I am gone from the metal when the metal hits the mould

Project Description

Two works:

I am gone from the metal when the metal hits the mould is about the metamorphosis of codeswitching; how we adapt to the world through layers of characters that we can put on, toss off, and morph between. These characters are both tools for survival – used for passing and moving smoothly through the world, as well as portals of expansion into ways of being that are beyond our cultures normative script. We are questioning how to tease them out theatrically through the embodiment of fantastical play.

thaw is a solo about a continually emergent identity expressed through physically detailed character play and interaction with sculptural materials. The performer slips in and out of multiple fantastical selves, illuminating the many characters we embody each day, however subtle. It is an allowance of an amorphous, queer mixed-race identity to play itself out, as transformation becomes the only reliable anchor.

Artist Profile

Often creating costume design, video, or installation elements alongside choreography, she is interested in the word fantasy and the prophetic power of coaxing our imaginations beyond the confines of white supremacy. Her practice examines the multiplicity of characters that we use to adapt to the world both as a tool for survival as well as portals of expansion into ways of being that are beyond our cultures normative script.

She is enthralled by the body in flux, by the transformation that occurs through loss and the corresponding death of identity. These liminal states offer passageways to new ways of relating to the world that can be probed by the sensitive performing body.

With a childhood in Islam, a youth in Christianity, an early adulthood cracked open by intersectional feminism and queerness, Zahra investigates spirituality, identity, and death through her work. She is interested in the continual fluid process of generating identity alongside the freedom to dismantle it the moment it begins to crystalize. She believes that live physical performance is a powerful site for accessing the transformative power of self-representation.

Biography:
Zahra Shahab is an independent dance artist and choreographer living on the traditional, ancestral and unceded Coast Salish territory of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations. She is a graduate of the University of Calgary School of Creative and Performing Arts as well as the Modus Operandi Contemporary Dance Training Program. She has presented choreographic work and experimental films in Calgary at the Fluid Festival, Calgary Underground Film Festival, University of Calgary and Alberta Dance Festival, in Vancouver at Dance in Vancouver, The Dance Centre’s 12 minute max, Shooting Gallery Performance, Festival of Recorded Movement, PushOFF, and New Works Performance, Toronto at the Toronto Dance Theatre’s Emerging Voices Program and Mexico City’s Movimiento en Movimiento. She presented her first full length work in Vancouver with New Works Performance (January 2020).

https://zahrashahab.ca/