Dervish in Progress / Ember

For the date 31.07, each of you who managed to experience this journey on the previous dates is welcome to experience it again by bringing another spectator with you. The tickets of the prior date and one purchased ticket for 31.07 are required.

Caution! Before you buy your ticket please make sure in the ticketing system you set correctly the date of your choice - 29, 30 or 31 July!

We are thrilled to welcome Ziya Azazi back to Toplocentrala on July 29, 30, and 31, 2024, for a special evening of movement, energy, and transformation. This time, he brings us two of his most iconic solo performances—Dervish in Progress (DIP) and Ember—which, when performed together, create a deeply immersive experience.

A Look into Ziya Azazi’s Repertoire

Following his full-length performance DERVISH last year and his latest work PIETA 2.0, premiered in January, this combination offers a new perspective through two of his earlier works. With DIP and Ember, Azazi once again challenges movement, tradition, and expression, giving the audience a completely different experience.
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Dervish in Progress

Concept/Choreography/Dance: Ziya Azazi 
Music: Mercan Dede
Light: Lutz Deppe & Michael Wagner
Costume Design: Ischiko (Premiere: 2004, Barcelona, Spain)

Dervish in Progress is a meeting point between Sufi whirling and contemporary movement, where tradition transforms into personal expression. Here, Azazi invites us to witness whirling as a living, breathing art form—a practice that carries centuries of wisdom yet remains open to evolution.

At the heart of the performance is the skirt—not just a costume, but an extension of his body, his dance partner, his protection, and his freedom. With every turn, it shifts and transforms, just like the journey of self-discovery itself. Through repetition and rhythm, movement becomes meditation, leading both performer and audience into a space of deep awareness.
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Ember

Concept/Choreography/Dance: Ziya Azazi 
Music: Mike Ottis
Stage: Ziya Azazi & Peter Leitner 
Light: Lutz Deppe
Dramaturgy: Işın Önol
Costume: Ischiko
Stage Manager: Ali Can Güzel or Peter Leitner
Smoke Effect: Robert Nagel
Duration: 25 minutes (Premier 2010, Valladolid, Spain)

While DIP focuses on inner transformation, Ember takes us further—into the raw reality of human struggle, enlightenment, and destruction.

Here, Azazi explores the fragility of knowledge, showing how what once guided us can also limit and consume us. Fire takes center stage—not just as an element, but as a symbol of wisdom, creation, and chaos. In Ember, spinning becomes survival, a way to navigate the endless cycles of life and death, creation and collapse.
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A Powerful Double Performance

Together, Dervish in Progress and Ember move from the meditative stillness of whirling to the explosive intensity of fire, offering a profound contrast that questions tradition, progress, and the delicate balance between freedom and self-destruction.

Azazi doesn’t just perform—he invites us into an experience, where movement is philosophy, fire is a metaphor, and whirling is a path to deeper understanding.

This is more than a performance—it’s an invitation to feel, reflect, and transform.