Shubbak: Queer Voices in Arab Performance

Dima Mikhayel Matta is a university instructor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Balamand, a writer, and an actress. She received a Fulbright scholarship and completed her MFA in creative writing at Rutgers University in 2013. She has been acting for the stage since 2006. In 2014, she founded Cliffhangers, the first bilingual storytelling platform in Lebanon, and hosts monthly storytelling events along with parallel events such as storytelling workshops and performances. Cliffhangers is a non-profit initiative that aims to give a platform for marginalized voices and serves as a safe space for people to share their stories. In May 2018, she curated the first LGBTQ+ art exhibition in Lebanon, titled Love Letters to Meem. She is currently working on her first play.

Mette Loulou von Kohl was born from the orange at the center before the new world came.  She is a performer and a wanderer. Currently based in New York City, Mette Loulou is a mixed, queer femme, born to a Lebanese/Palestinian mother and Danish father. Mette Loulou is fascinated by the intersection between her embodied identities as a jumping off point to reveal, dismantle and conjure realities and dreams. She exists in two places at once. Mette Loulou is current Jerome Foundation AIRspace Resident with Abrons Art Center in New York City and a graduate of the Hemispheric Institute for Performance and Politics, EmergeNYC performers program. She recently completed her Masters in Applied Theatre at Goldsmiths College and holds a Bachelors in Theatre from Bard College.

Amrou Al-Kadhi is a queer British-Iraqi writer/performer/director; they will be taking their show GLAMROU: FROM QURAN TO QUEEN to the Edinburgh Festival this August. Working across film and TV, they have created four short films that share a focus on queer people of colour including an autobiographical short film entitled RUN(A)WAY ARAB - which explores the relationship between drag culture and Middle-Eastern femininity, and a genderqueer Arab boy's memory of their Muslim mother. DENIM, a musical comedy drag troupe, where they perform as Glamrou have performed to diverse audiences around the UK for 6 years, and achieved a sell-out run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (Underbelly / Assembly) in 2017 & 2018 respectively, receiving 5 & 4 star reviews.

Shaz Blakefield is a visual artist and performer under the pseudonym The Nightbus, utilising several aspects of identity and the subjective narrative generated by their intersects. A Muslim by birth and mind, Shaz interrogates society’s capacity to accept and champion queer identity, race and religion through the media of drag, film and spoken word, taking advantage of the rising popularity of such art forms to at first disarm audiences before presenting questions and stories which seek to resonate on a human level with those unfamiliar with the subtlety of oppression in the Western world.