Halay City Marathon

Dilan Sengül, Natalie Ananda Assmann, Zeynep Alan – three Viennese with Armenian, Turkish, and Kurdish background – invite to the city’s longest Halay.

Together with people from different cultures, the city of Vienna is occupied. This starts with dance processions from different directions, which all successively converge star-like at the Human Rights square in front of MuseumsQuartier. The Halay City Marathon transforms subculture into ‘high culture’ and calls for various immigrant groups to leave their impression on the city.

Halay is a folk dance, popular worldwide, which is danced in a circle. It is known under different names in the Turkish, Armenian and Kurdish cultures as well as the Balkans.

This project aims at exploring the origin and cultural connection. In workshops, the three lead artists develop new styles and forms of dance together with the participants and thus deal with conflict areas, in which aforementioned groups of migrants move. Questions of belonging, participation, identification and protest are negotiated. In a performative style, Halay transfers this into the public space, providing a basis for common action. All Viennese are invited to join us in inventing – and dancing – this new Halay. Please be loud!