiness is a relative concept - chocolate, vacation, hug, knowledge, performance - everything can bring us happiness. But more important than happiness is to appreciate your existence. To live in the present, to be a body, a spirit, to live. To be grateful..! It's a sublime state, but we've lost it. We panic and rush for a false reality called success, money, prosperity. Then we lose ourselves. It's not about unhappiness, it's about losing ourselves.
Where is God in all of this?
I choose to think that God is everything and everywhere: all cosmic particles and all times... The visible universe with its matter and energy, the invisible universe with its unknown dark matter and energy... We can call the unity of all this (unity) God. If there is a superstructure that created us, then, in my opinion, it is just a structure of God.
What is your message to everyone who will come to your shows and workshops?
Please, always continue your efforts to search and find yourself.