upcoming
performances & opportunities
FROM PALESTINE TO TURTLE ISLAND
open call: a 2-day gathering & Creative Exchange
From Palestine to Turtle Island is a two day gathering facilitated by Palestinian sisters, Leila and Noelle Awadallah as a part of Pillsbury House + Theatre Makers Series. The gathering will be centering the letter: Working Towards Indigenous Liberation from Turtle Island to Palestine between Nick Estes (Mni Luzahan, South Dakota) and Maath Musleh (Al Quds, Palestine) as a beginning point. Our time together will be rooted in land based lessons in order to patiently build relationship and enact reciprocity to land, more than human beings, and each other – specifically by engaging with homelands that have been, or are in the midst of being stolen by settler colonial forces.
Utilizing somatics, movement, voice, agricultural practices, writing, discussion, discourse, and constellation mapping we will immerse ourselves in the questions of Indigenous struggles and solidarities between Palestine and Turtle Island.
When: Saturday & Sunday August 1-2 from 10-5pm
Where: Pillsbury House Theater, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Who: Interested artists should apply and read the open call. A group of 10 artists* will be invited to join the gathering and receive a small stipend + meals. (Numbers are limited due to desire for intimacy & resources)
FILM SCREENING | of a performance procession at Dar Jacir
June 17th at 7PM Pillsbury House Theater
with pre show coffee, snacks at 6PM
Film followed by a conversation with Leila & Noelle Awadallah facilitated by Anniessa Antar
In the summer of 2025 the sister duo of Body Watani Dance: Leila & Noelle Awadallah were artists-in-residence at the Dar Yusuf Nasri Jacir for Art and Research in Bethlehem, Palestine researching the relationship between stolen land, farming, and the dancing body. The historic Jacir home is down the street from the Awadallah family home made of stone in Beit Jala (by the hands of their jiddo, post-Nakba), and not far from their ancestral village Ras Abu Ammar (a living ghost under stolen land marked with settlements). A residency stewarded by Emily Jacir and a team of artists.
During their time in residence, they reimagined After the Last Red Sky as a performance procession around the grounds of the Dar Jacir home. The adaptation became a collaboration between the original work and the ways it shapeshifted with the breathing and buzzing of life in stone synasil walls, plants blooming from farming terraces, and horizon lines visible on the roof top of the house. A performance that was created in dedication to the Palestinian sky, was finally performed under that very sky. This film is a record of that day, recorded and edited as an archive of the dance, the house, the plants, the stones, and the people who all came together to share space for a night. From the grounds, up the spiral staircase, and to the rooftop to hold the silence, and watch the sun set.
classes, workshops, community offerings
GRIEF & RAGE CIRCLE FOR PALESTINE:
from the river to the river series
New life is moving, grief is moving, and the river is still moving.
From the River to the River series returns, please join us.
Singing and Music Circle
Friday May 22nd 10:30-12pm @ Hidden Falls Regional Park
We’ll gather at the River to learn songs of resistance, prayer, and life with guest facilitators Ritika Ganguly, Marwa Nasser Metzler, Relle Sonnenschein, and Miri Karraker. Bring a song and instruments you’d like to share.
Full Moon Circle
Friday May 29th 5:30-7pm @ Hidden Falls Regional Park
Facilitated by *Aziz Bisanz and Noelle Awadallah, we’ll be weaving together astrology, ancestral healing, and embodiment practices with the guidance of the River and the Sagittarius full moon.
7 week tai chi series
Powderhorn Park, Minneapolis with Leila Awadallah
Sundays 2-3PM June 7, 14, 21, 28 and July 12
Thursdays 5-6PM June 4, 11, 18, 25
Wednesdays 5-6PM July 1, 8, 15
all sessions are free
Invitation:
To gather and practice tai chi in powderhorn park. Participants are welcome to come regularly, or spontaneously, but know that a committed practice will allow for a deeper encounter with the form. Beginners welcome (we are all beginners).
Material:
These sessions will include qi gong warm-ups, followed by dedicated focus on the slow set, a sequence passed down to me by my teacher Mounir Abdallah, in the lineage of Master Tung Kai. Through attending these sessions, one can either enjoy simply following the flow of this movement, or deepen their ability to memorize and study section 1 and 2 of this sequence.
Logistics:
Specific location in Powderhorn Park and weather related updates will be shared through a weekly email. If you plan to attend a session, please email bodywatani@gmail.com so that you can be included in communication.
Made possible through support from Springboard for the Arts.
residencies
2026 | Body Watani Dance project directors Leila & Noelle Awadallah are Makers Series artists this year at Pillsbury House Theater.
2025-2027 | Body Watani is a part of the Company-in-Residence program at MOVO. Funding made possible by the Jerome Foundation | Minneapolis, MN
artistic directors’ resonant projects:
The following offerings engage Leila Awadallah & Noelle Awadallah as independent artists in work that is connected to Body Watani Dance Project but is not necessarily falling under that umbrella.
Red Eye Festival | June 11-13 7PM
Leila Awadallah presents a new work in progress:
an experiment in wielding ripples of vibration | INTIFADA INCANTATION
featuring collaborators Noelle, Loulou, and Zaquia
A group of performers are joined by a self-playing instrument that drones and shifts based on the vibrations in the floor and air. A work activated by specific bodies, tethered ancestrally to Palestine, and tethered viscerally to the ruptures ongoing. Asking; how do we enact a series of experiments and incantations*; attuning to the ripples and attempting to wield them towards the shapes of intifada* near and far.
* انتفاضة – to shake off, tremor, uprising
more info & tickets here
NextGen Choreolab | June 21
Noelle Awadallah presents a new work alongside NextGen cohort members Nate Ramos and Colin Edwards
save the date! more info coming soon…
About: Ananya Dance Theatre’s NextGen Choreolab is a nine-month stipended mentorship in St. Paul, Minnesota for nascent generative dance artists working innon-Western/non-mainstream aesthetics. Come see what these three artists have been developing!
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