BODY WATANI

Body Watani Dance project is a space to research, investigate, and create performances from an embodied relation with ‘watan’ or homeland inside our bodies. Our work is held by two Palestinian sisters, Leila and Noelle Awadallah; daughters of Palestinian refugee lineage, born on the stolen land of Turtle Island. We center Palestine. It is our compass and point of entry into relations with peoples and place. The knowledge we cultivate flows from ancestral digs, present realities, and future visions of liberation that carry our dancing bodies across terrains of grief, rage, sumud, and love for Palestinian Aliveness. The movement material we work with is itself an investigation of how we find dance that is rooted in Arab and SWANA* movement languages within experimental, somatic, and contemporary contexts. Our work holds our relatives who face ongoing ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and a persistent brutal occupation by the israeli state.

Body Watani has received support from NEFA’s National Dance Project, National Performance Network, Minnesota State Arts Board, Minnesota Regional Arts Council, and the Goethe Institute. Their evening-length work TERRANEA (2021-2023) was performed at Red Eye Theater, Links Hall, Arab American National Museum, Candy Box Festival, Hammana Artist House, and Al Madina Theater.