Israel a Mohamed

The theater performance is part of the Prague Crossroads Festival.

Exceptionally sensitive production showing that in mutual relations, differences can be just as important as common traits. Mohamed creates theatre, film and installation works inspired by documentary film and practices. Israel is a virtuoso and iconoclastic flamenco dancer and choreographer. By placing their first names side by side, Mohamed El Khatib and Israel Galván attempt to bring together their worlds and artistic practices, as well as their personal journeys, through a dialogue across the Mediterranean. Together, under the spellbound gaze of their fathers, they seek a common language based on the body, its wounds and its scars. Taking their encounter and the sharing of their intimate, family and professional stories as their starting point, they explore in duo what a living archive and a documentary dance might be.

Author, director, producer, and visual artist Mohamed El Khatib develops projects at the intersection of performance, literature, and film. Through intimate and social epics, he multiplies opportunities for encounters between art and those who are alienated from it. After Moi, Corinne Dadat, which invited a cleaning lady and a classical dancer to assess their skills, he continued his exploration of the working class with the monumental piece STADIUM, which brings 58 Racing Club de Lens supporters onto the stage. With children of divorced parents, he has explored, on radio and on screen, what family can produce as a narrative. Alongside his stage projects, Mohamed El Khatib has developed visual research in collaboration with several artists. His production The Secret Lives of Old People was tagged at last year’s Prague Crossroads.

Born in Seville, Spain, into the family of dancers, Israel Galván received classical training in flamenco. But since his first creation, ¡Mira! / Los zapatos rojos (1998), Galván has been recodifying the body language of flamenco, using not only modes of expression genealogically close to it, such as bullfighting, but also performative aspects of other rituals of popular culture, from football to activism and cross-dressing. Each of his creations (such as Torobaka with Akram Khan, La Fiesta, La Edad de Oro, RI TE with Marlene Monteiro Freitas, La Consagración de la Primavera, Mellizo Doble with El Niño de Elche, and even his version of Bizet’s Carmen) represents a milestone in his quest for a dance that seeks to free itself from certain characteristics inherited from crystallized flamenco. Israel Galván has been honored with prestigious awards such as the Premio Nacional de Danza in 2005, the New York Bessie Performance Award in 2012 and 2021, and the National Dance Award for Exceptional Artistry in 2016 and 2023. In 2016, he was promoted to the rank of Officer in the Order of Arts and Letters in France.

DOX and The Prague Crossroads Festival
Like the Prague Crossroads Festival, DOX finds inspiration and value in the legacy of Václav Havel. Both institutions emphasise openness, civic engagement, dialogue, and critical thinking, and their programming has long explored issues of freedom of speech, responsibility, power, memory, and human rights through different art forms. Both institutions focus on interdisciplinary projects that combine theatre, visual arts, literature, and performance with critical reflection on the present. As part of the programme of this year’s Prague Crossroads Festival, visitors can enjoy free admission to the current exhibitions at DOX on the day of the performance.