Our Bodies, Our Voices
Co-Choreographer-Director-Performer
In Collaboration with Heather Harrington

In Collaboration with Heather Harrington. This collaborative project is a two-part, 60 minute performance and lecture, exploring themes of coverage, feminine comportment rooted in culture, societal expectations for the female body, the connection between a woman’s physicality and her sense of self agency, along with treatment, gestures, and postures. The collaboration will include Assaf’s solo, Sawtee (My Voice), which includes elements of poetry and music by Afghani, Iranian, and Lebanese female artists, and focuses on how discrimination affects female voices. Harrington’s solo, What about me? examines beliefs and language that support rape culture using the Stanford rape case as source material. Assaf and Harrington, while on different continents, have been working on the collaboration individually and came together for the first time in Sweden in June 2017 at the NOFOD conference to perform the work (which was titled Embodying Feminism in the 21st Century: Perspectives from the East and the West), demonstrating the power of the body to communicate through movement messages about gender and politics. Festival NEXT is their second presentation of the work.

Am I Who I Am Who Are You Who
Director/Choreographer/Trainer/Dancer
In collaboration with: Al-Sarab Dance Company, Amr Selim, Hediyeh Azma

Words are set side by side to portray a specific meaning. If the words are shuffled around and put in a different order, they will not portray the same exact meaning. This is the same for movement. Movement when viewed from varying angles can give a variety of meanings but the essence is the same; like a string of words. Emotions, like pain, come in the form of a physical memory and the body is a true container of memories. It is a vessel of truth like no other. The body is the carrier of pain and joy in equal doses. And it holds no grudges or favoritism as it cannot think or rationalize. Its truth holds more than a million thoughts can. Music: Amr Selim Performed in several locations across Lebanon: Arz el Barouk, Baalbek, Hamra, Beirut Souks, Byblos Old Souk, Byblos Meena, LAU Beirut.

Hold On to Me
Choreographer/Dancer
In collaboration with: Al-Sarab Dance Company, Amr Selim, Hediyeh Azma

The piece tackles issues of struggle and personal development. Performed in Byblos Public Garden and Beirut Gulbenkian Theater as a part of IDDFL 2017.

One Leg at a Time
Choreographer

The piece tackles issues of gender equality.Original Score: Laissez Mon A Me by MAJD performed in Byblos Public Garden and Beirut Gulbenkian Theater as a part of IDDFL 2017.

Sawtee
Choreographer/Principal Dancer and Performer/Trainer
Sawtee is a multifaceted, multi-genre performance creation which highlights the female identity and is primarily guided by the songs of the artist Yolla Khalife and the Choreography of Nadra Assaf and Souraya Baghdadi, artistically adapted to the stage and directed by Chadi Zein.The work explores different areas of gender, particular the female ones through movement, music, words, scenography, sound and lighting. Sawtee is a tribute to females who manage to continue moving forward despite the pain and suffering inflicted on them psychologically. sociologically, historically by males. Sawtee is an artistic representation of the female mystic, poetic essence and presence. Sawtee takes the audience to the hyper reality of the core of what it means to be a female from pleasure and ecstasy to sorrow and pain. Performed for 3 days at Monnot Theater Aschrafieh, Lebanon.

This. Is. How? It. Happened?
Choreographer/Director/Dancer/Trainer
THIH is a multidisciplinary creation which takes audiences on a time line journey through a collaborative process and fusion of movement, music and projection. TIHIH presents the opportunity for audiences to contemplate what it means to have a vision/dream and the passion to make it a reality. Performed for 4 days at Al-Madina Theater, Beirut, Lebanon. Music: Majd Alalam.

Peculiar Conformation
Choreographer/trainer
Insights into being a female in a paternal society. Performed at IDDFL 2016.                                                                                                          

INFLUX
Choreographer/trainer
Insights into being a female in a paternal society. Performed at IDDFL 2016.