Class, Coffee & Conversation with Marah Haj & Nur Garabli | International Connections: Scotland, Belgium & Palestine
The Work Room studio
11 February
Class, 10am - 11am
Coffee & Conversation, 11am - 11:30am
The Work Room, studio, Tramway
Free, RSVP to hello@theworkroom.org.uk
The Work Room is delighted to be hosting Palestinian dance artists Marah Haj & Nur Garabli in the studio, developing a new project with the working title lululeeesh. On Wednesday 11 Feb, Nur and Marah are opening up their practice to connect with members through an invitation for members to gather and join them in movement and conversation.
The sharing will be structured around a one-hour physical practice session (10 – 11 am), sharing some of the approaches and practices they are working with during their process, followed by coffee and conversation in the resource room (11 – 11:30am).
Sharing Practice
“At this stage of our research, we invite The Work Room members to join us as we share the practices guiding our journey. We will explore transmission through physical contact, sensory activation, hooking, moving with attached hands, shaking, and partnering while playing with various scores. Through these practices—and by turning our focus inward—we create a space where proximity and intimacy can emerge through movement.” Marah & Nur
Read on to discover more about the project and the research methodologies informing the creation of the work below
Booking
Free to attend. For members and friends of The Work Room. To book a place, please RSVP via email to hello@theworkroom.org.uk
Biographies
Marah Haj Hussein (b. 1998) is a dancer, actress, and maker from Kofor Yassif in Occupied Palestine, currently based in Antwerp. She holds a BA in Dance from the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp and an MA in Drama from KASK, Ghent. Following her first work, which examined power dynamics between spoken languages in colonial contexts, she continues to research colonial body languages and their mechanisms of imposition. In 2025, she received the Sector Prize for Most Acclaimed Performance for Under 35 for her piece Language: no broblem, after receiving the Roel Verniers Prize from Het Theaterfestival in 2023 for the same work.
Nur Garabli (b. 1996) is a choreographer and dancer from Yaffa in Occupied Palestine. She holds a BA in Dance and Education from the School of Dance Arts in Tel Aviv. Raised in a multigenerational household with her mother, twin sister, and grandmother, her work blends Palestinian folklore with contemporary techniques, allowing tradition to transform into living, evolving movement. Her practice explores memory as a site of resistance and continuity. Nur co-curated Moving Together (2022 and 2023), a festival bringing women together through dance and shared heritage.
lululeeesh
This project brings together Marah Haj and Nur Garabli, two Palestinian artists. Marah grew up in Kofor Yassif (PS) and is currently based in Antwerp (BE). Nur was born in Ajami, Jaffa (PS), where she still resides.
Within a context of continuous dislocation, we strive to meet, seek connection, and work together for the first time. Carrying the shared realities of Occupied Palestine in our bodies—yet embodying them differently—we ask: what can such a bodily encounter reveal?
As dance makers, we examine the internalized violence embedded in movement techniques shaped by militarization. In response, we activate ways of moving that rewrite language on our own terms. We intersect lines non-linearly, resist solidified meanings of the past as well as ready-made futures, and propose more intimate forms of transmission rooted in our mothers and grandmothers.
This creation is a journey of colliding experiences—an archaeological process in which we dig into our bodies as living, transformative matter anchored in the present. It is a meeting point of contradictions and vulnerabilities, humor and tension—an attempt to reshape our minds by befriending our bodies in liberating and transformative ways.
Research Methodology
We do not approach dance as a device for imposed gestures. Instead, we research a language that speaks from us—as political, social, and subjective bodies—beyond aesthetic representation, positioning the body as an active producer of embodied knowledge.
Revisiting our different dance education timelines in Occupied Palestine. We return to bodily memory, confront ourselves, and re-question the paradoxical traces these experiences have left. What were our bodies being taught beyond movement? To what extent can we unlearn? Can body memory be consciously forgotten?
Observing how dance training functions as a strategy contributing to ongoing colonial mindsets. On one hand, we investigate technique in relation to militarization as a deliberate strategy of control through specific physicality and vocabulary. On the other, we reflect on Western dance being positioned as universal.
Experimenting with the possibilities and impossibilities of activating unlearning processes. We explore what our bodies have registered, aiming to initiate a process of de-inscribing internalized violence.
Recalling our matrilineality—how inherited gestures and stories from this lineage can be re-interpreted and re-embodied in the present. We work with sound and voice as carriers of movement, allowing them to resonate within us and reactivate traces of the past in the present.