Dancing with Pain

People United Magazin

Digital audio visual performance on healing, trauma and human bonding. Could be considered whether as a self portrait, a choreography or pain and survival, or as a monologue/poetic rendering of bridging life and death while transforming the trauma into a performative act. Concept, text and performance by Nora Amin, videographer & editor Ehab Abdellatif.

Nora Amin

Performer, author, choreographer & theatre director. Founder of the Egyptian nation-wide Project for Theatre of the Oppressed and its Arab network, founder of Lamusica independent Theatre group where she directed and produced 40 productions of dance, theatre and music. Based in Berlin since 2015. Currently member of the steering committee of the Dance Mediation Centre, and a board member of the German Centre of the International Theatre Institute. Author of “Migrating the Feminine” and “Dance of the Persecuted”.

DAN-

It is May 2021 My daughter just had a near death accident I fly to Cairo from Berlin Sit by her side Watch her vertebras The pelvic bones The bruises The swelling The feet The hands The fingers The traumatised hands Holding the driving wheel. She is my only child As I am the only child to my mother. At the age of twenty-five she meets death

And survives During the year when the world recently discovered mortality as a fact Isolation as a rescue Confinement as a way to stay alive. What kind of life is this?! She’s breathing. Because of having her I remained alive I confronted so many suicidal thoughts Because of her, she was there, by my side Connecting me to life To the future. The umbilical cord is still connecting me to her I hold her spine I put the vertebras back In their places And the pelvis. She is breathing. And crying And smiling Looking into my eyes I can hear the bones cracking. The same bones are cracking In my body

I am also coming back to life I am retrieving my motherhood My ability to give life To give birth I am giving her a new birth With the tears With the traumaWith the transcendence that takes place.

The two bodies are one The umbilical cord is connecting and bridging us. She is shattered In tears In the mourning In grieving pain And the threat of losing her own life. She is mourning her past potential death And celebrating her new gate to life. This is becoming a ritual. Our spiritual connection is able to heal the painIs able to fuel usWith an energy that bonds with life.

CING

WE are togetherWalking through this gateTowards a new life

This is a ritual of connecting to the universeTo our own potential power and magic.The other umbilical cord is my mother’s connected to me.It is August of the same year.

↗ — © Ehab Abdellatif

She gets a heart stroke. She is rescued by a miracle. I am shattered at the sight And possibility of losing her Of not being able to rescue her. As if I am walking on a thin line Holding two destinies Right and left I am in the middle My mother and daughter to the sides Threatened by death I am holding on to both of them Holding on to life Breathing onto them. My mother’s skin Her body The body of birth The body of life The body of pain and trauma The body of survival The body of holding on to one’s own self Surrounded by other bodies Suffering bodies The performativity of disease and sickness And vulnerability. The vulnerability of mortality Surrounded by soft skins And transparent veins Surrounded by screams By tears

WITH

By panic They are signs of holding on to life Holding Holding on to life Gazing at love At equilibrium At the loss of the centre At the dilution of stability At panic At anxiety At medication Gazing at my own skin Caressing my mother’s face Tracing my daughter’s vertebras Lifting her pelvis Adjusting the bones Breathing and crying A ritual. The performance of love. The performance of touching Smelling Tasting Breathing

I write it I make a decision of holding on to life To continue With our ritual of healing Our ritual of revival. A toast to life To organic bondings To the movement of the limbs and ligaments To the power of the body To the soul residing within the body To the umbilical cords connecting us To our humanness To our humanness. Together WE breathe into each other life Into each other WE breathe LIFE.

BreathingDancing with the painThe organic feeling of lifeAnd the eternal connection between life anddeathAcross generations.Three women in the same room.A cycle of life.I am losing the sense of gravityMy flesh is swellingMy uterus is expanding.I am numb.I swallow my own salivaHold my fist

Create my own claws I open my mouth I let it all out. I carry it all.

And look for a way to dismiss it A way to let it wash off.

PAIN

People United Magazin

Gefördert vom Fonds Darstellende Künste aus Mitteln der Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien im Rahmen von NEUSTART KULTUR