Three works in progress: Manatsu Tanaka, Olivia Mohsen & Nadia Khayrallah

Used To Be: ‘Used to Be’ is a semi-fictional trip through places I can’t visit and a study of how nostalgia shapes our understanding of the past and present. It draws from a recorded conversation with my parents about sites in Lebanon that no longer exist in the same form. Through my interpretations, insertions, repetition, transformations, and commentary, my performance attempts to fill in the gaps, replacing forgotten details with echoing feelings.  Credits: Music by Bill Conti, Blond Band, The Rahbani Brothers / Fairuz, Phillip Glass, Dalida   Audio recording includes Rula Khayrallah and Ali Khayrallah Only A Horizon Away: This is a contemporary dance theater that explores grief as an ocean shore that we return to visit, and while borders and nations may separate us, we are only a horizon away. This piece utilizes aerial silks, as the performer used to train in aerial silks in 2019. Rather than a dance partner in the air, this time the silks accompany the performer in this storytelling. شبكة صيد السمك Shabaket Sayd Al-Samak (Fishnet) explores the tensions between proximity and distance, witnessing and action, visibility and erasure. Drawing on Palestinians' relationship to the sea—near enough to see, yet often inaccessible—the work uses the fishnet as a metaphor for the contradictions of digital spectatorship. Like a net that holds and releases, expands and contracts, the solo considers what it means to bear witness to violence and the responsibilities that emerge from seeing. Credits: Choreography and performance by Olivia Mohsen Alsamadi Music by Donia Jarrar