I am a Nubian-American multi-disciplinary theatre artist and writer, whose work explores intersectional identities and is rooted in community engagement. I create art because I believe it can make tangible positive change through culture shift, personal reflection, and community-building. My work invites community in to a shared experience, challenges their ways of thinking, illuminates diverse and international perspectives, and asks complex questions.

I am driven by my identities and lived experiences. My bi-racial family is the foundation for my artistic self: Nubian-Egyptian and Muslim on my mothers side with traditional and rebellious values, and European-American on my father’s side with global and progressive values. Traditional art forms and experimental arts influence my work, the confluence of which reflects my intersecting identities. I draw from my daily experiences, from the mundane of going to an awkward zoom dance class with a shirtless man, to the exceptional of living first-hand through the Arab Spring.

I make art because of that sparkly feeling I get when creating, and because of the comfort and joy of collaborators imagining together. My work is tingly, surprising, inviting, makes your cheeks and belly hurt. It tastes like rosewater candy and Egyptian food. It is fast-paced with colorful bodies moving in new spaces.

As a Muslim, mixed-race woman who ethnically identifies as Black African, Indigenous Nubian, Arab, and White, it is clearly difficult for me to see myself represented. But I do not need a Nubian-American Muslim woman onstage to feel represented. I need to see fellow mixed race folks, fellow women of color navigating the world, fellow people with intersectional identities questioning and reconciling who they are. That is what I write.