DANCING QUEER
We are excited to share that we have been
successful in receiving Arts Council England
Project funding to deliver
Research and development period accross 2023 and 2024.
Encompassing the lived
experience of queer refugees
.
Belly Dancing Robot
Egyptian Culture
Drag
Performers
Belly Dance
Arabic Musicians
Phase I Development
Funding from Arts Council England has enabled a research & development period of Dancing Queer across 2023 & 2024, allowing Shrouk to expand their work from a one person belly dancing show into a bigger scale performance work incorporating live music, movement, set, technology and video. Dancing Queer R&D brings together Shrouk’s experience and expertise as an engineer, drag artist and belly dancer performing alongside a new belly dancing life-size robot prototype! Funded by RS Components.
The two week Research and Development period took place in early 2024 with a range of collaborators including;
Musicians:
Oud Player,
Tabla Player,
Darbuka Player,
Violinist
Lighting Design
Set Design
Queer Refugee Performers
Bellydancing Robot (Zooka! As named by Shrouk’s mum)
The project has opened opportunities for
4 introductory performance roles for local
refugees who are interested in theatre and performance.
Engagement
The development period has enabled Shrouk to design a blueprint process for touring work where local refugee communities work with them to process & retell their own stories in their local city, alongside increasing career opportunities in which local people are able to take ownership over their stories and how they want to tell these stories.
As part of the project development, we worked with two refugee charities - Bristol Refugee Rights and their Pride Without Borders participants alongside Cardiff based organisation Glitter Cyrmu. Through this collaboration, Shrouk delivered 2 x storytelling and script writing workshops with participants fed into and informed Dancing Queer performance work.
About Shrouk
Shrouk El-Attar(she/her orthey/them) is a Queer Electronics Engineer and belly dancer. Born in Egypt, they have been living in the United Kingdom as a refugee since 2007. They are an activist forrefugee rightsin the UK, and for LGBT rightsin her native Egypt.
Shrouk has solidified prominence within hersector with their passionate activism. Named as one of the 100 Most Influential Women in The World in 2018 by the BBC, Shrouk passionately advocatesfor LGBT+ rights and sharestheir personal experience of being a Queer Arab through Egyptian belly dance performances.
“As an Egyptian, I grew up with bellydance being simply called "dance ". The term “bellydance” is a Westerncoined name that isn’t even descriptive of the authentic practice - we don’t use our bellies to dance, it is performed by everyone, for everyone (not just by women for men’s entertainment), and the original Egyptian costume even covered the stomach and arms. On Google, nearly everybody in image search is white, western, female, and looks nothing like me. It often feels like I have been wiped out of my own culture.”
