Dancing the Political
Workshop, Embodied Process, Dance Creation Process
Dancing the Political is an umbrella term for Saed’s teachings and processes that combine dance and political/social issues. This work originated from his artistic work and choreography beginning from his solo “Ethneem Shtaiem”. Saed now holds workshops and processes across the globe and online - the workshop featured in Surfing the Creative process - GoldenBridge Boulder Colorado, AUB residency Germany, Off The Dance Floor online, Yasmeen Godder and Nur Garabli festival (Naaot Maa Baad), TUT clowning and performance school Hanover-Germany, and more.
At the moment there’s two ways I hold this process:
Embodied Process / Workshop / Retreat: one offering is a process which can range from a few hours into a retreat tailored for all levels and all backgrounds that focus on researching social and political issues that each participant comes with and researches and feels and embodies through different tools from Saed’s work.
Performance - one-week creation process: the other offering is a one-week process that starts with each participant doing the Embodied Process mentioned above and then continues into a creation piece where each participant creates their own solo that we then show to our community in theatre / studio
Trailer #1 - Workshop and Process example
This is a trailer from my 3 hour class were participants embody different sides of the issue.
A process I’ve been researching in my body as a Palestinian living in Israel through my solo Ethneen Shtaieem.
Also, through my 2024 new creation Divide and Conquer, were me and Nur Garabli researched gender and the political.
Video and Editing by Matan Raizman
Trailer #2
Performance project example
For people who do the 7 day journey we will divide deep into a story that has to do with our collective body, we will take an issue from the political or the social and through Saed’s guidance and through the journey within a group together each will create their own solo.
This is a trailer from where this workshop first started in a process in Geneva with Héloïse Dell'Ava Luna - we combined forces to create a creation process there. We did this twice: November 2022 and June 2023.
Trailer from Geneva June 2023 end of creation process performance edition with Héloïse Dell'Ava Luna
Videography and editing by Raphaël Harari
November 2022 - Geneva Process and Performance
Videography and editing - Matteo Maringola & Carolina Maldarelli
Dancing the Political Edition #1 pictures by Aline Zandona
Introduction and what will we actually do?
The story, pain, and trauma we contain in our body are not just our own: it is heavily influenced by social and political issues in the world, by our family history, and by our roots.
We will embody and improvise on social and political issues we care about through tools I used in my dance creation process in the last years that helped me create my dance solo "اثنين שתיים" and “Divide and Conquer” my latest creation about gender and politics.
We will come together as a diverse group from different backgrounds and each of you will create a political dance performance piece alone or as a duet. For people participating for the first days you will go through more of an emotional/dance process and less of a creation process, the continuing group will dive deeper.
One week process - Background needed / Pre-requisite / Level: advanced dance or theatre improv - you need to be able to have the confidence to make a dance/performance creation in one week if this is your first time you create but you’re advanced in dance do not be deterred - let’s make it.
shorter workshop - Background needed / Pre-requisite / Level: at least basic improvisation experience is recommended, I’ve also seen complete beginners dive deep into this process without much background than knowing just to dance, write me if you’re not sure.
How did this start?
Dancing the Political is a project owned by Saed Mansour - it started first in the artistic research of his solo Ethneen Shtaieem, and then was used in different creation and embodied processes - the first among them was with Heloise in Geneva and later on on his own and with other collaborators and organizations.
How do I choose a story/issue/conflict to work with?
You can choose a collective issue that is of personal connection to you: from your roots, ethnicity, race, or country. You can also choose a collective issue from another collective with a lot of sensitivity of how that other collective will feel towards you doing that. For example: a white person doing an act about Afrodescendant heritage needs to come with a great deal of awareness. In this space, we don’t want to over-provoke other people’s deep wounds - even though we believe in the act of provocation through art but in this particular space, we do want to be very sensitive towards the group that will work.