March

This month started with the mid year student presentation - here is the slideshow from mine. Preparing for the presentation helped me sort through my ideas about my project and clarify it.

Here is my current working document with my thoughts and process of this project. Part of what I learned about myself that I work through this relationship between chaos and order. My process is often very chaotic and is rooted in emotional experiences that feel non-linear. But then to present the project, I create an order to organize the chaos through. After a conversation with Syowia about my work, I realized perhaps I can also allow for the work to be seen as chaotic and not just when it is organized.

In the last couple of months I traveled a lot - between Los Angeles, Kenya, London, Paris and New York and it made me reflect on how movement is not just about how the body moves in relation to itself but also in relation so space. Perhaps movement is also about moving between lands, people, and cultures. Learning how to move between contexts has become part of my work as well.

When I was in London, I attended dance classes as part of my research at Independent Dance they have an MFA program in dance and every day have open classes as well. I went to one and was really interested in the use of energy work and how it is integrated into the dance curriculum. Part of my research is uncovering the ways the somatic healing world is colliding with the dance performance art world. I learned a lot from the class and how it was structured.

I have also been in conversation with potential collaborators including Saed Mansour who is a Palestinian dancer and I helped him develop one of his workshops titled “Dancing the Political”. We were hoping to do a collaboration in Los Angeles when he came here a couple of months ago but sadly he got COVID in the end. We are planning a dance workshop collaboration in the summer combining our work together.

I have also been in deep conversation with PHD Transart student Nkechi Njaka. We have been in a research cluster together learning about embodiment in relation to healing and racial justice work. We have also been exploring a collaboration together for the summer.

Throughout these months, I also finished reading two particularly relevant books: Reflections on Exile by Edward Said and the Necessity of Exile by Shaul Magid. One is from the lens of Palestinian exile and the other is about Jewish exile. Both of these works are important to me in my research as I attempt to put these two in conversation with each other.

Over these months I have also been publishing work on my personal Substack including a talk with Mira Kaddoura on the newly launched Into Healing series on Healing through Palestinian Jewish Solidarity.