Performance . Rituals . Play . Body . Research . Presence . Beauty . Essence . Unveil . Reveal . Truth . Energy . Authenticity . Power . Poetic . Mystery . In Relation To . Feminine Wisdom . 

 

LA FLEUR AMAZIGHE, CHAPITRE 1 (POETRY & PERFORMANCE, 2023)


Dans ce corps…

Je brousse l’herbe

De mon jardin

Jaunie

Par cette saison d’hiver,

Une fine couche de rosée

Surface cette végétation endormie.

Personne n’y met les pieds,

Je suis en travaux.

Chapitre 1, La Fleur Amazighe

Sanaa Abouayoub

Sanaa stretches and extends herself on the still-blank kraft paper. Flowers and other organic materials are carefully arranged at the edges, framed by the dark floor of the bookstore.

The artist moves, and although she does not step outside the frame, her movements surpass it; her body unfolds, relearning its own presence by choosing a silent interaction with its immediate surroundings.

Her eyes are half-closed, her vision intentionally deprived of its full field to better apprehend the sense of touch while lying down.

Soon, the hands grasp the flowers, leaves, and stems. Touch becomes a means of embracing renewal. The female body, dressed in white, refuses to conform to the stereotypes imposed upon it. It rediscovers its connection to the organic in the full awareness offered by this moment of performance.

What follows are rifts and the intensity of a fully lived experience born from the sensitive collision with the unknown.

The organism learns from the organic, leading to a rethinking of gender often prompted by this interaction.

It is no longer a question of "Woman and Flower," of the essentialist and sexist association linking Woman and Nature, and their impossible emancipation.

A vitality, whose movement disturbs the immutable paper of the books on their shelves.

The writings that cover the walls of the space where the performance takes place become echoes of sensations, remnants of what is unfolding, the ashes of knowledge production that seeks to dissect what must first be experienced.

How can one not refer to the culture of orality?

Returning to the title of the performance, which highlights the Amazigh theme in the artist’s creation. This Amazigh identity resists rigidity; it is transmitted, it moves through time and space. Like a body emancipating itself from the norms of a sexist and exotic interference with the flower, it seeks to better understand its sensory potential, in time and space. Thus, tradition is reshaped into a body within the poetics of gestures that embrace a new paradigm of connection with flowers, earth, and leaves.

This will be evidenced by the movements of material immortalized directly on the kraft paper.

Inès Guillemaud, PhD Candidate in Art

 

IT'S MY PARTY !  (VIDEO PERFORMANCE, 2022)




"Using only paper and paint, Sanaa creates a complex performance, peeling back  layers to transform images and reveal painful and relatable expression.” Meagan O'Shea, artist choreographer




Video-Performance, directed by Megan O'Shea, 3 min 13s, streamed in EIMA Festival (Spain)

Using Format