Body Watani Dance Presents:
El-Funoun Palestinian Dance Troupe
Community Dabke Workshops, Performance Sharing and Dialogue
(Curated Rental)
October 16-17, 2024
Red Eye Theater
2213 Snelling Ave | Minneapolis, MN 55404
Workshops
Wednesday, October 16, 5-6 pm - Youth Workshop
Designed for ages 7–14, this workshop is an introduction to basic steps of traditional Palestinian dances. This family-friendly interactive training explores the role of dabke in shaping Palestinian identity and culture.
Wednesday, October 16, 6:30-8:30 pm - Community Dabke Workshop
This workshop is open to folks of all experience levels and identities and will be an introduction to Palestinian Dabke and learning the basic steps.
Thursday, October 17, 10 am-12 pm - Dabke for Experienced Dancers
This workshop is designed for dancers, choreographers, and anyone who is interested in deepening their understanding of traditional Palestinian dabke, including dalouneh and tayara. Dancers will also learn improvisation of the laweeh, the leader of the dabke circle.
Thursday, October 17, 4:30-6:30pm - SWANA + BIPOC Community Dabke Workshop
We invite our Arab and SWANA community as well as other BIPOC friends to join in a collaborative community dabke workshop and preparation for an informal performance to share following the workshop (at 7pm).
*Class registration comes with a promo code for a free ticket to the Community Dabke Performance and El-Funoun Dialogue.
Performance & Dialogue
Thursday, October 17, 7-8:30 pm
Dancers that participate in the SWANA + BIPOC Community Dabke Workshop will share an informal performance at 7 pm, led by El-Funoun dancers followed by a performance by El-Funoun. After the performances, El-Funoun dancers and local facilitators will discuss the history of dabke as a vital Palestinian cultural practice and the ways dabke acts as a form of cultural preservation and resistance. After the presentation, audience members will be invited to learn dabke steps, participate in a traditional dabke circle, and meet with the dancers.
Tickets
We are asking a sliding scale fee of $25–$50 per class as well as for audience members of the Thursday performance. Nobody will be turned away for lack of funds. This is the minimum registration ask, but we encourage you to be much, much more generous if you are able. All funds will go directly to support El-Funoun’s on-going work in Palestine and worldwide to keep Palestinian dance, music, and culture alive and thriving.
Accessibility
Dabke is a rhythmic footwork form that is practiced in a standing position, with stomping and tapping feet, moving around the space and often practiced with held hands. If you would like to attend a workshop and have any hesitations about participating in the physical structure of this dance form, email bodywatani@gmail.com and we are happy to talk and imagine with you what ways you can hold these rhythms in your body during the workshop.
El-Funoun Dance Troupe, the premier Palestinian dance group, will be visiting from Ramallah, Palestine to offer a special series of dabke workshops to teach this traditional Palestinian dance while raising urgent funds needed for El-Funoun to continue their forty-five year legacy.
El-Funoun is a precious cultural organization facing a dire financial situation due to the compounding effects of the current moment of siege and genocide as well as ongoing Israeli colonization as well as El-Funoun's ethical stance regarding funding. El-Funoun refuses what is known as conditional funding, namely funds from mainly European nations available to Palestinian NGOs on the condition that they denounce righteous Palestinian resistance. This has been further exacerbated by El-Funoun’s recent decision to also refuse funding from countries who have been silent about genocide being perpetrated by Israel and have not called for a ceasefire.
Your participation in these workshops will be a material form of support for El-Funoun as they fundraise for their survival and the ways they preserve the cultural legacy of dabke.
The local, collaborative hosts organizing this opportunity are the Grief & Rage Circle for Palestine, Mizna, and Body Watani Dance project, via curated rentals at Red Eye Theater.
El Funoun Palestinian Popular Dance Troupe (فرقة الفنون الشعبية الفلسطينية) has been performing since 1989 and has become renowned throughout Palestine, the SWANA region and the world for their music, dabke performances and culture bearing. El-Funoun is volunteer powered, with anywhere between 50-250 volunteers at any given time.
Body Watani Dance is a space to research, investigate and create performances from an embodied relation with ‘watan’ or homeland inside our bodies while centering a Palestinian diasporic lens. It is the project of two Palestinian American sisters based in Minneapolis, Mni Sota Makoce: Leila and Noelle Awadallah.
Grief & Rage Circle for Palestine began in October 2023 to hold space for BIPOC communities to gather to feel and mobilize the grief and rage of the genocide taking place against the Palestinian people. The circle is held by Aziz Bisanz, Noelle Awadallah, Erica Jo Vibar Sherwood, Anniessa Antar, Leila Awadallah.
For over twenty-five years, Mizna has been a woman-led contemporary arts organization. Since our founding, we have promoted experimental approaches to art, literature, and film; work that questions and expands the forms and conceptual frameworks of Arab and SWANA culture.
This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.