When Yoriyas traveled around the world as a professional breakdancer and choreographer, he was often asked where he was from, and when he answered that he was from Casablanca, people immediately thought of the movie Casablanca, imagining camels, the desert, and an oriental atmosphere. Yoriyas felt a disconnect between his own Casablanca and the Casablanca that people envisioned, so he had to explain that Casablanca is in fact a city with a mix of tradition and modernity.
When a knee injury forced him to stop competing and practicing, he returned to Casablanca and began walking the streets of the city for rehabilitation, armed with a camera that he had used to remember the location of competition venues and hotels when he was touring the world.
Yoriyas shows us Casablanca from the inside, photographing the city “as if he were invisible.” As a Moroccan born, raised, and still living in Casablanca, he captures contrasting moments of East and West, tradition and modernity, community and individuality. His photographic expressions bring today’s
Casablanca into sharp focus.
He explains, “The camera frame is like a theater stage. The people in the frame are my dancers. By moving the camera, I am choreographing my subjects without even knowing it. When an interesting movement catches my eye, I press the shutter. My training has taught me to immediately understand space, movement, connection, and story. I photograph in the same way that I choreograph.”
The scenery and people of Casablanca, captured with the sensitivity of Yoriyas, convey to us the multifaceted nature of the city and the true value of its diversity. Yoriyas hopes that viewers will “not look at the photographs straight on, but lean and move around, as if they were dancing.”
Yassine Alaoui Ismaili(Yoriyas) – Moroccan photographer and choreographer – first made his name as a professional breakdancer before pursuing a career in photography in 2015. He enjoys international recognition and was recently identified by The New York Times as an artist to follow. His work, which ranges from performance to photography, focuses on how we inhabit and appropriate urban and public spaces. He documents daily life and societal changes in Morocco – particularly in Casablanca, his home town – and in Africa. His candid shots are characterised by an intuitive quality and deliberate use of color. Yoriyas draws on his experience with choreography to garner fresh points of view. His instantaneous scenes are also reminiscent of his mastery of space and movement. His interest in mathematics and chess is reflected in his balanced yet complex compositions, which make use of distinct planes. He has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the International Prize for Contemporary Photography – CAP Prize 2018, the Friends of the IMA Prize for contemporary Arab creation, and the Taklif Prize at the Contemporary Dance Festival On Marche Marrakech 2023. He has exhibited and performed in international institutions such as the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès (Paris), 836m Gallery San Francisco and the Institut pour La photographie, Lille. He curated Sourtna, the inaugural exhibition of the National Photography Museum of Morocco and at the Washington World Bank in 2022.
