We were lucky to catch up with Maha Afra recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Maha thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

Every work I do is a meaningful project in the sense that it stems from a depth of research, introspection and commitment on my part and it may serve as a vehicle to touch the soul of a performer or an audience member. Yet the most meaningful projects I have done and still doing revolve around social justice, fighting oppression, inequities, racism, homophobia, misogyny, ageism and any of the ugliness of bias and hate. I have done projects about addiction, immigration, women, gender identity, colonialism and more. Just the past couple of years I have choreographed and performed works that highlight the genocide in Palestine, not only exposing it but also stressing the humanity and strength of Palestinians because Palestinians represent every human who is being colonized, erased and under genocide. I am currently working on pieces that address societal ageism against women and not seeing women as they are.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Wow! Thank you for this question, there is a lot to unpack and to decipher. I really have to face who I am in this question and that may take time. I will do my best. I am a multilayered person, complex at many levels yet simple and naive when it comes to many things. I am a scientist and an artist at the same time, a dancer, choreographer and an educator. Dance has been in my life organically, intuitively. I have studied, researched, choreographed, performed, taught so many styles of dance. I teach dance history and ethnology as well. Dance is for me a need, an addiction. I do not drink alcohol, do drugs, eat junk food, or any other common addictions. My addictions are dance, cooking, people, love, passion, cultural explorations, resistance and social justice, connectivity, education, research, knowledge. Basically, I am an intensely honest nerd who is fully driven to give and give and give and give, not expecting anything in return. Dance for me is a powerful tool to communicate difficult messages but mostly and most importantly to heal, empower, resist, honor cultures and ancestors. Dance is science, history, cultural manuscript and therapy. Dance keeps the mind, body and soul healthy and present. What I do is try my best to use all the above plus my science and dance training, my personal experiences, my obsession with food, food and dance are the same, both nourishing and tell stories and histories. I love people, I am intuitively desperate to connect to people, to use the power of dance, not just for me but for people to find who they are, to heal themselves and others, to honor diversity and celebrate it, to connect with each other, to find commonalities. Damn, that’s too much. I can keep going forever. I hope that through dance people can also recognize injustice and stand up against it, as it has been done forever but not recognized that dance is a tool for resistance.
Does it mean I am always succeeding? Absolutely not. I make a lot of mistakes but I try to give all of what I got. I don’t hold back.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

I don’t think I will be sharing anything new that people don’t know about supporting artists, especially dance artists. The biggest challenge at the moment is the moving away from live performances to social media. In my opinion it is like choosing a frozen meal over freshly homemade food cooked with love and care. Of course, there is a time and place for a quick frozen meal but nothing on earth beats a homemade meal that is right there in real time, truthful and honest, fresh, vulnerable, and nourishing, passed on from generation to generation. It may not have the consistency and convenience of the frozen meal but it will have the unique flavors, the fluidity and imperfection that is life.
Money, money, money has and is still is the biggest challenge for artists. Rehearsal spaces, costumes, tech needs, performance venues are all expensive and there are no ticket sales without marketing which is expensive as well. People don’t appreciate live performances anymore. Meaning artists need funding from outside sources, but government funding is going to wars and destruction instead to jobs, education, healthcare and art. Private funding and grants are hard to get or apply for, especially for artists who want to focus on creating art and lack in administrative skills. I am one of them. These are really existential barriers for artists.
There should be more focus in society on the benefits of arts for physical and mental health, for self esteem, for fighting depression, anxiety and isolation, for teaching English, science, and math, for honoring cultural wealth and diversity, as life changing tools. We resolve everything with a pill and ignore what is natural and effective healing.
Art shoukd be everywhere and accessible to all.
Artists also have a duty to dismantle white supremacy in the arts and equalize all styles of art forms. There should not be one art that is supreme and the measure of all arts while everything else is dumped in cultural or world art. Every art is cultural and comes from some worldly place and history.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

All these questions open doors, windows, drawers and closets that I may not have opened. I wish I had more time to think about it but here we go!
My resilience stems from growing up in war, an ugly and horrendous civil war. I learned not only to survive but also to protect others, not to take anything for granted and to work with what I have. I learned to pivot when needed, I learned courage and strength in the face of adversity. I learned to carry my pain and keep going because stopping to process pain is a luxury that I cannot afford. My resilience is passed on in my genes from all the women in my family, mostly my mother, but so my grandmother and aunts. My resilience is that of every person in Palestine and the Middle East who have to stand up against settler colonialism and genocide. As an immigrant, my resilience stems from the drive to survive in a mostly hostile space, where I am the other burdened with ugly stereotypes that have to be dismantled, not just for me but for others who are being discriminated against, kidnapped by fascists and told they are “illegals.” I hate to mention some of the stereotypes but I believe it is my duty to put it out there in the world: terrorist, uncivilized, uneducated, powerless and oppressed, violent to say the least. My resilience stems from representing my cultural heritage and my ancestors in truth and honesty at a time where my culture is being erased, stolen, confiscated and misrepresented. My resilience is recognizing that I am on stolen lands, standing on other Black and Brown People’s shoulders who were brutalized and resisted so I can be. I have a duty to stand up and speak out for them and for all of us People of Color.
As a woman in dance, my resilience stems from my need to dance when society wants to stop me or dictate how I should dance. . It’s a survival mechanism, an addiction, my absolute and resolute drive to be the human I am, not what society dictates that I should be. As long as I am not hurting anyone, I will do what I do on my own terms, period!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.mahaandcompany.org
• Instagram: @mahaafra @mahaandcompany
• Facebook: Maha Afra, Maha and company
• Youtube: Maha Afra, Maha and company

Image Credits

Minh Pham
Ghassan Khoury
Victor Ladd