Studio 105w at Center for Performing Arts (3754 Pleasant Ave #6 Minneapolis, MN 55409)

Recommended donation of $5-$15, Cash or Check only.  (Program will donate 75% of the income)

EMBODY PALESTINE is a workshop by Leila Awadallah (Body Watani Dance) held in collaboration with Meryl Zaytoun Murman (2024 McKnight International Choreographer). This workshop will guide participants through embodied explorations as a process of communal reflection on the range of emotions stirred by the genocide in Gaza. 

To what extent can we use our bodies to connect with experiences we did not have, but learn about through media? How can the body respond and tend to the traumatic imagery in the news? Meryl will facilitate participants through movement and vocal explorations using gesture, mimicry and embodiment as a practice of awareness and communication based on a desire to process the human suffering we are witnessing with physical understanding. 

By using dance as an activation of the personal and collective body, Leila will share strategies of embodying Palestinian solidarity through practicing contemporary investigations of Arabic folk dance. Through Dabke steps in particular, how does embodying a rhythmic footwork deepen solidarities in both near and distant proximity? How do we dance our role in honoring indigenous relations to land through moving with communal joy, resistance, and activations of the collective fight for liberation across many intersecting layers? 

In collaboration, Meryl and Leila will share reflections on the interconnectedness of many crises in the region and ways they work within movement spaces to interweave complex solidarities across bodies. How do we resist together? What actions can we take towards a more healing oriented future? 

Dance experience is not necessary, and participants will engage at their own range of intensity. With a recommended donation of $5-15, interested participants should register in advance.  Maximum capacity is 30 attendees.