top of page
_
ONE THING
Who are we permitted to be one with? To feel for and suffer with? Shared affect is a well-regulated commodity these days. Four axes of separation and unity guided a series of meditations I shared with my audience through a collage of texts, choreographed movements, and constellations of ready-made and found objects. The first axis, the most pressing: the divide between myself, my Israeli audience, and the Palestinian—constantly othered and thus barred from the possibility of co-suffering. Enmeshed within this horizontal line, one inevitably encounters the otherness of the transcendent, ever present in absence and absent in presence throughout in Jerusalem, the space me and my audience shared. Pushing the boundaries of affection further, I explored cyborgic interactions between myself and my bicycles (between us and our machines), and between myself and my late grandmother's hat (between us and our tools, masks, relics). Finally, the almost clichéd, much-derided fourth wall—that membrane between performer and audience, between me and "them." Is there something common to how unity and separation are policed across these realms? Can we marshal resources from one axis to challenge the deadly effects in another? For me, here and now in Jerusalem—suspended between the River Jordan and the concrete killing fields of Gaza—rendering myself porous to others becomes an ethical urgency pressing enough to question, even if futilely, the compartmentalization of identity and care we accept as given.
RED BLANKET AND FLATLAND
Perhaps abstractions and experiments are a privilege, but the concrete for me has lost all meaning. The scattered remains of ideals which for me were once reality, which undoubtedly held meaning in their previous life, pressed against me in their bare materiality, stripped of significance, barely able to exist. All that remained was to experiment with these ruins, to configure and reconfigure them, my body serving as their prosthetic extension.
Can these fragments be salvaged? Can they cease being remnants of the society to which I belong and become something else, something with untapped potential?
Eram, working alongside me, was not in the business of salvaging or experimenting. She was surviving, holding on, engaging in sumud—that distinctly Palestinian practice of steadfast persistence. She is Palestinian; I am Israeli. For me, abstraction was a privilege, perhaps the only way to move beyond the ravenous murder-suicide my society commits day after day. Eram insists and persists.
Yet we worked together, guided by the voice of a third woman, Adina Bar-On, who insisted that my fragments had a place within Eram's survival and protest—that anything redemptive emerging from this land would be assembled from my fragments and her insistence.
We performed in a gallery where, by chance, images of blooming drimia plants hung behind us. In Jewish sources, the drimia was planted to mark borders between plots of land. Perhaps fragments and abstractions offer the only passage beyond these drimia in this broken terrain.
I hold onto this hope.
Can these fragments be salvaged? Can they cease being remnants of the society to which I belong and become something else, something with untapped potential?
Eram, working alongside me, was not in the business of salvaging or experimenting. She was surviving, holding on, engaging in sumud—that distinctly Palestinian practice of steadfast persistence. She is Palestinian; I am Israeli. For me, abstraction was a privilege, perhaps the only way to move beyond the ravenous murder-suicide my society commits day after day. Eram insists and persists.
Yet we worked together, guided by the voice of a third woman, Adina Bar-On, who insisted that my fragments had a place within Eram's survival and protest—that anything redemptive emerging from this land would be assembled from my fragments and her insistence.
We performed in a gallery where, by chance, images of blooming drimia plants hung behind us. In Jewish sources, the drimia was planted to mark borders between plots of land. Perhaps fragments and abstractions offer the only passage beyond these drimia in this broken terrain.
I hold onto this hope.
WAIL
I have been witnessing grief lately—consuming it through the feeding tube of my phone, that relentless portal of loss.
I have been dealing with grief lately. Don't dwell on it, they say. Smile, you'll feel better.
The wail emerges as image. Symbol. Tool. Last resort.
The wail becomes the only rational response.
THE WAIL is ritual—a mirror, a path. A pessimistically optimistic salvation that offers, for a moment, passage into peace, into the wheel, the circle, the dance.
I have been dealing with grief lately. Don't dwell on it, they say. Smile, you'll feel better.
The wail emerges as image. Symbol. Tool. Last resort.
The wail becomes the only rational response.
THE WAIL is ritual—a mirror, a path. A pessimistically optimistic salvation that offers, for a moment, passage into peace, into the wheel, the circle, the dance.
GO AROUND
"Go Around" reimagines Henrik Ibsen's "Peer Gynt" for our contemporary moment. What initially drew me as a director was the play's lyrical form—how Ibsen deployed vivid Norwegian imagery and folklore to excavate the inner life of his protagonist. In Peer, I recognized the human subject at modernity's threshold.
Ibsen's prescience is striking: he anticipated a future where absolute truth dissolves and personal narratives construct reality. This insight shaped my adaptation's core.
Here, Peer becomes a young woman in her twenties, tethered to a mentally ill mother who has taught her—perhaps without meaning to—to navigate the porous boundary between storytelling and deception. She dreams of escape, of the moment when her words might finally construct her own reality and "realize" her true self.
Yet in life's twilight, she discovers a cruel irony. Her relentless pursuit of self-realization has yielded only an image, a projection. In chasing this phantom, she may have lost her authentic self—if such a thing ever existed.
"Go Around" interrogates identity in an age of curated narratives. What do we sacrifice at the altar of self-actualization? In constructing ourselves, what slips away?
Ibsen's prescience is striking: he anticipated a future where absolute truth dissolves and personal narratives construct reality. This insight shaped my adaptation's core.
Here, Peer becomes a young woman in her twenties, tethered to a mentally ill mother who has taught her—perhaps without meaning to—to navigate the porous boundary between storytelling and deception. She dreams of escape, of the moment when her words might finally construct her own reality and "realize" her true self.
Yet in life's twilight, she discovers a cruel irony. Her relentless pursuit of self-realization has yielded only an image, a projection. In chasing this phantom, she may have lost her authentic self—if such a thing ever existed.
"Go Around" interrogates identity in an age of curated narratives. What do we sacrifice at the altar of self-actualization? In constructing ourselves, what slips away?
FLATTEN
To make something flat.
To take away its curves, soft spots, shadows and highlights.
Its edges, nooks and crannies.
Its secrets.
To make a line.
A coastline.
A border.
When the People say: "Flatten"—
what should we say?
To take away its curves, soft spots, shadows and highlights.
Its edges, nooks and crannies.
Its secrets.
To make a line.
A coastline.
A border.
When the People say: "Flatten"—
what should we say?
A MAN WALKED AND WALKED AND FELL INTO A PIT
I went walking through Givat Haviva, where for decades different groups, Israeli and Palestinian, have tried to imagine something different for their homeland. Along the paths and lawns, I found things people had left behind: a candy wrapper, a broken dish, a single sock. These objects intrigued me – their vibrancy humming despite abandonment.
I wanted to preserve whatever life remained in these objects. Perhaps from these remnants I could assemble a clearer picture of what—and who—Givat Haviva is.
So, I began writing her letters. Sometimes she answered, in her own peculiar way. She houses so many kinds of people, holds so many types of ideas.
"And you?" I asked her. "You are everyone's home, aren't you?"
She didn't answer.
She was my home for three months. During that time, I began to feel like her—an empty shell echoing with shadows of conflicting grand thoughts. And slowly, the destruction of everything I knew began to seep in.
I wanted to preserve whatever life remained in these objects. Perhaps from these remnants I could assemble a clearer picture of what—and who—Givat Haviva is.
So, I began writing her letters. Sometimes she answered, in her own peculiar way. She houses so many kinds of people, holds so many types of ideas.
"And you?" I asked her. "You are everyone's home, aren't you?"
She didn't answer.
She was my home for three months. During that time, I began to feel like her—an empty shell echoing with shadows of conflicting grand thoughts. And slowly, the destruction of everything I knew began to seep in.
PASSING PORT
Collaboration with the artist Farnoosh A. Nik an Iranian resident.
While discussing the political situation in Israel and Iran, the regulations in each country and the use of the woman’s body as a political tool we decided to have a tea together.
While discussing the political situation in Israel and Iran, the regulations in each country and the use of the woman’s body as a political tool we decided to have a tea together.
A CLEARING
One day I was on my way home when I found myself in a big interchange. I needed to get to the other side so I went to the crosswalk. At the green light I began crossing, not giving much thought to the 11 or so soldiers crossing from the other side of the street, (happily munching on their sharwarma in a pita that they probably bought for lunch), until they (seemingly unaware) formed a human wall blocking the whole crosswalk. I found myself having to form an arrow with my hands and penetrate through their wall (no time to go around!). Consumed with thoughts on penetration I heard a cry behind me. Turning around I saw one of the soldiers had stopped in the middle of the street, looking up from his fallen shawarma to the group that kept on walking, seamlessly closing the gap he left behind.
I thought I saw a look in his eye. I thought I saw the moment he transitioned from being a component to becoming a whole, from being a part of something to being alone.
The traffic light turned green.
I thought I saw a look in his eye. I thought I saw the moment he transitioned from being a component to becoming a whole, from being a part of something to being alone.
The traffic light turned green.
M
Mem is a Hebrew letter, מ. It is almost a circle but it isn’t.
We are almost whole, but we aren’t.
Mem for mom, for maim.
In Hebrew: mem for ma (what) im (if). Mem for ma-im (water), im-ma (mother). Mem for mum (defect)
I was born with a hand defect.
My right hand, the hand that reaches.
We are almost whole, but we aren’t.
Mem for mom, for maim.
In Hebrew: mem for ma (what) im (if). Mem for ma-im (water), im-ma (mother). Mem for mum (defect)
I was born with a hand defect.
My right hand, the hand that reaches.
bottom of page