Movement Research Launches the 2024 Movement Research Festival

The 2024 Movement Research Festival focuses on the artists and partnerships that have been developed through MR’s GPS MENA (Middle East and North Africa) Exchange Program. The two-week festival, taking place from Wednesday, February 28 to Saturday, March 9, 2024, features performances at Movement Research at the Judson Church and Danspace Project, artist talks (GPS Chats and Studies Project), and movement workshops led by festival artists. 

The 2024 Festival presents an exciting lineup of extraordinary and dynamic contemporary dance artists from the MENA/SWANA region. Featured artists include Salma AbdelSalam & Noura Seif Hassanein (Egypt), Sahar Damoni (Palestine), Lori Kharpoutlian (Lebanon), Charlie Prince (Lebanon), and F.M. Sayna (Iran). These remarkable artists are shedding light on important issues of global significance, from abortion and women’s rights to exploring forced displacement, the body as archeological space, and the politics of waiting. The 2024 Festival uplifts the creative practices and artistic work of a cohort of dance artists as a necessary and felicitous expression of the complex and contradictory realities of our lives and times.  

Marýa Wethers says, “While we continue to mourn the devastating individual and collective loses caused by the brutality, violence, and terror of ongoing occupation, mass displacement, genocides, and war, we can turn to art and performance to reflect some truths of our shared humanity. The 2024 MR Festival artists have a deep commitment to embodied research and critical inquiry of the role of the moving body in society. It is a profound privilege to bring the work of Charlie, Lori, Noura, Sahar, Salma, and F.M. Sayna to NYC, and to invite audiences to witness and experience the vitality of their ideas, words/voices, and performances through the GPS MENA Exchange Program and the Movement Research Festival platform.” 

The GPS/Global Practice Sharing program provides a platform for the international exchange of ideas, processes, and reflective practices surrounding dance and movement-based forms between the U.S. and independent performing arts communities internationally. GPS posits that dialogue across differences necessarily catalyzes the generation of new knowledge and creative innovation. By investing in the mobility of artists, curators, and cultural workers, GPS advances cross-cultural understanding and the development of the contemporary arts field at large. Officially established in 2016, GPS consists of an informal network of partners currently supporting exchange projects in Eastern and Central Europe (ECE) and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).