Personal Spiritual Political
I believe creative and embodied work can open space that discussion alone can’t. When dialogue is blocked, art can still get through — not to preach or persuade, but to invite presence, reflection, and open exchange.
The Banned Monologues
A multidisciplinary performance made in response to the so-called ‘Muslim Ban’. It explores West Asian/’Middle Eastern’ diaspora and nonconformist British-Muslim identities through song, storytelling and humour. Six monologues weave together family history with the wider history of minorities and migration across West Asia, alongside folk songs in Kurdish, Arabic, Turkish, Farsi, Ladino and English. The music and monologues place cultures historically in conflict side by side — a Kurdish song next to a Turkish one, or Sephardic Ladino next to Arabic music from the same era.
Shared as a work-in-progress with an invited audience at St Peter’s Church, Notting Hill, and The Mosaic Rooms, in November 2017.
Modules Fragmented
A movement-based piece exploring different parts of the self — parts that tend to repeat old patterns rather than move forward. If resilience means bouncing back, what does it take to actually move forward instead? The piece is structured as a series of non-linear modules.
One module, Sleep Cycles, explores a liminal space of awareness — sensing what needs to happen, set against the pull of the familiar. Another, Soup to Stand | From Inertia to Standing, pairs a voice message describing how to make Ash-e-reshteh (an Iranian bean soup) with a figure slumped in a chair who slowly comes to presence. The movement draws on the awakening sequence in physical theatre training, rooted in Étienne Decroux’s Corporeal Mime and Jerzy Grotowski’s Poor Theatre.
Sheelan زكي 