I come in peace, but not meekly. My hands are open and unarmed; I reach them but do not cover them in the colors of the soil that breathes through the pores of culture and cries poetry into the dailyness of what is and must. I come in peace, but not meekly; I neutralize and…
The End of Wandering was one of those pieces where I had no idea what I was making throughout the whole process. Honestly, I still don’t know what I made, but I know that it absolutely intrigues me. When I was planning my trip back to the USA, I knew I wanted to visit Copper…
This year I somehow managed to sign myself up to create and host a weekly live sciart talk show on astronomy and art. Here’s the behind the scenes story on how it all happened! I stumbled into the CosmoQuest community by accident. It all started at the beginning of the year when I went looking…
One of the themes that has been coming up recently in my life is the need to talk about art. It’s something that is definitely lacking in Pakistan. It only happens about once a year at the Lahore Literacy Festival, and the occasional conference. I’ve been working on my own avenues to expand this. For…
First Contact is a multimedia performance, blending digital light paintings projected onto the body. It is an experiment more than anything, but the story behind it is full of odd connections and good timing. Unexpected Collaborations One of the things that happened during the lockdown was that I found myself hosting a live show on…
When I lived in Cambodia, I heard a lot about “fusion” pieces when international choreographers came and worked with Cambodian dancers. Fusion is an exciting word and promises something new and innovative. The Holy Grail of cross cultural choreography, one could say. But there are post-colonial approaches to this, and there are colonial approaches. The…
The body moves quickly, but the soul is slow, catching up only after time. There is obviously more to say about cultural shifts. Today, I’m just talking about the wormhole. In astronomy, a wormhole is a theoretical structure that connects different places of the universe through a shorter “tunnel” of spacetime. Most astrophysicists agree that…
Excerpt of The Glitch: A science fiction short story. Read the full story in my short story collection! Hex and me weren’t rich, never had been. We lived in the slums by the docks, rumbling all night as the rockets fired, taking their payloads to the artificial moons and the other planets. I guess I…
I have always loved art and astronomy. When I was little, I loved reading Seymour Simon’s picture books about the planets. When my sisters and I started a newsletter called “Girls Express” for our homeschooling, I researched and wrote articles about each of the planets. I read The Elegant Universe at thirteen and taught a…
When the lockdown hit, I was in the fragile and fraught liftoff stages of getting my own production off the ground. I was about to lock a huge sponsor, I had confirmed my cast, and rehearsals were two weeks into full swing. Slowly, things were closing down but I wanted to push ahead. I knew…