“I can only dance to one song” by Arash Fayez

2021 · ES · colour · 11’ · Swiss premiere

Across Barcelona, migrants reclaim public and private spaces by dancing to a song that holds their past, tracing the invisible connections between movement, memory, and the search for belonging.

I can only dance to one song is a video work that explores the relationship between music, memory, and belonging within Barcelona’s migrant communities. The film follows several migrants as they listen and dance to a song of their choice in public and private spaces throughout the city.

Through sound and movement, the work examines experiences of displacement and the ways in which music can preserve connections to place, culture, and personal history. By capturing intimate, everyday moments, the video creates an imagined space where participants reconnect with their origins while negotiating life in a new environment.

The title, inspired by a Persian proverb about adapting to new circumstances, reflects the tension between transformation and continuity. The work considers how cultural practices such as music and dance can serve as tools for remembrance, identity formation, and cultural exchange in the context of migration.

The artist

Arash Fayez is an artist based in Barcelona, Spain. He works across a wide range of media such as photography, video, and performance,  considering them diverse forms of “image-making”. His work reflects on the notion of in-betweenness, often inspired by his personal experiences of moving from one place to another. On occasions, the autobiographical references are intertwined with other narratives, historical or fictional, in order to allude to the sensation of moving between places, cultures, languages, or identities.