As a term, Queerness does not exist in Arabic. However, it does and did exist as a practice, one that goes back further than the “queerness” that Western hegemony imposed on the globe. So why are we expected to identify with a “queerness” that we had no power in creating? How can we speak the language of queerness when our own languages, terms, expressions are trapped within and abbreviated into an international queer (English) language? How are we pressured into partaking in the norms of acceptable “queerness”? What are the costs of not fitting into these norms, and how can we counter this regulatory and disciplinary function of queerness at our current historical moment?

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‘Ilk is an attempt to engage with these questions. It is an investigation into how queerness has become a form of colonialism erasing, and homogenizing many identities and ways of being that don’t necessarily fit under it as an umbrella term, but are nonetheless drawn to it due to the lack of taxonomies and terms that signify and encompass collective queer existences in their own contexts. Ilk is also a way of tracing the roots of queer practices that go back centuries in Arab and Muslim societies.

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Ahmad draws inspiration for the performance elements from manuscripts such as Adab al-jins ‘inda al-‘Arab (The Erotic Writings of the Arabs) and Nuzhat Al-Albab Fima La Yujad Fi Kitab (A Promenade of the Hearts) by Amazigh poet, writer, and anthologist Ahmad Al tifashi (1184-1253 A.D). Inspired by the name of the book “A Promenade of the Hearts” – this performance presents a promenade of questioning what we knew, and what we know, and what is still to come.

Buffer Fringe is an annual festival with a mission for peacebuilding and social justice, organized by Home for Cooperation, and situated in the buffer zone of Nicosia.

 

Oyoun- Berlin/Germany 

Buffer Fringe fetsival - Nicosia/Cyprus 

Staatstheater Darmstadt- Darmstadt/Germany 

Shout Festival - Birmingham UK