Who Am I?

I am an Arab-American choreographer, director, filmmaker and arts educator deeply committed to empowering communities to use movement to reclaim narratives stripped away by colonialism. I’ve been a MAP Fund awardee, an NEA Our Town-funded resident artist, an received fellowships from Gibney’s Moving Toward Justice, Target Margin Institute, New Victory LabWorks, and Culture Push. My dance film work has been screened through the Dance Films Association, Tiny Dance Film Festival, DanceBarn Collective, BRIC, and Movies By Movers. I am a company member of New York-based theater company, Colt Coeur, and was the second-ever recipient of the Crane Directing Fellowship at Opera Columbus. I am also the artistic director of Dances for Solidarity, a project that co-creates choreography with people affected by the criminal legal system and performs for public audiences as advocacy toward prison abolition.

In my practice, I create large-scale, community-based movement performances for stage, screen, installation, and venues that haven’t yet been dreamed of. I facilitate collaborative experiences that have the power to liberate those of us whose narratives have been stripped away by colonialism while also creating performance platforms for fun, high-energy controlled chaos. I believe that dance is a form of freedom for all humans. Movement is a mechanism for connectivity and empathy between performers and audiences. I believe in creating accessible spaces to celebrate our collective humanity, connect us through shared narratives, and bring the joy that we all deserve.