Losing it

Samaa Wakim and Samar Haddad King

Live performance

Maison Folie Wazemmes, Lille
40min
Pass Latitudes

In Losing it, two Palestinian artists, Samaa Wakim and Samar Haddad King, examine, through dance and music, how growing up in a war zone played in the construction of their identities.

Currently based in Haifa, Israel, Samaa Wakim is a dancer and choreographer. In 2021, she created Losing it, a duo with the musician Samar Haddad King: together they examined the Palestinian ‘condition’ through the traces and memories of the many conflicts in the area. In the middle of the stage a stretched-out, taut elastic separates the space: it is a border, a demarcation, a ridge line, a tipping point, on top of which the dancer tries to maintain her equilibrium in order to not fall into the chaos surrounding her … To help her in her fight, Samaa Wakim invokes the fantastical universes she imagined as a child, using them to face her fears. The dance dialogues with the live music of Samar Haddad King, based on recordings she made in the field in Palestine beginning in 2010. Accompanied by the voice of Wakim, the sounds which create fear and which offer comfort are woven together to blur the line between the real and the imaginary, between the past and the present. It is an intense experience, essential in this day and age, shining a light on the way the body layers and folds into itself, how it is affected by the trauma endured by so many generations.

Accessibility infos :

Lyrics in Arabic without subtitles
Changing sound level
The show will be audio descipted on June 27th

With the support of Lieux Culturels Pluridisciplinaires de la Ville de Lille

Biography(s)

Samaa Wakim graduated from the faculty of Theatre at the University of Haifa. She has performed in various international productions such as “Badke” by A.M Qattan foundation, KVS and Les Ballets C de la B in Belgium;2012-2017 “‘I’m Yusuf and this is my brother” co-produced by Shiber-Hur and Young Vic Theatre in London 2009-2012; “Kabaret” Khashabi theatre Haifa, Palestine 2016-2018 and as a member of Yaa Samar! Dance theatre since 2014. “Losing it” was developed as part of the Goethe Institute project “Un|Controlled Gestures?” (2019-2020).

Samar Haddad King, Artistic/Founding Director of Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre, earned her BFA in choreography at Ailey/Fordham under the tutelage of Kazuko Hirabayashi. She was a 2018 Resident Artist at Chaillot – théâtre national de la Danse (Paris), a 2019/20 Resident Fellow at The Center for Ballet and the Arts (CBA) at NYU, and is a 2021 Toulmin Creator (CBA/National Sawdust). King choreographed the 2019 musical We Live in Cairo, (American Repertory Theater, Boston), and co- authored a chapter on dance in the Arab World for the 2nd edition of Contemporary Choreography (Routledge, January 2018).

Credits

Stage direction : Samaa Wakim & Samar Haddad King
Choreography and performance : Samaa Wakim
Musical interpretation : Samar Haddad King
Light conception : Cord Haldun
Technical management : Philippe Elstermann
Music : Turathy – Autostrad

Production : samaa wakim

Coproduction : theaterformen festival, yaa samar! dance theater & khashabi theater

“losing it” was created for the project “un|controlled gestures?” (2019-2020) of the goethe institute

Creation : 2021 @festival theaterformen hanover, germany

Delegated Production : sens interdits