Resistanssi / Resisdance
project by Jenna Jauhiainen & Monia Kimara
March-April 2024: a public Dabke dance action in the streets of Berlin, everyday for two weeks in different important locations and neighbourhoods
April 2024: a video art piece consisted of the documentations of the dance action shown in Gallery Pleiku, Berlin as part of the exhibition BODY PEACE KEEPER
July 2024: a lecture performance shown in HZT, UdK Rundgang Festival at the dance center Ûferstudios, Berlin
September 2025: a lecture performace (VJing of the dance action video clips and other Palestine-related issues) and a Dabke workshop held by Tareq Abu Nahel* in the Merihakamatkat Festival.
*Tareq is part of the local Merihaka-based Al Huriya Dabke group which hosts Dabke dance practice in Merihakatorni every Sunday.
Autumn 2025, Helsinki
“Dancing the dance of the people who are killed right now.” Dancing the dance of the people who have been killed and forced to resist and leave their homes, their land for 75 years. What does it mean?
For two weeks in April, 2024, we practiced dancing dabke, a traditional levantine dance, in various locations around Berlin suffering from brutal police violence. This public practice was a gesture of solidarity for Palestinians undergoing 75 years of occupation, and at the time, six months of escalating genocide.
What does it mean to use the white privilege to teach another culture’s resistance dance, is it cultural appropriation or cultural appreciation, an act of solidarity, failed attempt, succeeded research, just a try out, not so important anyways, does it even matter, does anything really matter in this time when the genocide intensifies, so far away from here and yet so connected, Germany being the second biggest arm supplier for Israel, what is this all when brought to an institution like this?”
Video documentation of the Performance Lecture held in HZT, Berlin in July 2024: