UTF-8

Zagreb Dance Company (ZPA) in cooperation with Zagreb Youth Teatre (ZeKaeM) with the support of Suzanne Dellal Centre, Israel

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UTF-8 (8-bit UCS/Unicode Transformation Format) is a variable-length character encoding for Unicode. It is able to represent any character in the Unicode standard, yet is backwards compatible with ASCII. For these reasons, it is steadily becoming the preferred encoding for e-mail, web pages,[1] and other places where characters are stored or streamed.

UTF-8 encodes each character (code point) in 1 to 4 octets (8-bit bytes), with the single octet encoding used only for the 128 US-ASCII characters. See the Description section below for details.
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) requires all Internet protocols to identify the encoding used for character data, and the supported character encodings must include UTF-8.[2]

The Internet Mail Consortium (IMC) recommends that all email programs be able to display and create mail using UTF-8.[3]
The superficiality that occurs out of the common denominator.
The need to be understood by everyone.
The code or format that forms the simple idea in well wrapped covers to get more rating points.
The sacredness of awkward as the new form of uniqueness...
The fatigued spirit looking from behind the covers.
And the exceptional code that leaves some room to freedom of spirit.
Or when we copy the code we allready give it our own interpretation and sometimes we can even win the code......?!
in our "show" we present the tasks of the code
and watch the dancers cope with learning and keeping the code
body and mind...

Sahar Azimi, dancer, actor and choreographer, was born in Israel in 1974.
He started his career as a professional dancer in 1994 and since then was a part of the Inbal Dance Theater, Koldemmama Dance Co, Bat sheva ensemble, Barak Marshals Dance Co. and the Clipa theater. As a dancer Sahar Azimi also worked and performed in Noa Dar Dance Theater

As a professional choreographer he did numerous dance pieces in different countries and for different festivals. Among many prizes and supports that Sahar Azimi has won during his professional career, we should certainly mention the prize for young choreographers of the Israeli Ministry of Education and Culture in 2005, the support of Mifal Hapais foundation in 2005, the support of Yehoshua Rabinovitch foundation in 2005/2007 and the 'Teva' support in the years 2005 and 2006.

Azimi worked in some of the most famous dance institutions - as the Artistic director of the ensemble of the Jerusalem Academy for Music and Dance and the Head of the dance department in “Matan”, Organization for excellency in arts - and held workshops and courses of contemporary dance at the Jerusalem Academy for Music and Dance, taught technique and composition classes in the Tseh summer school for professional dancers in Moscow, held master classes in Belgrade, Paris, Lausanne, Florence ...

He was also the rehearsals director for Dededance Company in 2000 and for the piece Out most of the day directed by Yossi Berg in 2001. Sahar also worked on the piece Kfar of Arim as a therapeutic nurse for the authistic people from 1999 to 2001.

"FIVE MINUTES OF FALSE GLORY - Israeli choreographer Sahar Azimi has offered the audience his view on the media phenomenon of the 21st century – the phenomenon of the reality show, which horrifies the intellectuals and delights wide audience.... Taking the universal computer code as his starting point, Azimi questions the human cathegory of individuality within any Big Brother frame. Because, no matter how much the viewers try to convince themselves that what they are seeing on their TV screens is reality, Big Brother projects are well thought and highly manipulative productions with the final aim to manipulate the audience into watching it as much as possible, which secures better financing for the show. In UTF-8, the role of the Big Brother, the voice behind the curtain which gives tasks, has been taken by Azimi and the eight dancers do whatever he wants. In order to avoid his appearance on the stage, he has used the light wall through which he communicates with the dancers by the agreed signs....The audience feels overwhelmed by the mass of information and dance codes which become meaningless in a way, because it is quite obvious that the dancers do not enjoy what they are told to do. However, Azimi has succeeded in his intention – he manipulates the audience by manipulating the dancers, so we can think of a double manipulation. UTF-8 opens up a whole number of complex questions – one of the most important is of course the question of voyerism or impinging upon the innermost feelings of other human beings, but also the question of how far are we ready to go in order to draw attention and enjoy our five minutes of false glory."

Zrinka Zorčec, Vijesnik, daily newspapers

Rebellion against uniformity expressed by means of body
One of the most esteemed Israeli choreographers, always fresh and original Sahar Azimi, known to the audience for his physical vehemence and his eternal rebellion against every form of simplification, stays true to his particular choreographic „handwriting“ in his latest project as well.
Trying to avoid the constant imitating of the established „codes“ and to point out the evermore difficult survival of individuality in a society which constantly forces its members to uniformity and unification, Azimi faces the dancers with a huge physical challenge – how to use the body movements to express the consequences of the reduction, simplification and loss of the identity, and the desire to keep the „code“ of body and mind.

Večernji list, September 15, 2009

TV show in theatre
With UTF-8, Zagreb Dance Company has once again proved to be a great mainstream company. It is particularly true when we talk about the quality of dancers who have gained a new energy in their work with the Israeli choreographer Sahar Azimi, which helped them reach a different dance movement from what we were used to see from them.
... The whole concept of the show is directed by orders and their obeying: the choreographer uses voice and light to tell the dancers what to do and which one is to do what; the dancers enter the central space of the stage as pawns and obey the choreographer's orders. (...)
... The concept of a TV reality show is partially copied to a dance show, but not fully, because that would mean that we are watching the dancers improvise on the spot, which is not the case here. All sequences are absolutely rehearsed and often perfect in their virtuosity. ... There is a host of choreographic tricks, components of each composition. It is all served to the audience in order to have fun, but also to ask theirselves why we enjoy so much watching the reality shows and where the need to take part in reality shows comes from.

Jelena Mihelčić, Kulisa, September 22, 2009

Unicode or We dance as they play
The biggest quality of this show is in its turning of our attention to Orwell's mechanism of „obedience“
... The innovativeness of the Israeli choreographer Sahar Azimi is in his work with dancers, whose dance vocabulary is significantly widened and sharpened, just as the cliches of „popular entertainment“ are cruelly reduced to staggering on the spot, neurotic twitches at the sounds of techno rhythm, obedience to the „unicode“ which is defined by a male voice uttering commands and by a series of lights who turn on and off and thus „direct“ the scenic space and movement.
... The biggest quality of this show is in its turning of our attention to Orwell's mechanism of „obedience“ in which people simple follow the orders, without thinking about their consequences. Azimi insists on the fact that our main social command is shallow entertainment...
... The Israeli choreographer has skillfully brought the dancers to their primary vocation of competent bodies and thought-out movements.

Nataša Govedić, Novi list, September 18, 2009