How Many SWANA Performance Artists Can We Talk About in One Episode?

Nabra Nelson: Salam Alaikum! Welcome to Kunafa and Shay, a podcast produced for HowlRound Theatre Commons, a free and open platform for theatremakers worldwide. Kunafa and Shay discusses and analyzes contemporary and historical Middle Eastern and North African, or MENA, and Southwest Asian and North African, or SWANA, theatre from across the region.

Marina Johnson: I’m Marina.

Nabra Nelson: And I’m Nabra.

Marina Johnson: And we’re your hosts.

Nabra Nelson: Our name, Kunafa and Shay, invites you into the discussion in the best way we know how, with complex and delicious sweets like kunafa and perfectly warm tea or in Arabic, shay.

Marina Johnson: Kunafa and Shay is a place to share experiences, ideas, and sometimes to engage with our differences. In each country in the MENA or SWANA world, you’ll find kunafa made differently. In that way, we also lean into the diversity, complexity and robust flavors of MENA and SWANA theatre. We bring our own perspectives, research and special guests in order to start a dialogue and encourage further learning and discussion.

Nabra Nelson: Welcome to the fifth season of Kunafa and Shay, where we delve into the dynamic world of performance art across the region. We’re highlighting the creative, innovative, and artistic disruption of performance artists exploring how their art serves as a powerful medium for expression and social change. This season features interviews with performance artists who challenged norms and use their craft to further conversations about topics like identity, diaspora, homeland, and futurity.

Marina Johnson: In this episode, we reflect on the conversations we had with performance artists this season and also go on a rapid-fire through other performance artists whose work we think it is amazing, even though we didn’t get to chat with them on this season. All right, so I am calling this episode “How Many Other SWANA Performance Artists Can We Talk About in One Episode?” We’re about to find out.

Before we begin though, I wanted to mention something that kept happening this season, and if any of my performance studies people are listening, they are going to note it to me, so I want to be clear here. Nabra would often in episodes say, “We’re expanding what performance art means.” And I was like, “Yes,” but also in my mind, the season, which was technically performance art, was just about performance. And performance, as we know, covers everything from the way we perform our own gender and selves through literally anything.

I mean, we have an episode about narrative podcasts, so we’re really expanding what performance means, but that’s because performance is a capacious term. So yes, I was just thinking about all of my theatre and performance studies PhD coursework, and I knew everyone was going to talk to me about that at some point. So yes, we understand “performance” is a capacious term. Technically this podcast is theatre, and so we always want to preface whenever we’re taking some leaps, which we took and we’re excited that you came with us.

Nabra Nelson: Yeah, and if you’re just here for the pure theatre on a stage, then you know what, this is going to really push your boundaries this season. But I think that most of our listeners are kind of interested in MENA/SWANA art as a whole, and there are just so many artists who are doing really interesting things and we were like, “Okay, this was our season to talk to all of them regardless of what their medium is or how they define themselves.” So it’s an exciting season. I hope you came along for the ride.

 So this first half will be kind of like a recap-ish and some reflections on the episodes of this season. So this will be familiar to folks who are totally caught up with this season; and for folks who aren’t, it might spark you to want to dive into one or more of them a little bit deeper and go back to previous episodes. And then the second half we’re going to be talking about brand new folks and it’ll be really exciting. So hold on to your seats.

Marina Johnson: Yes. Also, we should note though that this podcast, all of it was recorded during the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and then as you recorded the last episodes, the same thing was happening in Lebanon. So we talked with most artists about this, but it’s not noted anywhere on HowlRound because it’s something we just talk about in all of our episodes. So there’s been a heaviness to this season and also a gratitude that we have towards the artists who are willing to talk about their arts and pressing forward as we stand in solidarity with our Palestinian and Lebanese and Iranian and other siblings who are affected by the ongoing genocide.

So I’m currently in Palestine and this season we had a lot of Palestinians on the podcast. Riham Isaac, who I had the pleasure of meeting the summer for the first time is one of those people. In the episode with Riham, we explore her approach to site-specific arts and her work on themes like gender, politics and resistance. Isaac shared insight into some of her notable pieces, including Stone on Road and Another Lover’s Discourse, which was a performance exploring personal and cultural ideas of love. She also discussed The Alternativity, which is a Nativity place staged in front of the Apartheid wall in Bethlehem, which she co-directed with Danny Boyle and it was in collaboration with Banksy, which blended political commentary with the local Palestinian talent. The documentary and then the performance that happened in the documentary are both available on YouTube, so definitely check them out. Isaac’s work constantly bridges personal narrative and activism, questioning how performance can engage with land and social justice, especially during times of crisis.

Nabra Nelson: Another incredible Palestinian artist we talked to is Mama Ganuush, who discussed her artistic journey, describing how their drag performance is rooted in Palestinian futurism, blending traditional Palestinian folk music and dance with modern and diasporic influences, including Egyptian belly dancing. His performances challenge the often victimizing portrayal of Palestinians by presenting them as heroes, envisioning a future where Palestine is free from colonization. This approach is also reflected in his costume designs, which incorporate Palestinian motifs and symbols in a futuristic way, and futurism has also been coming up a lot this season. A significant part of our conversation with Mama Ganuush focused on the role of activism in San Francisco’s drag scene where political movements and radical expressions are celebrated. However, on the other hand, Mama Ganuush highlights the challenges of being an anti-Zionist artist in the Bay Area, particularly when it comes to finding funding as many grants are tied to pro-Israeli organizations. Despite these obstacles, they have created alternative platforms for artists through initiatives like the Hala Collective, which provide spaces for performers who support Palestinian liberation.

The episode also delves into the personal impact of the ongoing genocide in Gaza on Mama Ganuush’s life, work and family. She lost numerous family members, and they emphasized the importance of using their art to process trauma, raise awareness, and inspire hope for the future. They also discussed the challenges of balancing the heavy emotional toll of activism with the need to create art that is both impactful and accessible to audiences, which is, again, another theme we’ve seen throughout this season.

Then we sat down with two Palestinian American poets Fargo Nissim Tbakhi and George Abraham. And that episode focused on the intersection of poetry, performance art, and activism, highlighting how both artists use their craft to express identity, diaspora and revolution. Fargo Tbakhi is a queer performance artist and writer whose work has been showcased across festivals and magazines, while George Abraham is a poet whose debut collection, Birthright, won significant literary awards. Both poets discuss their approach to art as interdisciplinary, blending poetry, performance, and other media. Their discussion explores how performance art, especially poetry and performance, serves as a tool for expressing deeply personal and political themes such as resistance and loss within the Palestinian struggle.

One key focus of the episode is their collaborative work on the play EVE, which they describe as a deconstruction of John Milton’s Paradise Lost through a Palestinian lens. The play delves into themes of failure, anti-imperial revolution, and the emotional toll of resisting oppressive forces. Tbakhi and Abraham explain how EVE evolves from their obsession with Paradise Lost, which we talk about why they’re obsessed with Paradise Lost and how it grew into a multidisciplinary project that involved poetry, performance, and historical text. There were challenges, traditional forms incorporating everything from puppetry to movement, emphasizing the importance of breaking away from rigid artistic structures.

This episode really focused on collective creation, that importance of collaboration and how art can function within moments of catastrophe, particularly again in light of this ongoing genocide. We had the pleasure of seeing them both present work at the MENATMA Convening in Dearborn in 2022. And then I also had the opportunity to see them perform at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs—the AWP—Conference in Seattle in 2023 and then virtually at the hybrid Mizna/RAWI Fest in 2023 in a session entitled “Palestine as a Craft Question.” So we’re both big fans and have seen their work and they collectively create work a lot together. So this was a really exciting episode about collaboration and a “play” (with big quotation marks next to it) that really breaks form and leans into this performance art umbrella.

Marina Johnson: Yes, we also talked to Leyya Mona Tawil, a Syrian Palestinian American artist known for her work in Arab experimentalism and Arab futurism. Tawil, also known by her performance moniker Lime Rickey International, explores a unique blend of sound, dance, and performance art that challenges traditional boundaries and addresses themes of identity, migration and culture. Tawil began by describing herself as a hybrid artist, emerging various practices such as sound art, choreography and performance. She told us about Lime Rickey International, which is this persona that she created in 2016 to represent a future oriented diasporic character. Lime Rickey is “shipwrecked from the future” and performs fictional folk songs and dances from a homeland that does not yet exist.

Tawil uses Arabic and English lyrics, sound distortion and movement in performances that challenge the audience’s understanding of narrative and identity. Her work embodies Arab futurism, where art reflects diasporic experiences and offers visions of an imagined future. Tawil also discussed the relationship between experimentalism and futurism, framing her creative process as a form of resistance against existing structures. She emphasized that experimentalism allows artists to explore the unknown, creating new territories of expression that push against the limitations of the past. Through this approach, Tawil uses improvisation and hybridized forms to generate new symbols, sounds and actions. We also talked briefly about her curatorial work, particularly her platform Arab AMP, which supports experimental art from the diaspora.

Nabra Nelson: Rima Najdi is one of those artists we interviewed whose work I feel maybe looks closest to what we think of when we think of performance art with its blend of visual arts, soundscapes, and performances with really strong political messages. We discussed how her work is shaped by her personal experiences and the political environment, particularly in relation to ongoing conflicts in the Middle East. For Najdi, performance art is about being present in the moment and the current political climate challenges her ability to project or imagine the future. One of her significant works Think Much Cry Much examines border systems and how they are portrayed through media and political structures. Developed over several years of research, the performance challenges the audience’s perception of borders, refugees and safety. Najdi reflects on how she avoided directly representing refugee stories instead focusing on the structural systems at play. The piece involves audience participation through headphones and choreographed movements offering an immersive experience that confronts the broader dehumanized narrative around border control.

Another key work we discussed, which I really love as well, is Dress Me How You Like, a feminist performance art piece in which audience members dress Najdi in orientalist garments inspired by Hollywood stereotypes of Arab women. The performance challenges the audience’s preconceived notions about Arab identity and gender making them complicit in the creation of these stereotypes. Najdi describes how the piece evolved over time, incorporating new elements and reflecting her growth and confidence as a performer. Throughout the episode, Najdi emphasizes how her work really seeks to rupture and challenge dominant narratives about Arab women, refugees and borders. Rather than representing stereotypes, she focuses on creating friction between these perceptions and the lived realities of those affected by such issues. Her work is inherently feminist and political, though she resists labeling it as such, believing that these qualities naturally emerge from her identity as an artist.

Marina Johnson: Basma al-Sharif is an experimental filmmaker who we actually both had a personal connection to. One of Nabra’s fellow Dunya Productions company members, Manal, is Basma’s aunt, and my friend Noor is Basma’s cousin. So when we talked about having an episode this season about experimental film, we both thought of Basma. Basma al-Sharif is a contemporary artist and filmmaker whose work explores themes of displacement, identity and the politics of representation often centered on the Palestinian experience. She uses a wide array of media including film, video, photography, and installation to create immersive experiences that challenge conventional narratives of history and geography. Al-Sharif’s work blends documentary and fiction drawing on archival footage, personal memory, and speculative storytelling to highlight the disorienting effects of colonialism and occupation. Her projects often engage with issues of power, borders and the manipulation of historical memory, inviting viewers to critically examine the legacies of conflict and their ongoing impact on both personal and collective identity.

Al-Sharif’s use of visually and orally striking compositions, often punctuated by abstract or dreamlike sequences, creates a layered multisensory experience. Notable works include Ouroboros and Deep Sleep, which reflect her interest in the cyclical nature of violence and the haunting persistence of unresolved histories. In a description of one of her pieces, À L’AFFICHE / ON VIEW, Dazibao Gallery said, “In al-Sharif’s work, the word border multiplies in meaning, delineating physically and geographically, but also across landscapes of affect. Exploring narratives where official history and politics infiltrate personal lives, the artist questions the validity of images and representation, whether they too are construed by imposed technologies.”

Nabra Nelson: One episode this season was about a format we’ve never talked about on this podcast: podcasts! Laila Abdo, producer and writer of the upcoming, brand new podcast series, The Great Pyramid Scheme, talked to us about narrative podcasts, to be differentiated from this podcast, which is of course a non-fiction podcast. It was fascinating to discuss how comedy relates to representation, which is a core part of Laila’s artistic mission. Laughter is a protest for people whose bodies and stories are politicized in such a negative light so much of the time.

So in light of a pretty silly podcast set during the building of the Great Pyramid of Giza, a lot of important conversations about identity, how we are taught history and what US society deems valuable come up as important points. Laila herself is a joyful and multi-talented artist who works as a writer, producer, and actor for film, sketch comedy, stand-up, theatre, and now podcasts. I had the pleasure of being on the writing team for The Great Pyramid Scheme, so we will also be featured on their podcast in a little pod swap moment. There are so many times when we want to highlight upcoming pieces of art within our community, and we’re so excited that the timelines and themes lined up finally to really make this collaboration happen.

Marina Johnson: Immediately after the episode, Laila was like, we kept talking because it was just such a natural conversation, and then she said something about shithole color grading, and I was like, “What?” And of course we’re familiar with the effect of the Middle East, the “Orient,” given a different color than the rest of a film, but I had never heard the phrase before and we really wanted to share it with you as an audience.

Nabra Nelson: You see this color grading in so much film today where western countries are in this cooler tone, and then global south countries, especially the Middle Eastern countries and Central and South America are warm yellow tone and it’s bizarre and kind of washes out the entire space. And it’s especially annoying, I’m just going to say in the Middle East because it makes everything... It’s like they’re very purposefully trying to make everything look like a desert. And yes, we have a good amount of desert, but it is not all desert. And I think it adds to this stereotype and perception of Middle Eastern countries as just being giant deserts with no landscape and no trees and no beautiful rivers that we have and beaches that we have and wildlife and all of the things that are in any location on Earth essentially. So it apparently all started with Traffic, which I did not know. It’s very interesting and kind of relates to a lot of what we’ve talked about throughout Kunafa and Shay.

Marina Johnson: Yeah, so let’s call it out when we see it. Shithole color grading. But also, so I didn’t mention this in the episode, but the conversation went to Nabra and mythology, and I wanted to share this story, which maybe is not funny to anyone else, but because it’s a podcast and I’m amusing myself right now, I will continue. But Nabra and I were at a conference together in New Orleans, and we were walking one night and we saw a shop, and I don’t remember if the shop was called Horus or Ra, but it was named one of them, but had the iconography, the symbol of the other one, and this made Nabra, our Nubian Egyptian friend, very mad. So we’re walking past this shop, I don’t remember what kind of shop it was. It was not a place we were going to go in, but Nabra was like, “Maybe it’s an Egyptian store, although I don’t know what Egyptian store would mistake these two gods.”

Nabra Nelson: I was very hopeful. I don’t know why I thought that there would be an Egyptian store in downtown New Orleans, but you got to try to find community wherever you can.

Marina Johnson: Right. She’s always an optimist. So we go into this place that at best would be a fusion Horus, Ra, I don’t know, something, but at worst it was just this poor guy is working alone at night. I don’t know. I don’t remember what you could actually purchase in the store. It was nothing we wanted to purchase, but Nabra was like, “You know that you could be cursed for this, right? I know this isn’t your store, but you should communicate that this is not making the Gods happy to have this as your store name, and it doesn’t match.”

As is the case with most MENA and SWANA artists, they’re talking about things that are very real and have very real stakes for them and their families and friends.

Nabra Nelson: I especially got... I was messing with him because, he was MENA, I don’t remember where he was from exactly, but I was like, “You should do better. We got to represent properly.” And it does kind of relate to this episode, because there’s a lot of anachronisms in The Great Pyramid Scheme. But we did do our research, and we were very purposeful about where we had anachronisms that are I think extremely clear when it’s not historically accurate, but everything that you’re like, “Is that historically accurate? Is that not? Is that correct mythology?” It all is. We did our research and that is a part of representation.

We talk a lot about modern representation of our current struggles and identities and celebrations, but part of it is also our ancient identities and histories and remembering them properly and bringing them into the canon. And so often ancient Egypt is not included in historical knowledge as robustly as something like ancient Greece or ancient Rome. So even this episode about this very comedic podcast about ancient Egypt, it has a very strong resonance with representation that was so important to all of us on the writing team.

Marina Johnson: Definitely, and I just like to tease Nabra, but I think if we’re going to fight for representation, we fight for it in all places, including this little store in New Orleans.

But I would love to talk next about a major treat for me this season was when we interviewed Khansa, the amazing Lebanese singer, dancer, choreographer, and performance artist. Khansa’s work is rooted in traditional Arabic music and dance. And Khansa seeks to merge those elements with modern influences creating what they describe as a Middle Eastern avant-pop. Central to their work as a desire to challenge norms, especially regarding identity and cultural expression, while preserving a deep connection to their heritage. Khansa described his early artistic inclinations and recounted how performing in school theatre and music classes sparked his passion, and he really talks about some kind of classical training there too, which was really interesting.

But it wasn’t until they fully embraced traditional Arabic music that he began to understand his artistic identity in a different way. For Khansa, art is a form of expression that transcends the boundaries of Western versus Eastern. So blending western techniques with Middle Eastern traditions to create something entirely new. Our conversation with Khansa also touched on the award-winning short film Warsha in which Khansa plays a Syrian migrant worker who finds freedom and his secret passion for performance while working on a crane in Beirut. Khansa explains how the character’s life mirrors his own life in some ways, blending personal experiences and identity as a performer with the narrative of the film. That film is a collaboration with director Dania Bdeir, and it was a deeply personal and transformative experience for him showcasing his ability to merge stage persona with a character in a film.

Nabra Nelson: We also interviewed Tania El Khoury, a live artist whose work focuses on interactive installations and performances. El Khoury, her art delves into themes of collective memory, displacement, and solidarity, often exploring the impact of colonial legacies and border systems. As the Director of the Center for Human Rights and the Arts at Bard College, she bridges the gap between art, activism and human rights. One of the key points El Khoury made was about her departure from traditional theatre to focus on interactive experiences. Growing up in a working class family in Lebanon, she found conventional theatre too elitist and bourgeois, which led her to seek alternative ways of engaging with audience. Her goal was to create a more horizontal relationship between artists and audiences resulting in these immersive works where the audience becomes an integral part of the performance.

El Khoury highlights some of her most significant works, such as Gardens Speak, an immersive installation where participants listen to oral histories of those buried in gardens during the Syrian uprising. This work actually invites the audience to dig into soil to access these stories, making them not just spectators, but witnesses, and this image of audiences literally digging in soil to find stories has stuck with me so strongly. Another notable piece As Far As My Fingertips Take Me, involves a personal encounter between the audience and the artist Basel Zaraa, where a story is shared through touch and sound without direct visual contact. So there is a wall between the audience, but the audience and artist, but the artist is drawing on their arm and telling them a story. Another striking image that has really, really stuck with me is so beautiful and visceral.

Throughout the episode, El Khoury emphasized the importance of audience interaction as a means of cultivating solidarity. She believes that when audiences engage with her work on a sensory and emotional level, they’re more likely to internalize the experiences of marginalized individuals. This in turn, fosters a deeper sense of connection and responsibility. And as an artist who uses a lot of audience interaction and loves it, and lots of people do not, I love this really touching and impactful description of how audience interaction can be so important in artistic works.

So now let’s switch gears and talk about people who listeners haven’t heard from this season. This is our rapid round. You’re going to hear about a lot of really interesting people, a lot of interesting art, and we’ll put lots of links so that you can look more into their work.

Marina Johnson: Okay, first up, another drag performer you should know about, Hoedy Saad, a drag artist from Lebanon. Truly, go follow this Instagram account, you will love Hoedy’s work. So they are a Lebanese choreographer, voguing dancer, and drag performer based in Beirut. He played a key role in building the vogue scene. I guess he played a key role in building the vogue scene in the Middle East, particularly where there are some challenges facing queer communities. And so really established this art to create a space for self-expression and freedom, blending dance with elements of camp and drag. He’s also a vet, so occasionally on the Instagram you will see some really cool vet pics showcasing his diverse talent beyond the artistic endeavors. And he’s a member of the drag House of Ego, I believe, and his work really just reflects his commitment to visibility and passion for performance arts in Lebanon.

Nabra Nelson: And to clarify, by vet, she means veterinarian. He’s a veterinarian, not a veteran.

Marina Johnson: Sorry. Yes.

?Nabra Nelson: Yes, just to make sure.

Marina Johnson: I hope the audience knows, but you are correct. The pictures will be sometimes of drag, and the drag is not just typical drag, it’s like drag that is... You’re not going to see, well, maybe you will now on RuPaul’s Drag Race, but it’s not. It’s like a whole world. These whole bodies painted in these magnificent ways. It’s like, what is gender? What is drag? What is all of this? And then the vet pictures are him and animals.

Nabra Nelson: That’s a perfect blend I think of imagery. Excellent. A very different artist is that we both absolutely love and saw at the MENATMA Conference this past year, is Wafaa Bilal. He’s an Iraqi American artist known for his interactive and very provocative multimedia works, often addressing themes of war, surveillance, migration, and the human body. His art engages with issues of identity, trauma and the experience of displacement, often using his own personal experience as an Iraqi living in the United States. To give you an idea of some his notable projects, they include Domestic Tension from 2007, this performance also known as Shoot an Iraqi involved Bilal living in a gallery for thirty days while people around the world could shoot him with a remote controlled paintball gun via the internet. I mean, what do you have to say more of? But this piece really highlighted the desensitization to violence in war-torn regions, especially in Iraq and exploring themes of remote warfare and its emotional impacts.

Another piece, 3rdi in 2010. Bilal had a camera surgically implanted into the back of his head, taking one photograph every minute. The project explored themes of surveillance, privacy and technology reflecting on the way people live in constantly watched and a documented society. You can see that Bilal really goes very far with his work. It’s extremely physical, and he talked about at the MENATMA convening, the physical struggles of having a camera surgically implanted into the back of your head. That’s not putting it lightly. It was a real toll on his body and had complications.

Virtual Jihadi, a piece from 2008. Bilal hacked a video game to insert himself as a character who joins a terrorist organization after his brother was killed by a US missile strike. The project critiqued both US military actions and extremist responses aiming to foster conversations about the cyclical violence caused by war. Bilal’s work is known for being deeply personal, yet politically charged, often utilizing cutting edge technology and interactive platforms to engage audiences while questioning power, control, and the effect of conflict very directly on human lives.

Marina Johnson: As we continue our rapid fire, we’re going next to another personal fave, Rana Bishara. I read an article with Rana and Lila Abu-Lughod, and the article is called “Art, Activism, and the Presence of Memory in Palestine.“ And I read this a few years ago, and I became so excited by Bishara’s work. She was born in Palestine in the Galilee, and she’s a visual artist whose work explores themes of memory, exile, resistance, and Palestinian experience under occupation. Her multidisciplinary approach spans, I mean truly everything, painting, sculpture, installation, photography, performance art, and she blends the personal and the political, which is something we’ve said a lot, but it’s worth repeating that for these artists, they’re not just talking about something abstract. As is the case with most MENA and SWANA artists, they’re talking about things that are very real and have very real stakes for them and their families and friends.

So a few of my favorite of her performance pieces, the idea for this first piece that I’ll talk about came because she said she wanted to pay homage to those who live as refugees or in diaspora and never got the chance or the right to return to their home. She said, “Since I was an artist and not a lawyer, I’m doing this symbolically until it becomes a reality.” So she began this piece with Naji al-Ali, who you might know as the person who created the Palestinian character of Handala. So he’s the little boy who is turned around with his back facing the viewer, and he will turn around one day when Palestine has been liberated. So she began this project thinking of Naji al-Ali, who was the writer, artist and political cartoonist. And Ali was born in 1938 and assassinated in 1987 and buried in London.

So her performance began in London and moved to Al-Shajara, a destroyed village that was his birthplace in Palestine. So I’m quoting her now that she visited his grave in the UK and said, “As part of my homage, I imitated Handala’s posture, but on my knees. Then I took a rubbing of his gravestone using graphite on a symbolic shroud made of a traditional white Jerusalem fabric. I took the shroud back with me to Palestine with the idea of creating a ritual that would symbolically return the shroud home, a temporary measure.” So she ended up taking the shroud to his village with her friends, and this is photographed in the article I was talking about. Settlers ultimately came and disrupted the ritual, and her and four other people were arrested and interrogated for many hours that day. So this is just an example of how this one piece of performance art is so meaningful in really attempting the right to return for this artist who never had the chance and how it ended violently as settlers would not allow it to proceed.

Another one of her pieces that I think is fascinating is the piece called Zaatar and Zeit Communion/Ritual. She’s performed it in Palestine and abroad beginning in 2006 in an artist statement from when she performed it in Paris. She wrote,

The ritual is about dignity, about the aroma and taste of Palestine, a nation that has been dismissed and forgotten for too long, a nation left behind in the big bubble of the international community. Fourteen years of siege by Israeli colonial occupation have passed, and the people of Gaza are still suffering from the starvation policy and from preventing people from traveling for medical treatment and study in Egypt, Israel, or abroad. Generations have been put on hold. Children suffer from malnutrition. Can they even imagine another world where their lives are valued and respected by those who hold power? Zaatar means wild thyme, added to this is sesame and sumac and salt and olive oil. We eat zaatar with zeit zeitoun, our treasured olive oil, our heritage and our wealth. All of this agricultural heritage is under threat. Our lands are being confiscated and olive trees are being uprooted. Our native plants such as zaatar are being uprooted and replaced with settlements and walls. Even in my family village, like everywhere in Palestine, we are being banned from picking zaatar, but still, people pick zaatar even though they risk fines to do so. All that is to tear us away from our beloved land makes us feel desperate and leave. That’s what they want. Zeit and zaatar are the flesh and blood of historic Palestine. This communion ritual expresses our closeness to the land and the sacredness of our land, not only to Christians, but to all Palestinians who cherish it. We take this communion also to remember the sacrifice of all of those who have sacrificed themselves for justice and Palestine as they seek real freedom and peace for everyone. We are full of dignity and we need no mercy, but the mercy of true freedom. Our ancestors lived and survived out of this sacred and fertile land, and as our great poet Mahmoud Darwish said, ‘We have on this land that which makes life worth living.’ We and our new generations will continue living and surviving and hopefully under freedom soon after a long history of 103 years set in motion by the Balfour Declaration.

So thank you for letting me, indulging me and reading that long piece. But I was struck by the fact that she started this communion ritual, as she called it in 2006, and those words could have been written yesterday. I mean, this struggle has truly been going on for a long time, and we know that, and it’s an understatement to say a long time, but I think her work has such beautiful resonance and she just has done so much performance art that’s worth checking out. It’s all deeply rooted in her identity as being a Palestinian, and if we’re talking about protest art, I think we’re really talking about what she’s doing. Through her work, she engages with global audiences to raise awareness of the Palestinian cause, and she’s addressing universal themes of human rights and justice and survival.

Nabra Nelson: Moving on to another incredible artist, but in a very different medium, Alia Mohamed is a Lebanese American belly dancer based in Dallas, Texas. Her practice is rooted in vintage style belly dancing, specifically influenced by the golden era of the 1960s and 1970s in Egypt. Her performances emphasize joy, musicality, and improvisation, aiming to channel the spirit behind the dance rather than merely replicate the movements. Alia Mohamed draws inspiration from her musical upbringing, incorporating theatrics, stage presence, and glamor in her work, which she views as a deeply personal and soulful form of artistic expression. It’s exciting viewing her work through the lens of performance art because for me, much of it is simply authentic traditional belly dancing, but belly dancing has been appropriated and taken out of its cultural context so much that seeing “vintage style” belly dancing is actually not very common outside of Egypt, I believe. Then again, some of her pieces lean even more into the vintage aesthetic, drawing especially from the 1970s and sometimes bringing in Arab futurist visuals there by transporting traditional belly dancing styles into really a truly brand new artistic expression.

Marina Johnson: Heading back to Palestine, we are talking now about two Palestinians who aren’t technically performance artists. I mean, truly they’re amazing artists and Nabra and I kept coming back to them this season. We were just like, “Could we interview them? Do we think we could?” So right now, we’re just going to tell you about them. You probably know of their work. Honestly, they are well known and established as many of the people we were talking about are, but this is a roundup for a reason.

So Emily Jacir is a Palestinian American artist known for her politically charged and deeply personal work, which often addresses themes of displacement, exile, and the Palestinian experience. She works in different media including photography, video, text, sculpture, and installation. Two pieces I want to talk about quickly are Where We Come From, which was a piece that she worked on from 2001 to 2003, and that project explored the restricted movement of Palestinians. She asked Palestinians, “If I could do anything for you anywhere in Palestine, what would it be?” The resulting photos and text documents that she got, she carried out on behalf of those who were unable to move freely due to the occupation. And it was really a project that’s looked at borders, I mean the arbitrary nature of them, but also how much they impact personal lives.

Another piece I want to talk about is Material for a Film which commemorates the life of Palestinian artist Wael Zuaiter, who was assassinated by Israeli Mossad agents in 1972. It mixes archival material, text and film to reflect on loss, memory and martyrdom.

And then another artist we want to talk about is Larissa Sansour, who is also Palestinian and whose work looks at themes of identity, politics, etc. She uses science fiction and speculative narratives to address displacement, nationalism, and cultural heritage. So she often incorporates dystopian and futuristic settings to comment on contemporary Palestinian realities. By placing Palestine in this speculative future, she highlights the ongoing impact of colonialism and occupation. Her use of sci-fi allows for reimagining of borders, time, and identity, offering a space for alternative narratives.

So, one notable project is Nation Estates from 2012, and it’s a science fiction short film set in the future where Palestinians live in a skyscraper with each floor representing a different Palestinian city. The project examines confinements and nationalism and what the future of statehood could be. Another project of hers is In the Future, They Ate from the Finest Porcelain from 2016, and this is a film that merges archeology and politics presenting a group of rebels who planted different artifacts to rewrite history. It critiques how history is constructed and weaponized, and it reflects on the erasure of Palestinian narratives as well.

Nabra Nelson: Darvish The Urban Sufi is an artist who fuses spiritual, cultural, and urban influences into his multidisciplinary art practice. His work encompasses music, performance and storytelling, blending traditional Sufi spiritual practices with contemporary urban culture. Through music and spoken word, Darvish explores themes of inner peace, divine love, and the search for meaning in modern life. His practice often serves as a bridge between ancient mysticism and modern artistic expression, drawing connections between different cultures and spiritual traditions. Sufism is a religion that has famously always integrated music, dance, and poetry. So to see that work in an urban and bicultural context is very engaging. One of his performance pieces, he converted an electric skateboard into a flying carpet and rode it around his museum exhibit in a blend of various stereotypical MENA/SWANA costume pieces to mock the stereotypes of the Middle East.

Yasmine Nasser Diaz is a Los Angeles-based artist whose work explores themes of identity, migration and gender, particularly within the context of Yemeni American culture. Her practice spans various mediums as well, including mixed media, collage, immersive installations, and video. She often uses materials like textile, archival photographs and personal artifacts to reflect on the tension between cultural heritage and contemporary life. Diaz’s work examines the complexities of growing up between different cultural worlds, navigating expectations around gender and the intersection of public and private identity. For example, her multimedia installation For Your Eyes Only displays a publicly visible interior of a bedroom drenched in pink geometric pattern wallpaper. And this is all for context in a gallery. Again, this idea of what performance art is as performance and multi-sensory experience within a gallery space really does reflect visually what For Your Eyes Only looks like.

There’s a projection of women and non-binary people dancing in a reel of selfie videos while a second video plays a documentary style montage of news clips featuring women-led political rallies from around the global south, woven alongside speeches by political figures from the 1950s up to the present. A rose-colored disco ball shines upon the contents of the space, a bed, a vanity mirror, a glaring pink neon light in the shape of an evil eye. On the floor there are objects one would expect to see at a protest protruding from a backpack. The space feels personal and safe while simultaneously giving off the illusion of being this electrifying rave.

Marina Johnson: Farah Al Qasimi is a multidisciplinary Emirati artist known for her unique approach to performance, photography and video art. Her performance practice often blends humor, cultural critique and an exploration of identity, particularly through the lens of consumerism and the effects of globalization on Gulf Arab society. Her website features some amazing installation work, but the piece I found most immediately exciting was Everybody was Invited to a Party. This 2018 piece, Everybody was Invited to a Party, pulls inspiration from the 1980s Arabic version of Sesame Street, Iftah Ya Simsim, using puppets to present language and letters as malleable objects without fixed meaning. The video seeks moments where failure to communicate creates a new opportunity.

Khaled Jarrar is a Palestinian artist whose work goes across a range of mediums, including photography, sculpture, video and performance art, using his art as a tool to question power structures and challenge borders. One of his most well-known projects, State of Palestine, which was a 2011 piece, involved creating an unauthorized Palestinian passport stamp, which he offered to people in his exhibitions and even in the streets of the West Bank. This act challenged the legitimacy of existing national borders and explored concepts of statehood and identity.

His Whole in the Wall, whole spelled W-H-O-L-E was a 2013 project, was another piece in which Jarrar carved out pieces from the Israeli apartheid wall and recontextualized them as sculptures. The pieces served as physical symbols of the occupation and explored the tension between destruction, preservation, and many other themes that we could touch on. I’d love to talk about all of these pieces more. Infiltrators is a 2012 piece where Jarrar documents the lives of Palestinians who risk their lives crossing Israeli borders, capturing the desperation and hope tied to movement and freedom. Another piece, Football, 2014 involved creating footballs out of concrete, taken from the wall, blending the global symbol of play and freedom within the harsh realities of conflict.

And I think of the piece that maybe folks saw, I don’t know, this made headlines relatively recently, was a piece called Blood for Sale, and this is a public performance that Jarrar did in New York City around Wall Street, and he invited the public to purchase vials of his blood. So that might be a piece that you’ve seen recently too. I’m forgetting what year it was. But it was relatively recent. Yes, actually, so the piece was a 2018 piece. Relatively recently, is harder in my head then... anyway, COVID did a number on us all.

Nabra Nelson: Tarek Al-Ghoussein was a Kuwaiti Palestinian artist who passed in 2022, whose work primarily explored issues of identity, displacement, and the relationship between the personal and collective history. His art practice focused on photography, but it also integrated elements of performance, conceptual art, and documentary practices. Al-Ghoussein’s work often engaged with his own experiences as a Palestinian living in exile, as well as broader questions about geography, belonging, and the political context of the Middle East. Here are some key elements of his artistic practice. He frequently included himself in his photographs, often wearing traditional Palestinian garb or otherwise referencing his cultural heritage. His presence in the work, however, was more conceptual than personal. He used his figure as a stand-in for broader issues of identity, displacement and the human condition. His figure often appeared small in comparison to vast empty landscapes or incomplete architectural structures, emphasizing the fragility of the human presence in these environments.

Al-Ghoussein photographed himself in barren deserts, unfinished buildings, or other marginal transitional spaces, drawing attention to the ways in which these environments reflect broader issues of dislocation and abandonment. While his photographs often depict real landscapes and structures, the images were not straightforward documents of reality. Instead, they were carefully staged, blending fact and fiction to explore the tension between personal and collective histories. His work often invited viewers to question the authenticity of what they were seeing, creating a dialogue between the visible and the invisible, the personal and the political.

Marina Johnson: Sussan Deyhim is an Iranian American artist whose practice spans music, performance art, dance, and multimedia work, blending elements from her Persian heritage with experimental and avant-garde forms. She’s known for creating immersive, evocative pieces that address political, cultural, and spiritual themes. Much of her work is inspired by Persian poetry, Sufi mysticism, and classical music, reinterpreting them in a contemporary context. This fusion of ancient Persian culture with modern artistic forms allows her to comment on contemporary global issues while maintaining a connection to her heritage.

Her multimedia performance The House is Black is a tribute to the Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad and explores themes of exile, isolation, and resilience. This piece of hers draws on historical footage and poetry and creates a powerful meditation on the human condition. She also has collaborated with a notable range of people across disciplines, including the composer Philip Glass, visual artist Shirin Neshat, and filmmakers such as Jean-Claude Carrière. Her practice and connection with global movements in contemporary art and music is pretty stunning, as she also trained as a ballerina, which had a lasting influence on her performative style. Movements and body art are integral elements of her work, and her performances often feature her own choreography or collaborations with other dancers, blending contemporary and traditional styles.

There are so many artists each moving the needle forward, and collectively we create this change, or move towards this change.

Nabra Nelson: Sulaïman Majali is an artist and poet whose work explores themes of rupture, diaspora, and colonial histories through multimedia installations with video, sound, and sculpture. Majali’s practice interrogates how histories, particularly those of Muslim and Arab countries, have been erased or misrepresented by Western institutions using art to confront colonial narratives. In exhibitions like Saracen Go Home in 2019, Majali used a 3D printed fragment of the Alhambra, addressing both the erasure of Muslim history in Europe and the contemporary rise of Islamophobia. Their work often engages with institutional critique, looking how museums and galleries incarcerate objects from colonized cultures, preventing their full understanding or acknowledgement. Majali’s use of poetic and conceptual strategies emphasizes disruption, including the breakdown of colonial timelines and evokes dreaming, grieving, and fugitive practices as ways of resisting empire. Their 2020 work A Dream for Scheherazade reinterprets the iconic Scheherazade from One Thousand and One Nights as a figure of resistance and survival. Recent works, like In the House of Names from 2023, explore the liminal space between sleep, memory, and identity using cinematic techniques to challenge fixed notions of digital and neural space.

Marina Johnson: Kubra Khademi is an Afghan performance artist known for her bold and provocative works that explores themes of gender, patriarchy, and personal freedom, often grounded in her experiences growing up in a conservative society. Her performances confront issues of sexual harassment, women’s rights, and the body’s relationship to public space. Khademi’s work often addresses the constraints placed on women in Afghan society, and by using her own bodies as medium, she draws attention to how women’s bodies are politicized and controlled. In her 2015 piece Armour, which is one of her most iconic and known performances and involves her walking through a crowded street in Kabul wearing custom-made metal armor that exaggerated her breasts and buttocks. The performance highlighted the constant sexual harassment women face in public spaces and questioned the objectification of the female body. The public’s reaction was hostile, and Khademi faced significant threats after the performance leading her to leave home, for that time at least.

Nabra Nelson: And that’s what we have for you today. Those are the ones that we are highlighting, but there are so many more, of course, MENA and SWANA performance artists, obviously, across the world.

Marina Johnson: There is just such a wealth of people who are making amazing work, and often we find that unless we are all getting to talk about it together, it feels like the work can exist in isolation. So our goal with Kunafa and Shay and always with you all is to be in conversation about this amazing work that’s happening.

Nabra Nelson: And something that’s on my mind—possibly because literally an hour ago we recorded the episode with Basma al-Sharif. We’re really recording a lot this morning—She was saying how, and quoting another artist and scholar, talking about how the impact of art is cumulative, especially in times of crisis. It can feel like one artist’s work, especially speaking as an artist myself, that maybe my work, is it really making the difference I want it to make? Is it enough of a ripple in this gigantic ocean of issues really that we’re trying to address or talk about? And seeing all of these performance artists back to back, talking about a lot of similar themes of borders, displacement, empire, colonization, gender, representation (which always comes up), identity, it makes you realize the impact that art really has on a huge scale.

There are so many artists each moving the needle forward, and collectively we create this change, or move towards this change. And really, to me, the only way to change culture is through art. And so this is how we change culture, and hopefully you got a modicum of an idea of some of these incredible culture changers across the world that are redefining what it means to be MENA and SWANA.

Marina Johnson: Amazing way to end it, Nabra. Thank you so much. Happy end of season five!

This podcast is produced as a contribution to HowlRound Theatre Commons. You can find more episodes of Kunafa and Shay and other HowlRound podcasts by searching “HowlRound” wherever you find podcasts. If you loved this podcast, please post a rating and write a review on your platform of choice. This helps other people find us. You can also find a transcript for this episode, along with a lot of other progressive and disruptive content, on the howlround.com website. Have an idea for an exciting podcast, essay or TV event the theatre community needs to hear? Visit howlround.com and contribute your ideas to the Commons.

Nabra Nelson and Marina Johnson: Yalla, bye!