/ Egypt
Womb, 2022
video, performance documentation
length 50′
photo Mostafa Abdel Aty
A belly dance is transformed into a process of analysis, celebration and indictment for the social values and impulses that are associated with the generative faculty of the feminine. The pelvic movement typical of belly dance, in a repetition bordering on trance, is loaded with meanings, of seduction but also of liberation and reappropriation, while the use of two simple flashlights alone is capable of constructing an entire hypothetical world around the performer.
Shaymaa Shoukry (1984) was born in the United States of America and lives in Egypt. She is a multidisciplinary artist particularly interested in choreography, performance and video. She studied Visual arts and theatre at the American University and the Opera House school in the Egyptian capital. She is the founder and artistic director of Dayer, a production company that works internationally. Shoukry is currently researching the origin of movement, its repetition and transformation, in its archetypal values as well as its specific cultural meanings. In Womb she transforms a belly dance into a process of analysis, celebration and indictment for the social values and imperatives that are associated with the generative faculty of the feminine. The pelvic movement typical of belly dance, in a repetition bordering on trance, is loaded with meanings, of seduction but also of liberation and reappropriation, while the use of two simple flashlights alone is capable of constructing an entire hypothetical world around the performer.