Dance or Die
Giorgi Kikonishvili
Naja Orashvili
(2019)
In May 2018, State Armed Forces raided Tbilisi’s most influential techno club, BASSIANI, which served as a base for new social movements and placed the city of Tbilisi on the international map as a clubbing destination. The day after the raids, thousands of dancers and supporters took to the streets to defend the club and its values, urging the Government to step back and apologise. “We Dance Together, We Fight Together” became the motto of those days. Images and videos of the dancing protest have inspired the international scene. DANCE OR DIE explores the historical context behind these events, re-creating the path from primordial Georgian folk-dance rituals, through which the BASSIANI concept was created, to modern-day collective club dancing for freedom.
This work has been commissioned by the q21 Artist-in-Residence program and Bogomir Doringer as part of the exhibition Dance of Urgency.