What My Body Can/t Remember

Name: What My Body Can/t Remember
Start: 2022-11-16T18:00:00+00:00
End: 2022-11-16T19:30:00+00:00
Location: Inspace

16th November 2022 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM GMT

Since 2014, Palestinian dancer and choreographer Farah Saleh has been creating an Archive of Gestures through the re-enactment, transformation, and analyses of bodily gestures and movements. In What My Body Can/t Remember, Saleh explores what her body can and can’t remember of her life in Ramallah in 2002 when, living under curfew, she returned to dancing after years of interruption. Working with filmmaker Owa Barua, Saleh recalls the daily gestures of her life exploring her memory of a period when her domestic space was her only site of physical freedom. First commissioned by The Fruitmarket Gallery and Dance International Glasgow in 2019, What My Body Can/t Remember interrogates the retrieval, integrity, and degradation of embodied memory.

This performance is supported by the Centre for Data, Culture & Society.

Performers

Farah Saleh is a Palestinian dancer and choreographer active in Palestine, Europe and the US. She has studied linguistic and cultural mediation in Italy and in parallel continued her studies in contemporary dance. Since 2010 she has taken part in local and international projects with Sareyyet Ramallah Dance Company (Palestine), the Royal Flemish Theatre and Les Ballets C de la B (Belgium), Mancopy Dance Company (Denmark/Lebanon), Siljehom/Christophersen (Norway) and Candoco Dance Company (UK). Saleh teaches dance, and coordinates and curates artistic projects with the Palestinian Circus School, Sareyyet Ramallah and the Ramallah Contemporary Dance Festival. In 2016 she co-founded Sareyyet Ramallah Dance Summer School. She was an Associate Artist at Dance Base in Edinburgh 2017-2021.

Owa Barua is an Edinburgh-based moving image artist, freelance videographer and editor, workshop facilitator and community worker. His work has been selected and awarded at several international film festivals, and also installed at the National Gallery of Victoria (Melbourne), Southbank Centre (London), and at the University of Bath Mediawall. As a freelancer filmmaker he has created documentary and promotional films for London arts organisations such as East London Dance, Stratford Circus Arts Centre, Move The World and Sadlers Wells. He has produced and directed community-based film projects for organizations such as Rathbone Society and Diverse Dance.

The event will be chaired by Lucy Weir.