Farah Saleh
Farah Saleh is a Palestinian dancer, choreographer and scholar based in Scotland. She has studied linguistic and cultural mediation in Italy and, in parallel, continued her studies in contemporary dance. Since 2010, she has taken part in local and international projects with Sareyyet Ramallah Dance Company (Palestine), the Royal Flemish Theatre and Les Ballets C de la B (Belgium), Mancopy Dance Company (Denmark/Lebanon), Siljehom/Christophersen (Norway) and Candoco Dance Company (UK). Saleh has also been teaching dance, coordinating and curating artistic projects, including the Sareyyet Ramallah Summer Dance School, which she co-founded in 2016. In 2014 she won the third prize of the Young Artist of the Year Award (YAYA) organized by A.M. Qattan Foundation in Palestine for her installation A Fidayee Son in Moscow and in 2016 she won the dance prize of Palest’In and Out Festival in Paris for the duet La Même. She was an Associate Artist at Dance Base in Edinburgh from 2017-2021, and in 2023, she earned her practice-based PhD from Edinburgh College of Art. In 2024, Saleh started a lectureship in Global Majority Performance at the Theatre Studies Department at Glasgow University.
Balfour Reparations (2024-2044) Performance Lecture
St Alfege Church, London
13th September 2024
Culture& proudly presents the London debut of Balfour Reparations (2024-2044), a performance lecture by Palestinian dancer and choreographer Farah Saleh. This was part of Time, Space and Empire, a cross-arts programme exploring the concepts of time, space, and the development of Britain’s sea power during the expansion of its former empire in relation to the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site in Southeast London and the Potteries in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire.
Photo Credit: Sonska Studio.
This performance lecture investigated ways of confronting the United Kingdom’s colonial legacy in Palestine. In particular, the role of Arthur James Balfour, the country’s Prime Minister (1902-1905), Foreign Secretary (1916-1919), Chancellor and Rector of many prominent UK universities (1886-1930), in the historical denial of Palestinian political rights in their homeland.Saleh layers history, fiction, and fantasy through a lens of Critical Fabrication and Afrofuturism while engaging with and being inspired by archival material, such as documents, photos of historical sites in England, Scotland and Palestine, and videos including Balfour inaugurating the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1925 juxtaposed with Farah as a Palestinian scholar inaugurating decolonisation at a British University in 2024.
Photo Credit: Sonska Studio.
Saleh compellingly dances across the stage in a solo performance, wearing a black scholar robe decorated with Tatreez, a form of traditional Palestinian embroidery. In 2021, UNESCO recognised the art of embroidery in Palestine as an important intangible cultural heritage. The audience is invited to participate in the performance, imagining new futures beyond the twenty-year projection. The performance lecture takes place in 2044 to reflect on the fictive apology letter that the United Kingdom will have issued in 2024 to the Palestinian people, promising reparations.
Brexit means Brexit!
Image: Farah Saleh, Brexit means Brexit! 2018. Siobhan Davies Studios. Commissioned by PS/Y for Hysteria. Photo by Anne Tetzlaff
Siobhan Davies Studios
23 March 2018
Beginning with Theresa May’s famously repeated phrase, “Brexit means Brexit!”, the performance considers factors that led to the vote, but more importantly the impact of the current political situation: the uncertainty, frustration, and polarization of society.
Developed in collaboration with Victoria Tischler, Professor of Arts and Health, Head of the Dementia Care Centre, University of West London, Brexit means Brexit! explores how the political divide manifests on a physical, emotional and social level. How does Brexit affect the UK’s European residents, for both those who voted to leave and those who voted to remain?
Choreography: Farah Saleh
Research: Farah Saleh and Victoria Tischler
Dancers: Robert Hesp and Tanja Erhart
Costume design: Jill Skulina
Produced by PS/Y, with initial research period supported by Candoco Dance Company. Commissioned by PS/Y for Hysteria. Film by Beth Chalmers. Thanks to Dance Base, Edinburgh.