The first guest of the #inspiringwomen conversation series, which we created drawing inspiration from the women artists of the March program at Kundura Sinema and Kundura Sahne, is a name well known to dance lovers: Kamola Rashidova. We asked the artist, who most recently captivated us once again with her performance in Melih Kıraç‘s choreography “Eski Tören İçin Yeni Cilt”, about her sources of inspiration.

Sounds

The sounds of nature: I prefer natural sounds such as birdsong, the rustle of a gentle breeze and the sound of waves.

Music

Islandman, Ikaru, Mercan Dede, Ajokki, Elori Saxl, Hania Rani, Yehezkel Raz, Daniel Schrage, Nils Frahm, Iori, Landhouse, Tom Yorke, Aparde, Cosmo Sheldrake, Richard Hougften, Yalnayak, İdil Meşe, Ah!Kosmos, Onur Seçki, Max Cooper, Kaleida, Bleu Toucan, Mammal Hands, Monatik, Manizha, Passmurny, Martin Roth, Brian Eno, Lambert, Kenneth Bager, F.S Blumm, Neil Cowley, Ben Lukas Boysen —they are a source of both inspiration and motivation for me to move.

Books

Alexandre Dumas’s “The Count of Monte Cristo”, W. Somerset Maugham’s “Theatre”, Ötkir Hoşimov’s “The Affairs of the World”, Matt Haig’s “How to Stop Time”, Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way”, Wilhelm Schmid’s “On the Power of Touch”, Lao Tzu’s “Tao Te Ching”, Jonathan Burrows’s “A Choreographer’s Handbook”, Pema Chödrön’s “Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change”, Frederic Gros’s “A Philosophy of Walking”, Yoshi Oida and Lorna Marshall’s “An Actor’s Tricks”, Douwe Draaisma’s “The Nostalgia Factory” and “Forgetting”, Yevgeni Zamyatin’s “We” and “The Dragon”, H. G. Wells’s “The Time Machine”, Hermann Hesse’s “Siddhartha”, İlhan K Mimaroğlu’s “11 Çağdaş Besteci” (11 Contemporary Composers), Armand Farrachi’s “Bach, Last Fugue” and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s “Flow: The Psychology of Happiness”…

Cities

Cities that have stayed in my mind and heart at some point: Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva, Istanbul, Rome, Moscow, Olkhon Island in Irkutsk, Ogoy Island, Tbilisi, Brussels, Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp, Ostend, Amsterdam, Paris, London.

Films

These are films I watched out of curiosity or on someone’s recommendation, took notes on, and was deeply affected by. Tomer Heymann’s “Mr. Gaga”, Andrey Zvyagintsev’s “The Return”, Patric Chiha’s “If It Were Love”, Julian Rosefeld’s “Manifesto”, Natalie Johns’s “Max Richter’s Sleep”, Boaz Yakin’s “Aviva”, Pawel Pawlikowski’s “Cold War”, Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune”, Ümit Ünal’s “Sofra Sırları”, Azra Deniz Okyay’s “Ghosts”, Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s “About Dry Grasses”, Betsy West & Julie Cohen’s “RBG”, Ruben Östlund’s “Triangle of Sadness” and Yorgos Lanthimos’s “Poor Things”.

Women

There are women I love and follow, who inspire me greatly because of the intelligence of their vision and creativity: Canadian choreographer and dancer Crystal Pite; freelance choreographer, teacher and creator of the Stream-Flow movement method Heidi Vierthaler; Brussels-based choreographer, contemporary dancer and founder of the FATHOM HIGH Dance Technique Meytal Blanaru… I had the opportunity to get to know Meytal very closely through the Feldenkrais method in 2015-2016. I greatly admire the temporal intelligence she brings to the many-layered, subtle details of her work, both as a teacher and as an artist. The online Fathom High Dance technique sessions I took part in in 2020 helped me keep my approach to movement up to date. And I also came to know psychologist Pınar Sabancı through her podcast Psikopatika. A sincere storyteller who inspires my daily life…

And also…

Long walks in nature, taking notes, sight-reading the works of composers I love, caring for and tending to plants, reading books, drawing, visiting museums, going to concerts by artists I love, listening to my favorite podcasts.

Kamola Rashidova

She trained in ballet at the Tashkent State Higher School of National Dance and Choreography. She graduated from the P.A.R.T.S. dance school in Brussels. Since 2016, she has been dancing with Modern Dans Topluluğu İstanbul (MDTİstanbul) while continuing to create her own work.