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Art is the blood that runs through my veins and the flesh that conceals my fear.

As Pina Bausch once said "It is not about art, also not about pure technique. It is about life, and therefore it is about finding a language for life." Since I started to become interested in arts, I started to study it in the different shapes which I'm interested in acting and directing for theater, contemporary dance, ballet, martial arts, music... etc. I work primarily in an abstract, minimalist mode, with a preference for the rigors of physical theater dances and choreography. My work frequently includes a critical view of social, political, and cultural issues. The dynamic, psychological, and dramatic concepts characterize much of my art. It's often noted that my work is controlled by exploring the varying relationships between popular culture and abstract art, which gives a dynamic sense of movement. Many of my performances take shape while I am semi-asleep. When I wake up, the performance is usually close to being finished. Then I go into the studio and put my ideas into movement. The thoughts and movement find their way onto the surface. Mistakes or accidents often turn out to be fortuitous and usually remain. Although much of my work is abstract, my creative range is wide. I will from time to time revert to the realism in which I was trained as a young art student in Cairo, sometimes inserting realism into semi-abstract backgrounds, capturing the human psychological imbalances into a dance performance.

 

"Dance is the only art of which we are the stuff of which it is made." Ted Shawn. That's why the colors that I use in creating movements are executed in hues of brilliant colors that are quite playful such as Hard Shell & Shadows projects are highly suggestive of figurative art and influenced by Pina Bausch's work. No matter how many projects I have completed, every project is still an experiment for me. I don't want to know how my project will end. I want the surprise of finding the end, sometimes quite by accident. I try to reach beyond myself by creating a mental challenge to combine movements that are unlikely to be combined, concepts that are unlikely to go well, and spatial arrangements that are surprising, and then turn these unlikely components into a finished piece of art that is satisfying to both the artist and ultimately, the audience. I generally do my projects in a series of performances before moving on to another challenge. My work is shown nationally in both solos, due, and group shows, it reproduces familiar ideas and concepts, arranging them into new conceptual projects.

 

"My imagination makes me human and makes me a fool; it gives me all the world and exiles me from it." Ursula K. Le Guin. While I use a variety of concepts and processes in each project my methodology is consistent. Although there may not always be material similarities between the different projects, they are linked by recurring formal concerns and through the subject matter. The subject matter of each body of work determines the way of research and the forms of the work. Each project often consists of multiple works, often in a range of different ideas, grouped around specific themes and meanings. During research and production, new areas of interest arise and lead to the next body of work. My training in contemporary dance was in Cairo, where I studied at The Faculty of Arts (theater department) at Helwan University with Cairo Contemporary Dance Center (CCDC). I had a professional career as a contemporary performer, theater actress, choreographer, and contemporary & ballet instructor in outreach programs at different cultural organizations across Cairo. Dance is a healer; dance is where humanity can meet, I Firmly believe that art can be used as a tool for human development, art can foster collaborations, and, more importantly, bring people and communities together. I also utilize participatory theatre, therapeutic drama, and other arts-based processes for healing, dialogue, and societal transformation from the grassroots, which is my working strategy in outreach programs as a dance instructor, it also helps me to develop my research and enrich my work with new concepts that are the core of my work. “Dance, dance, otherwise we are lost.” Pina Bausch.

 

Merce Cunningham once said "You have to love dancing to stick to it. It gives you nothing back, no manuscripts to store away, no paintings to show on walls and maybe hang in museums, no poems to be printed and sold, nothing but that single fleeting moment when you feel alive." Movement for me is how I see art as a way of living, it's a tool to say what can't be said by word, words are very limited in any language we speak, and I can miss the real meaning of what I feel and want to share it with others by explaining it in words! That's why sometimes we use our bodies to explain what we want to say, that's why I see it as a way of living. We use it in every moment in our lives but are not aware of it. The importance of art for me never ends, I can just say it's my life. “To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful… This is power, it is glory on earth and it is yours for the taking.” Agnes De Mille. When I started to move, I involved deeply in the art scene in a lot of different ways, I realized how important and strong art is, how it can change someone's life for the better, it can change a whole community for the better that's what I see through my work in outreach programs and my performances. “Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.” Twyla Tharp. it can connect people we don't need to speak the same language, we don't need to understand each other, and we don't need to agree about everything but we can be connected through movement, art, and the vibes that the audience receives, even if we were strangers and never met before that's what I realized through my work as a performer, choreographer, and teacher.

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