NEKANE is an experimental video dance project that reveals the different layers, textures and dimensions of pain during grief.

Dancer Ainhoa Urrestilla dances her mother’s memory, NEKANE, a name which comes from the basque word “nekè”, that means “pain” or “sorrow” and explores the way in which pain flows arrythmically inside and outside of her body, taking unpredictably shapes and magnitudes.

Throughout dance, Ainhoa materializes and shapes the pain, defying its infinite and uncontrollable character. NEKANE uses dance, cinematography and sound as a language to show pain’s complexity, confronting its enormity, giving it space, without fear, without resistance.

Director’s Vision for ‘Nekane’

I grieved several times in my life, and I would describe that pain as something that flows through me arrythmically, taking shapes and magnitudes that get into every corner of my guts. Pain has multiple layers, textures and dimensions which culminate in the numbness of our own void.

My friend and dancer Ainhoa Urrestilla recently lost her mother to cancer and we both felt that dance was the best medium to represent the infinite and uncontrollable character of the pain she was going through.