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Dance film with and about Kurdish-Swedish dancer Dlsher Jabo. Produced in collaboration with Bullermyren folk band, Dlsher Jabo and Dalarna University. 

Dansfilm om och med kurdisk-svenska dansaren Dlsher Jabo. En samproduktion med spelmanslaget Bullermyren, Dlsher Jabo och Högskolan Dalarna.

This multimodal and interdisciplinary artistic research project fuses Kurdish-Swedish dancer Dlsher Jabo’s embodied interpretation of a traditional Swedish folk tune with experimental documentary and music video filmmaking practices.

Filmed in the historic village of Bingsjö in Dalarna Province, Sweden, the project re-imagines the contemporary refugee experience by engaging in several layers of audiovisual and intercultural collaboration.

Prior to production, the traditional song Waltz after Werkmästers Hans Olsson was recorded and re-arranged by Swedish-Kurdish folk band Bullermyren. Audio interviews were conducted with dancer Dlsher Jabo, in which he shared stories of his life as krump/street dancer in Syria and his subsequent displacement as a refugee. 

During principal photography, a Swedish folk dance troupe, led by choreographer Jenny Franke, was invited to perform alongside Mr Jabo and Bullermyren, resulting in a unique juxtaposition of traditional and contemporary dance styles.

Due to the extreme physical nature of Mr Jabo’s performance and the limited availability of the filming location, the shoot was conducted in a highly improvised manner in a barn dance hall. Consequently, the film’s narrative structure and visual rhythm needed to be composed through judicious and precise film editing practice.

This film project was presented at the 2018 MIRAC Conference at Sweden’s Royal College of Music and disseminated at a 2018 audiovisual research seminar at Dalarna University before being made widely available on YouTube.

The research was conducted as part of Dalarna University’s research initiative DAVA intercultural sessions and produced in collaboration with Faraway Productions Pty Ltd (Australia), Bingsjöstämman and Folkmusikens Hus.