The Body I Live In

Theater has always provided a platform for reflection, collaboration, social justice advocacy and community-building, yet, I have always believed in arts for the sake of arts! The experience of “Rahaen” my latest work, where we confronted sexism and addressed the liberation of women, have strongly shifted my approach in arts to take responsibility towards the community, target social injustice, give voice to the marginalized, and promote social change. “Rahaen” had an immediate impact, cultivating deep empathy, spreading awareness and stepping into empowering women and promoting change!

The main goal of “The Body I Live In” is to decrease the public mental health stigma and to loudly state that there is no shame in our psychological difficulties; they should be discussed openly like any other physical disease, persons undergoing those difficulties should not be struggling alone, they have to be understood, considered and included.

How was the show built?

The success of “Rahaen” has influenced me to continue to implement the same methodology, of using the subjects’ statements as my script, as for I believe I could never get to write what they have to say.

“The Body I Live In”, tackles the subject of persons with difficult psychological states, a six month research period of the literature on this matter alongside with conducted interviews with persons undergoing psychological discomfort was implemented. 30 persons were interviewed and asked a set of 10 questions, under the supervision of a trusted social worker. The questions were a means to get to uncover their struggles and concerns, and most importantly to tailor the script and translate it to a solo body movement performance.

The answers I had have hunted me for some good amount of time, overwhelmed with feelings , realizing my subjects’ need to be unveiled and liberated from the public stigma of their conditions have set me off to map out a body movement performance accompanied with live music and chanting, under the title of “The Body I Live In”.

“The Body I Live in”

 The twirl of all the responses in my head has designed the show, every move is a word said and a feeling felt, “The Body I Live In” addresses a silent language of communication through the body. It raises the questions: how would a body with this entire psychological burden move and use it to communicate? How could all those psychological struggles be translated to our bodies? How would what I heard and reflected through my body be perceived by the audience? Would the audience go back home and hold the phone to check on people they love? Would they smile at strangers they encounter in the street on their way back home?

“The Body I Live In” refers to the round of suffering, enduring and understanding it, wandering, searching, fighting, and drowning in unbalanced emotions, and anxiousness, death and rebirth to a freer, lighter existence. “The Body I Live In” insists on our bodies being a continuous flow, and escaping it is not possible, rather enduring the pain, sharing it and expressing it, a process where we have the tendency to keep creating worlds and then moving into them; rather than changing places, this creating and moving in doesn’t just happen once, at birth. We’re doing it all the time! And when all the walls fall down, and the cocoon completely disappears and we are totally open to what may happen, with no withdrawing, no centralizing into ourselves and no fear is when we are born again underneath our own skin and inside the same body we continue to live in, this time, in peace.

This show is an ongoing research process.