LeilAwa [Leila Awadallah] is an artist working with movement through embodied research and storytelling. She is a Palestinian-American who engages culturally and politically with her ancestral roots and the geographic soils in which they are growing. LeilAwa's lineages are Mediterranean, yet her body was born and lives on Dakota / Anishinaabe lands.

LeilAwa’s work manifests in dance pieces, durational performance installations, and short experimental film. Her dance examines the body’s resistance to settler colonial violence and systematic distortions and erasures, and the choreography of occupation in the context of Palestine. Her physical movement seeks connection to place, land, home and memory and is created within a framework of the Arab imaginary.

While at Camargo, LeilAwa focused on a daily practice of body watani (Arabic for “my homeland") in order to build a clearer physical practice for future work and collaborations. She seeked to learn from land based, durational improvisation practices rooted in traditional dances of the region: baladi, raqs sharqi, and tarantella. The physical work was paired with historical / cultural / spiritual research questions in order to merge what subconsciously manifests during the embodied practice, with active and reflective thought that helps guide the mind-body through the terrain of memory.

LeilAwa was in residence at Camargo from January 13 to February 12, 2020, in partnership with Jerome Foundation.