Leila Awadallah (she/her) is a dancer, choreographer, and filmmaker based between Minneapolis and Beirut. A body of indigenous Palestinian, Arab-American, SWANA, Sicilian and mixed Mediterranean ways and waves. She is the founder of the Body Watani dance project in partnership with Noelle Awadallah. TERRANEA is supported by NPN, Arab American National Museum, MSAB, ARENA, Links Hall, [Lebanon]: BIPOD, Amalgam, Goethe Institute and [France]: the Camargo Foundation. She is a Jerome Hill Fellow (2021-2023), has a BFA in Dance from the University of Minnesota, and performed with Ananya Dance Theatre for 5 seasons.
About the work:
TERRANEA: hakawati of the sea is a dance performance of diasporic bodies searching for memories inside water and skin, to reflect on notions of home while simultaneously asking — what do the waves of the Mediterranean Sea remember? Of loss, of life, of the relations between peoples and place?
In blurring researched realities and mythology-making, TERRANEA examines Palestinian experiences of occupation, refugee crisis (of land AND sea), and politics around movement and nation within this body of water where many lines are drawn. At which point amongst the waves does a body become illegal?
But how strong are lines in a fluid space, where so many dreams are – and have always been?
A folk song for the valley sung by a woman in the wadi of Palestine, hummed by a fisherman of Gaza, travels on winds passed Lampedusa and into the lungs of a friscalleti player of Sicily ; we surrender to the water and depart/return into dream. A sea spirit, Terranea, emerges as mother for those lost in waves, — welcoming souls of migrants into a fluid and mythical shared space, where the sea is reimagined as a site of collective, shared home.
Catch Body Watani at the Festival!
MASTERCLASS – TBD
PERFORMANCES:
Thursday, May 5 7:30pm
Friday, May 6 7:30pm
Saturday, May 7 2:00pm and 7:30pm
POST-SHOW DISCUSSION
Saturday, May 7 5:30-6:30PM