The Daughters’ Trilogy. Chapter III: Dancing

Cana Bilir-Meier, Cana Bilir-Meier & Chana Boekle & Silvia Troian, Assaf Gruber, Rabbya Naseer, Armando Nin

Once upon a time, our grandmother Mamanjoon told us that our father was one of her daughters …

The daughters of all sexes find themselves in a world that is being destroyed by capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism. While injustice, atrocities, war crimes, and genocide are live-streamed, new forms of fascism take over.

The daughters may be exhausted, wounded, hurt. They may have suffered the biggest of losses and lack perspective that a better moment will come. Yet, the daughters will continue to struggle for what they believe in. They won’t give in to powerlessness, impotence, or the promise of pseudo solutions. The daughters insist on doing, acting, creating. Dancing is part of their action. Through improvising and dancing, they form a community with other daughters for other daughters. By moving together, they create spaces where none are available to them. This social interaction exudes joy, empowerment, resistance, and solidarity.

Dancing as resistance can take many forms apart from actually dancing: overwriting the signage of public space, balancing body, fire, and canvas, or filming across different times and perspectives … In our dark times, these are all ways of dancing that protest against smoothly dancing through one’s life as usual.

Curated by Nina Tabassomi.