Dancing on the Edge and De Balie present the program series One Woman Show. A series of solo performances by remarkable female artists from the Middle East and North Africa on the verge of theater and politics. This edition, performer and writer Lana Nasser takes the stage with Turaab. Nasser challenges the status quo and aims to draw new narratives. She synthesizes language, movement and symbolism to tell stories of relevance and urgency.
Turaab*
Arabic for sand, soil, cemetery
A life span of a woman from childhood to the grave, navigating the way through promised lands of gods and religions. But the maps are drawn in the sand and the desert wind moves them. The guiding books are no longer there. Only the inner voice remains.
From Charlie Chaplin and Isadora Duncan to the mysteries of the Middle East. A dance without music and a play without words, where everything is being said through movements of the body and the sounds it generates.
The performance is followed by an after talk with Lana Nasser, in which she addresses how feminism can be used within a religious context as a way to find peaceful solutions. In 2011, Lana Nasser’s In the Lost and Found: Red Suitcase was presented in De Balie as part of the Dancing on the Edge Festival. For this solo performance, she received the Arab women’s playwright award. Nasser is now based in The Netherlands, where she is completing her new book Bint Ibrahim – Daughter of Abraham.
