Knot - Afra Al Dhaheri & Dovydas Stramaitis | Just One Tile - Islam Elarabi

This double bill in Abu Dhabi brings together two solo contemporary dance works in one evening of theatre. Knot, created by Afra Al Dhaheri and Dovydas Stramaitis, and Just One Tile, performed by the Egyptian dancer and choreographer Islam Elarabi, take very different routes to related questions about identity, constraint, resistance and freedom.

Knot sits where choreography meets visual installation, and it was co-commissioned by The Arts Center. Long hair extensions gradually turn into rope that runs from the performer's body up to the ceiling and out into the surrounding space. The web that forms both holds her up and holds her back, shaping each movement, so the installation becomes part of the choreography itself. The piece grows out of Al Dhaheri and Stramaitis's continuing work with hair as a subject, and reads identity, culture and transformation through the bond between body and material.

Just One Tile is Islam Elarabi's solo, which joins Mahraganat with contemporary dance. Mahraganat is the music and dance culture that grew out of the streets of Cairo, and Elarabi draws on lived experience and collective memory to turn its energy into movement. The work pushes back against the idea that Mahraganat is "non-art" and shows its social, political and emotional weight. Power, pride, fear, anger, joy and resistance all run through it. With very few elements, he builds a physical language that moves between struggle and release, and a single floor tile becomes a space for identity and survival. The spirit of Cairo's Tahrir Square, with its associations of collective resistance and the search for freedom, also informs the piece. It was first shown as a work-in-progress during the UN|Controlled Gestures Residency in Cairo and Berlin and is still evolving.

The evening takes place in The Black Box Theater at The Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi, on Saadiyat Island. Saadiyat is Abu Dhabi's cultural district, home to major museums and arts institutions, and it is a drive from Dubai of roughly an hour to an hour and a half by car. A black box theatre is a flexible, intimate performance space, which suits solo work where the performer's body and a few chosen materials carry everything.

The programme suits anyone drawn to contemporary dance, installation-based performance or work rooted in street culture. Two distinct pieces make up the evening, and both treat movement as a way of asking questions rather than simply showing choreography.