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| | Dear Laila
By Basel Zaraa (Palestine/UK)
Feb 28 – March 8, 2025
SWANA Rose Culture + Community Center (2942 OR-99E, Portland, OR 97212)
Winner of ZKB Prize Audience Award 2023
"Dear Laila, you are five now and have started to ask me where I grew up, and why we can’t go there. This is me trying to give you an answer."
The seeds of Dear Laila were planted when Basel’s five-year-old daughter began to ask him about his home growing up. Unable to take her there, he decided he would try to bring the place to her, by creating a model of his childhood home in Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus.
Dear Laila shares the experience of displacement and resistance through the story of one family, exploring how war and exile are experienced through the everyday, the domestic, and the public space. An intimate, interactive installation experienced by one audience member at a time, Dear Laila uses the retelling of memories and tactile details to bring this now destroyed place to life.
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There will be a quiet waiting area with tea and books to sit in before and after your experience with Dear Laila.
* The SWANA Rose Culture + Community Center requires masks. We will have them at the space if you forget.
* Bathrooms at The SWANA Rose Culture + Community Center are not ADA accessible.
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| | Awalem
By Ashtar Muallem (Palestine/France)
Feb 28-March 2
A-WOL Dance Collective (513 NE Schuyler St, Portland, OR 97212)
In this funny and moving show, Ashtar Muallem illustrates her life’s journey and her relationships with her countries, body, and spirituality. Her physical contortions mirror her dual life between two countries, cultures, and languages; between solitude and togetherness.
As a Palestinian born in Jerusalem who also lives in France, she navigates between Palestine and France in search of equilibrium and comfort in both. Inspired by Jerusalem and cherished memories of her grandmother, she seeks a connection with the Divine through yoga, meditation, and online tarot readings.
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| | Creative Movement Workshop for All Ages and Abilities
At the Portland Playhouse studio (602 NE Prescott St, Portland, OR 97211.)
Curious about creating performances with movement and flexibility? Join us for a workshop with Ashtar Muallem, star of Awalem!
Open to all ages and abilities. Feel free to attend solo, with a plus one, or bring the whole family!
Instructor Ashtar Muallem is trilingual, able to communicate in English, Arabic, and/or French as needed/preferred by attendees. | Buy Tickets |
| | Join us for an evening of short performances from local Southwest Asian and North African artists followed by a reception with light bites. Performances will span dance, poetry, music, and performance art.
6 PM on March 8, 2025.
At the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (15 NE Hancock Street, Portland, OR 97212.)
Featured artists include:
- Areem Rose
- Quinne Salameh
- Lamiae Naki
- Ali Kareem
- Amirra Malak
- Laila Mottaghi
- Esau Hamadanyan
- Farah Dinga
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| | because I love the diversity (this micro-attitude we all have it)
By Rakesh Sukesh (India/Belgium)
April 12-19
PICA (15 NE Hancock St, Portland, OR 97212)
A random encounter with a camera on the streets of Tallinn, Estonia made choreographer and dancer Rakesh Sukesh a momentary poster boy for a right wing news channel’s campaign against immigration from Asia and Africa.
What happens to his body when it is rendered into a viral, racist symbol?
In because i love the diversity (this micro-attitude, we all have it), Rakesh tells the story of his own journey through the powerful semi-improvisational, trance-like movement technique that makes him such an in-demand teacher across the world.
*show has brief full nudity.
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