artistic directors

Leila Awadallah ليلى عوض الله (she/her)

is a dancer, choreographer and community collaborator based in Minneapolis, Mni Sota Makoce and sometimes in Beirut, Lebanon. She dances with roots that hold firmly to Palestine and softly to Sicily, born on Turtle Island – living in an Arab American context with mixed Mediterranean ways and waves. In 2021 she founded Body Watani Dance project which she holds as Artistic Director along with her sister Noelle. Body Watani is a body-as-homeland research practice that seeks to create, and work with movement from a Palestinian diasporic lens, asking how to find the dance practice and creative process that emerges with ancestral intuition, cultural folk experimentation, land-based attunement, and political clarity.

TERRANEA, Body Watani’s first evening length work was created through transnational collaborations across Lebanon, Palestine, Sicily and Mni Sota. Her solo YISSH has reached the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon as well as festivals in Palestine, Egypt, and across Mni Sota. She is a McKnight (2023), Jerome (2021), and Daring Dances (2019) fellow and was mentored by Dr. Ananya Chatterjea as a company member of Ananya Dance Theatre for 5 seasons (2014-2019). Leila is a collaborator of Kelvin Wailey dance trio (MN) and the Palestinian Women’s Theatre in Borj El-Barajneh refugee camp (Beirut).

Noelle Awadallah  نوال عوض الله (she/her)

is a Palestinian-American dancer, improviser, choreographer, and farmer residing in Mni Sota Makoce (Minneapolis). Her work as the Co-Artistic Director of Body Watani Dance is underscored by five years (and counting) of dancing with Ananya Dance Theatre, a BFA from Columbia College Chicago (2018), and her daily pursuit of a “land-based life,” which emerges from sumud — a Palestinian ideology guiding steadfast perseverance and rootedness in land. For Noelle, sumud drives her commitment and artistic approach to multidirectional attention, storytelling, resistance and liberation practices, futuristic imagination as a strategy, and tending to her reciprocal relationships with land and non-human beings.

Noelle’s solo work: Returned Arrived was presented at Red Eye Theater in the New Works Festival and toured to Chicago. She was a recipient of the Diyar Theatre مسرح ديار residency in Bethlehem, Palestine (2019) and the Hinge Arts Residency (2020). She holds a BFA from Columbia College Chicago (2018).

Images by Sabrina Jasmin Hammoudeh

artists

after the last red sky collaborators: (2024)

Tarek Abdelqader (he/him)

is a Minnesota-based musician and composer. He has performed and recorded his own work as a 2018 Cedar Commissions artist and 2019 MRAC Next Step recipient, and appears regularly supporting regional and international artists. Abdelqader also works as an accompanist, composer, and sound designer for schools and dance companies based in the Twin Cities and New York, including the Barbara Barker Center for Dance, Ananya Dance Theater, and Limón Dance Company.

José A. Luis (he/him)

was born in Veracruz, Mexico and raised in Racine, WI. He has lived in Milwaukee, Chicago, and now Minneapolis as of 2017. Relocation, departure, and arrival are motifs in his personal life, but present themselves in his works by shaping time and space. As a primary solo dance artist, his determination and openness to others continues by inviting collaborators, seeking ways to support emerging artists, and centering BIPOC processes through his “Reflections” series. The intimate, introspective, honest approach of his choreography and person is also present in his dancing, paving the way as a dancer in other artist’s work. José’s tenacity, skill, and acceptance in navigating the imperfectness of being human is at the forefront of who he is—in and outside the dance floor. www.jose.dance/bio

Emma Marlar (she/her)

In the context of After the Last Red Sky, Emma Marlar shows up first as a deep loving friend and second as a dramaturg/witness. In this role, she is in conversation with all parts of the work, listening in to how they overlap, shift, and change over a rehearsal process and tends to them with the future audience in mind. Emma sees this role as sometimes mirror, sometimes megaphone, and sometimes caretaker of the work. 

Tony Stoeri (he/him)

Tony is a freelance lighting designer for theatre and dance based in Minneapolis. His work has been seen with companies such as Trademark Theater Company, Alternative Motion Project, Stages Theater Company, BrkFst Dance, Frank Theatre, Walking Shadow Theatre Company, Opera Festival of Chicago, Theatre Mu, Wideman-Davis Dance, Indiana Festival Theater, Collide Theatrical Dance, and the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts. He holds an MFA in lighting from Indiana University, and teaches at Carleton College, where he is also the resident lighting designer. – tony

Laichee Yang (she/her)

is a constellation of HMoob, artist, dancer, and designer based in Mni Sota Makoce. Her practice focuses on intersectionality and spatial engagement, using art and questioning architecture to amplify, disrupt, and encourage reflection. Embedded in ancestral ways of making, where daily ritual is intimately intertwined with creative expression, her work involves the constant shifting between building, unbuilding, home, studio, labor, and medium.  She is deeply honored to have her practice be a part of Body Watani’s, After the Last Red Sky. Laichee has a Masters of Architecture from the University of Minnesota. -laichee

Image by Pat Berrett

TERRANEA collaborators (2021-2023)
minnesota

Nakita Kirchner (she/her)

is a movement artist blessed to have worked with Body Watani since 2021. Her perspective on sharing movement has radically shifted since working with the artists of Body Watani. She thanks those who support and witness this project. 

Emma Marlar (she/her)

is relearning her relationship to movement and dance. Though the connection never left, it has manifested in many different forms in recent years, often putting her more in the realms of witnessing and supporting. She is thrilled beyond belief to be back in her body, meeting herself anew and building back love and trust with her muscle memory. Body Watani has reminded her of the beauty and heartbreak of longing, the home in her body, and what it means to build deep love and intimacy within a group through shared research. With deep gratitude, she asks for more time for this.

Beyond the space created by Body Watani and the Awadallah sisters, Emma is currently excited about her work at RESOURCE, dancing in slo dance projects, and taking time to listen in, be true, and the magic that comes next.

Sharitah Nalule (she/her)

is originally from Kamapla, Uganda and has been residing in Minneapolis, Mini sota for the last thirteen years. She received her BA in general psychology, and dance from the University of Minnesota in 2021. She had the opportunity to work and collaborate with incredible artists/thinkers, such as Diyah R. Larasati, Ananya Chatterjea, Uti Setyastuti, Eyin Pantja, Leah Nelson, Eko Supriyanto and many more. She began the collaboration process with Leila Awadallah, Noelle Awadallah and the Body Watani collective through ​​videography in 2020. She is extremely humbled to be part of this practice and work, as it has not only sparked her artistic embodiment, but at the same time aligned with her interests within a psychological and liberation framework which she hopes to further explore during her time in graduate school.

Erica Jo Vibar Sherwood (they/them)

is a queer, mixed Midwest Mexiciliane (Chicane and Sicilian American) with several generations of family connection to Mnisota Mackoce.  A community trained dance artist, Erica Jo’s movement is deeply shaped by the teachings of Mexica-Nahuatl Danza (Kalpulli Yaocenoxtli and Kalpulli Huitzillin), the House and Street Dance scene of the Twin Cities and Ananya Dance Theatre. Their artistry is a practice of deep listening and telling stories about connection, queerness, ancestral wisdom and a deeper return to self. 

lebanon

Andrea Fahed

is a dancer based in Lebanon. Her journey in dance commenced with oriental dance, where she became the president of the Belly Dance Club at her university. In 2021, she ventured into the world of contemporary dance, driven by the curiosity to explore each dance style independently and discover their intersections. Andrea is one of the founders of Beirut Physical Lab, which aims to expand the contemporary dance and physical theater scene in Beirut and Lebanon. Andrea performed as a dancer and actor in ‘BeiRoot Bodies,’ ‘We Are The Ones Who Live Here,’ ‘Terranea,’ ‘Salma,’ and ‘Imprints.’”

Natasha Karam

is a multidisciplinary creative practitioner based in Lebanon. She dances between movement, images, words and sounds as a medium to question herself and her environment. Her focus mostly falls on the intersection between the human and natural world and the beauty existing in everyday life. As a movement artist, she initiated a short dance film supported by Maqamat entitled Turbulent flow (2021) featured in the 2022 Bipod festival, in which she figures as dancer and choreographer. She was selected as a participant artist in the Precipitate program organised by Yaraqa and DanseBase in 2022, and by p.a.r.t.s in Brussels for a residency led by Anne Theresa de Keersmaker in 2023. In late 2022, she participated and performed as a dancer and co-creator in Body Watani’s ongoing project Terranea led by Leila Awadallah. She is also one of the founding members of Da’ira collective, a creative permaculture collective.

Images above by Andres Perez (top) and Zaynab Mourad (bottom)