Part of Frontiers
Can you still hear the bombs? I can hear them.
Growing up in a war zone means living and breathing politics. The Palestinian choreographer and performer Samaa Wakim asks herself how these experiences impact her identity in a new solo performance - Losing it - which explores how the trauma of previous generations manifest in her own body through movement and sound.
In a journey towards the moment she began to fear for her freedom, the piece dives into her memories of growing up under occupation, exploring the various realities she lives in, and the fantasies she’s created out of fear and hope in order to survive. As fear overtakes her, her world begins to disintegrate: the floor becomes unstable, and the sounds begin to warp, creating a world where reality and fantasy blur.
Created in conversation with the score played live by Samar Haddad King and accompanied by Wakim’s vocals, the sounds that once caused fear and the sounds that once provided solace become woven together to the point where past and present cloud the future.
About the Artists
Samaa Wakim graduated from the faculty of Theatre at the University of Haifa. She has performed in various international productions such as Badke by A.M Qattan foundation, KVS and Les Ballets C de la B in Belgium; 2012-2017, I’m Yusuf and This is My Brother co-produced by Shiber-Hur and Young Vic Theatre in London 2009-2012; Kabaret Khashabi theatre Haifa, Palestine 2016-2018 and as a member of Yaa Samar! Dance theatre since 2014. Losing It was developed as part of the Goethe Institute project “Un|Controlled Gestures?” (2019-2020).
Samar Haddad King, Artistic/Founding Director of Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre, earned her BFA in choreography at Ailey/Fordham under the tutelage of KazukoHirabayashi. She was a 2018 Resident Artist at Chaillot - théâtre national de la Danse (Paris), a 2019/20 Resident Fellow at The Center for Ballet and the Arts (CBA) at NYU, and is a 2021 Toulmin Creator (CBA/National Sawdust). King choreographed the 2019 musical We Live in Cairo, (American Repertory Theater, Boston), and co-authored a chapter on dance in the Arab World for the 2nd edition of Contemporary Choreography (Routledge, January 2018).