Under Cover | Force Majeure | TARAB
This trilogy is a series of contemporary dance pieces, which uses a critical feminist perspective to dilate the tension between how both the Middle East and the West view women, who are socialized within Islam. It is an interdisciplinary work, using dance, performance, video, sound and installation art to uncover and highlight power structures and the normative, cultural racism they produce. In the postmodern era, the public debate about the self-determination of women serves as a symbol of Western superiority and is weaponized as a marker of cultural and national difference. Socially engineered gender norms are used as indicators of developmental status. Thus, European powers insist upon the subordinate position of women in colonial societies and then use this subordination to legitimate their claim to power. It’s a type of colonial gaslighting and compounds the discourse embedded in the confrontation between Western Modernization and Islamic concepts of anti-modernity and anti-colonialism. The trilogy strives to expose the so-called notion of “Oriental Women” as a projection of Western cultural bias, and seeks to restore a diverse image, a truly feminist vision of the complexity of gender Identity in Islam. عطش ATASH عطش – contemporary art initiative Introduction Trilogy Under Cover | Force Majeure | TARAB* Introduction “Under Cover,” is the first part of the trilogy with veiling as the overarching theme and central to its artistic exploration. The female body represents the main instrument of deconstruction, communication and resistance. Based on documentary materials, “Force Majeure” deals with woman as mother, feminist and iconic threat to patriarchal systems of power. She is not a victim, but a socio-political activist, risking imprisonment, torture, her own life and even the lives of her children for her vision of freedom and social democracy. In “TARAB,” cultural heritage and the role of women in society is investigated by analyzing historical relations represented through traditional dances, ceremonial rituals and folk movement material. All of which, in its country of origin, is now prohibited. This social inhibition lies at the centre of the investigation. The piece will have its premiere between 07.-17.October 22 in the frame of تشویش Tashweesh festival organized by Tanzquartier Wien, Beursschouwburg in Brussels and L’Art Rue in Tunisia.