Society and the struggles of the dancer
Dance in turbulent societies is fraught with trials, but also full of possibilities. I discovered this in December 2009, when my colleague Nicholas Rowe and I went to Bourj el-Barajneh Palestinian refugee camp to facilitate a series of dance video workshops for children and youths. While Nicholas was an experienced practitioner in such situations with extensive experience working in Palestinian refugee camps, I was a complete novice.
Bourj el-Barajneh, translated as Towers of Towers, is a refugee camp where approximately 20,000 people live in one square kilometre. The camp is situated in the southern suburbs of Beirut, deep in the heart of Hezbollah territory. Established in 1948 to accommodate Palestinian refugees from the Galilee region, Bourj el-Barajneh was under a bloody siege in 1982 during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon during the first Lebanese Civil War, and again from 1984 to 1987 when the Amal Militia sought to control West Beirut.
Arriving with three hand-held cameras, a tripod and two translators, Nicholas and I obviously stood out. Walking into the camp, navigating the maze of alleyways between crumbling buildings and then meeting the group of children and youths we were working with over the coming days, it became apparent that any concept I had of how a dance workshop should be run, or even why it should be run, would have to shift.
Time seems to have stood still for years in the camp. Generation after generation, children grow up in the same desperate reality, punished for crimes they did not commit, injured by a history not of their making. They stand on balconies cracked beyond repair, watching the world of Beirut go by on their horizon. Illegal construction and limited space for horizontal expansion have forced the community to build in a vertical fashion, creating a Kafkian-like reality, true but surreal. The refugees too are teetering between the lines of an almost pseudo-reality. They find themselves held hostage in time and space in a growing city, a hectically changing world, frozen in time and with ever-lower expectations. Open sewers run through the narrow alleyways and a spiderweb of exposed electrical wires hangs overhead, some dangerously low. I was initially sceptical as to how a few days of dancing might change anything here. The function of dance in this workshop was to collectively re-define and re-imagine space.
Figure 24: Dance workshop at Bourj el-Barajneh Palestinian Refugee Camp Image by Rose Martin (2009)
We initiated the workshops by playing movement games with the group. We encouraged them to devise short stories that they wanted to make dance videos about. They came up with four stories with the common thread of a football game running through them all, linking them together. As a group we started to make some movements related to each story, and characters were developed. When Nicholas told them that they could film their stories anywhere in the camp there were giggles and looks of confusion, but then there were some suggestions – ‘film it in my house’, or ‘I know a great place’. We set out to begin filming.
The children led us through their streets, and we stopped in an empty alleyway with high walls on either side and water streaming down one like a waterfall. The space implicitly called for movement that navigated around the spray of water, over the muddy puddles, and under the electrical wires above – dictating the path for movement, or alternatively making new movement emerge because of the parameters of the space. This was the location for the first short story to be filmed.
This story was quite straightforward; it was about a group of boys who annoyed a group of girls who liked to dance. The boys would always run through the circle the girls were dancing in, chasing them and generally causing chaos. The movement the group decided to use was a hybrid of dabke, gestures and steps inspired by pop videos. In this alleyway it appeared that their physicality was linked with the sensory aspects of the space. Some traced the wall with their hands or ran their fingers under the water coming down the concrete wall. The puddles incited jumps over them, and unsuspecting members of the community who were walking through the alleyway became caught up in the movement; some joined in, others scurried past. A group of little girls, no more than five or six years old, looked around the corner, wide-eyed and whispering to each other. Smiles began to stretch across their faces as they saw how their alleyway had been transformed.
One year later, in Jbeil, Lebanon, I met dancer, teacher, choreographer and scholar Nadra Assaf. Nadra explained how an essay written by one of her students at the Lebanese American University (LAU) about why people make a difference in society motivated her recent performance entitled I Matter. She said, ‘I thought, hey, we all make a difference. I matter. We matter.’ Months later when I was re-reading Nadra’s interview transcript I thought back to the dance video workshop in the Bourj el-Barajneh refugee camp. I had left the camp feeling tremendous sadness, as though a dance workshop in such a context was completely insignificant. However, Nadra’s words – ‘I matter. We matter’ – resonated with my experience at Bourj el-Barajneh. I thought about how the dance workshop might not seem hugely significant, but when everything in some situations is so impacted by ongoing trauma, upheaval and conflict, being able to step, shuffle or slide out of it for an hour or two matters, and that those individuals doing the step, shuffle or slide matter.
Nadra and I met in 2010 when I visited her in Jbeil. Before we sat down to talk Nadra took me on a brief tour around the small seaside town, showing me the location where her dance work, I Matter, was staged. We set off down the well-worn cobbled streets through the souk towards the Mediterranean Sea that stretched out across the horizon. We reached the waterfront and Nadra pointed to a church in the distance, explaining that the performance of I Matter took place in the crypt of the building. As we walked back to Nadra’s apartment to continue our conversation she spoke about how the performance was interactive between performers and audience. She explained:
I’m interested in the concept of how people matter in performance – no matter where you are at any moment in time you are making a difference to what is going on around you and to other people. For example, if you find yourself stuck in the middle of our performance and you accidently kick a dancer or a dancer kicks you, this can affect what happens in the performance, it is going to make a difference on that night, in that performance.
Nadra went on to describe how the concept of I Matter connected with her perception of Lebanese society. She said, ‘I Matter comes from the broad concept that every person matters and makes a difference. I think this is something we easily forget in Lebanon, a place that has endured so much.’ I was interested to know more about Nadra’s thoughts concerning the relationship between creativity and culture. She said:
The creative side of me is deeply fed through Lebanon, its culture and how I feel about this country. Historically speaking, anything I have ever choreographed always reverts back to Lebanon, even the pieces I did in the United States when I performed and worked there. Everything was geared towards Lebanon, Arab issues, struggles and sufferings. I believe the struggles are something that is interesting to watch and see in dance.
Lots of people ask me why my dances are so sad, but I don’t think that I’d call my dances sad. They might make you cry at certain points of time, but always there is a positive note, because
Figure 25: Nadra in the Jbeil souk Image by Rose Martin (2010)
I believe that that’s what life is like and maybe I just feel that way because of being in Lebanon. I think that in Lebanon we often thrive through the down times, we have had no choice; we’ve had a lot of down times. I think I create and choreograph best when I’m upset, depressed or going through a hard time. When I’m having fun and happy I feel that my work is a bit trivial.
Arriving at Nadra’s apartment building and climbing the narrow staircase, we stopped at a door covered in a patchwork of posters. She explained that this was the door to her dance studio, adjacent to the apartment where she lived, and that the posters were of her past performances. Pointing to two of the posters Nadra told me that these two performances were of particular significance to her – one because it embodied the sadness that she feels her choreographic work often focuses on, and the other because it gave attention to taboos within Lebanese society. She shared:
One of the most dramatic pieces I have done was a tribute to my brother after he passed away. It was performed six months after he died. I think I let out all of my grief on stage. I spoke about my unhappiness, and I think that’s something that people also don’t like being confronted with. I think people found it too emotional. When people were asked at the end of the show what they thought, they were like, ‘It’s really nice, but I hope that she doesn’t do something so sad next time!’.
After this I created a show that was not so sad, but perhaps still dark and certainly touching on taboo issues. It was called Adaptation: Alice revisits Wonderland. The concept was based on the Lewis Carroll story Alice in Wonderland, and asked the question: if Alice returned to Wonderland as an adult, how might she deal with certain issues? However, I threw in different concepts to what is in Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland – premarital sex, teenage pregnancy, drugs, and sexually transmitted diseases. So it was talking about things that are real taboos in our society here [in Lebanon].
Addressing taboos and pushing boundaries in performance has, on some occasions, resulted in difficult situations for Nadra and her colleagues. In the following narrative she recalls an experience of performing her work in Bahrain. She said:
I did a show in Bahrain with Lebanese musician Marcel Khalife and Bahraini poet Kasem Haddad. The show was called Kais and Layla. Kais and Layla is like the Arabic version of Romeo and Juliet. It was based on extremely sensual poetry and in the poem there is a sex scene – not something you usually get in Arabic poetry! So in the performance I depicted it physically, exactly the way it is described in the poem. We got taken to court and now we can’t perform in Bahrain anymore. I’m glad that we flew out of the country right after the performance because had we been stuck there I think we would not have been allowed to leave.
Directly after this performance a Lebanese TV show interviewed a key religious figure from Bahrain and two of my dancers about the show – so it was a big deal. It was a big deal about the fact that we were too crude, even though there was no nudity whatsoever, but there was embracing and touching, so they considered that to be offensive.
What they didn’t focus on in all the critique of it was that we had a completely sold-out house – the theatre fitted 650 people, and we had 800 squeezed in on one night and 900 on another. There is one point in the performance where the dancers get off the stage and run up and down the aisles throwing things. When the theatre was filled beyond capacity the dancers couldn’t do this, there were people sitting on the floor in every available space. People outside were pushing their faces up against the windows, wanting to come in, but there were no places. I felt for the first time like I was a rock star! People were dying to see it, they were driving from Saudi Arabia to come to the show and they were asking us to do it again. For me it was a beautiful thing to see people respond in this way.
I asked what encouraged Nadra to test the limitations of what can be discussed and presented on stage in the region. Nadra said, ‘I think it comes from my background, my childhood and upbringing.’ She elaborated on her early dancing years, and how these might have influenced her approach towards dance:
When I was small my family lived in the United States of America and my mother put me in tap and ballet class when we were living there. When I was eight years old we moved here [to Lebanon], and there was no dancing for me to do. We lived in a very rural area, a village way outside of Jbiel. The road to the village was actually a donkey road and there was only one car in the village – my uncle’s car – and my mother was the first woman to drive in the village. My mother was American, and people were always talking about the crazy American lady that is driving! I went to a little village school and we had dabke at school, so I did a lot of dabke.
When I was a little bit older my mother used to drive me once a month to Beirut to attend a jazz class in Ashrafieh. I felt like I was travelling to another planet.
I recall that when I was about 10 I would watch bits of dance on TV to get ideas, and then I would choreograph for my friends. I think my mom saw that I had some talent and she brought me an itty-bitty record player and I had the little 45 records. I’d set it up in the garage at school and my friends and I would all be dancing.
I finally got to take ‘real’ dance classes when I was 15 years old. I found a place in Hamra where a French lady was teaching jazz classes. I went there for a year, and then I left for America to go to university. I did a BS in finance and a BA, and my BA was in theatre with an emphasis on dance; it was not a dance degree. I did whatever dance classes I could at university and I took classes out of university too. I would go to New York and take classes at [the Alvin] Ailey School and at [the Martha] Graham School, because I wanted more.
When I auditioned for my Masters of Fine Arts, majoring in dance, at Sarah Lawrence College I didn’t expect to get accepted. I knew I was lacking in technique, but what I was lacking in technique I made up for in effort and emotion. I got accepted and worked really hard during my Masters to improve, to develop my technique and competency in performance.
The experiences of taking classes and watching dance in New York City appeared to influence Nadra’s perceptions of dance:
My undergraduate studies revolved around Alvin Ailey and Martha Graham technique. These techniques felt right for me and they felt like home. When I was in New York I watched a lot of their work and the work of Merce Cunningham.
When Merce Cunningham’s company came and performed here, it was one of the most moving experiences of my whole life. This is of course because I had the experience of taking classes in New York in that style. The company performed in Baalbek, and over half the audience left before the interval because they hated it. But I was just so taken by it all. You’re watching these bodies and thinking, ‘Are these dancers really human beings?’ There is just so much attention given to what they do with their bodies, every little muscle and every little vein.
At one point in the performance the call to prayer started. The music was turned off and the dancers continued to move to the call to prayer. It was the most emotional thing I’ve ever seen. Merce was in his seventies at the time and he came out on stage at the end of the performance. I was crying by this point, in part because of how beautiful the performance was and in part because I was sad that only about 40 per cent of the audience stayed, and it was all just empty seats, it was horrible. I was embarrassed; I was embarrassed at that moment in time to be Lebanese.
Nadra explained that she had a ‘love/hate’ relationship with Lebanon, and while she feels numerous frustrations with the context she lives and works in, she also finds inspiration:
I love Lebanon, I love everything about Lebanon, I would never leave Lebanon. The 10 years that I was in America I came back to Lebanon every summer and I did workshops and performances.
But I think I love the Lebanon that is in my head. Over the last two years I’ve realized that I don’t think I love the Lebanon that really exists. I live in a very secluded way, I’ve got my beach and my places I like to go, I have my students and my career, and that’s it.
I hate going to Beirut, I would not want to live there. I am happy to stay in my own little Lebanon that exists in my head, and that’s the Lebanon I love.
After graduating from her Masters of Fine Arts degree Nadra taught dance at tertiary level in the United States of America. She explained how ‘initially I thought I would teach in America for a few years’, as she wanted to gain ‘experience of teaching at university’. She said, ‘I thought I’d then have a better idea of how I was going to come back to Lebanon and convince a university to do a dance programme.’ However, she decided to return to Lebanon a year and a half after graduation. Nadra revealed that her return was motivated partly by ‘really wanting to go home’ and also because of family issues. She reflected on arriving home to Lebanon:
I arrived back in Lebanon just after New Year in 1991. When I arrived home and started to do dance-related things people looked at me like I was talking Chinese or something, people thought I was an absolutely insane human being. I would say to people, ‘I’m a female contemporary dancer’, and they would look at me like I was nuts, like ‘huh?’ Then I would say, ‘Yes, and by the way I am Arab, is that a problem?’ They would never say anything directly to me about it being a problem, but I got the feeling most people thought I was crazy, immoral or just not from here. But I do have to admit that my ‘Chinese’ is becoming more understandable now. Back in ’91 it was like I was constantly running my head into a brick wall, that’s what I felt I was doing on a daily basis. It was depressing, and it took me like seven or eight years until I got settled and found people who really understood me; their kids stayed with me at my dance school and the school started growing.
Establishing and fostering Al-Sarab Alternative Dance School has been a focal point of Nadra’s professional life since returning to Lebanon. She said, ‘my dance school is a little bit different in its approach, it is alternative’, explaining that this took some time to develop:
The school is based around the belief that there is no limitation to dance, that dance is a universal language which all people ‘speak’, and that a dancer should be able to do all types of dance. Of course, when I started the school these philosophies were considered quite unconventional here in Lebanon.
At the school I have also encouraged the concept of a universal dancer. I believe in a dancing body, I don’t believe in a classical dance body or a modern dance body. I think that the reason why I believe this is because of how I learned how to dance, which was picking up little pieces of different kinds of dance wherever I could catch it, it was not limited by the body you had.
Sometimes parents don’t understand the type of dance education I offer at my school – even though the name of the school clearly states ‘alternative dance’. They are disappointed that their daughters don’t wear tutus, and don’t do what I call ‘power-moves’ – like the splits, flips and high kicks. There is this idea that no tutus and no power-moves equals no dancing. Some parents think that if their child cannot do a perfect split they are not dancers and they are not learning how to dance. Some people say to me, ‘what do you mean, they are just learning to be dancers? Dancers of what?’ I say, ‘Any kind of dancer they want to be.’ This can confuse people. Oddly enough, one of the very popular programmes on TV, So you think you can dance, has helped me a lot, because it is built around the concept of a dancer that can do anything. When So you think you can dance started airing here in Lebanon about seven years ago people started to accept what I was doing at the school more.
Overall, though, for me dance is always geared towards education, and I don’t mean that in the stern sense, I mean creatively educative. I believe dance is just as important as math and language and everything else that people might learn.
Nadra’s interest in dance education led her to complete a Doctorate of Education at the University of Leicester. Along with developing Al-Sarab Alternative Dance School, Nadra has also been working as an academic at the Lebanese American University (LAU). Nadra talked about her work at LAU and some of the ambitions she has for dance at tertiary level in Lebanon:
I don’t teach in a dance programme, LAU does not have a dance programme, I teach English and then two dance courses that have either been under physical education or theatre.
I am working on hosting an annual university dance festival at LAU. The idea would be to bring guest teachers from other universities around the world, stage performances and have public workshops, that sort of thing. My ulterior motive is that if the university sees how well this goes they might implement a dance degree. It could completely change things here [in Lebanon], and for the region in general – I don’t know of any universities that offer dance degrees in other Arab countries.
In my little school alone I’ve had over 20 people who have graduated who would want to do a dance degree. The choice they have is to leave the country or to do something else.
That’s my ultimate dream, the next chapter in my dance story.
Five years later I met Nadra in Jbeil again. I was visiting to teach at the 4th International Dance Day Festival at LAU. Over five days hundreds of participants attended workshops, performances and lectures. I taught contemporary dance classes to eager teenagers and gave lectures to LAU students keen to explore how dance intersected with wider social issues. While I was visiting LAU, Nadra shared some thrilling news with me.
She said, ‘Remember when we first met and I was dreaming of making a dance degree here?’
I said, ‘Of course, that would be so exciting.’
‘Well, we are doing it, we are going to get a dance programme!’ Smiling and shaking her head a little in disbelief, she said, ‘Next year we start, and I think it is just what the region needs.’
I nodded. ‘This is incredible, Nadra, truly incredible!’
She replied, ‘Who would have thought? A university in the Middle East with a dance programme! It is incredible!’