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…
It’s been a long time since I’ve written a blog, so let’s start with the spoilers: I’m still in Pakistan. In fact, in a twist of life that I still have yet to properly understand, I live here now. I have a flat that slowly becomes more of a home space every day, a motorcycle,…
Beginnings are easy to write. At that point it’s just impressions, first thoughts and ideas, things are different like this, life works like that. But once I’m in the middle, I lose my words. I don’t know what to write anymore, what to tell you that I haven’t. Life dwindles from the initial sightseeing and…
Me being here raises eyebrows and turns heads. It’s strange to be here, strange to be onstage, strange to be out on the streets. I’m used to the staring, and used to being the only foreigner. It occasionally gets uncomfortable, such as one meal in the walled city of Lahore when the group of guys…
Before I came to Pakistan, I really had no idea what I was going to do. Of the four months I was initially planning to stay, I had one week of schedules, and a few nebulous half-possibilities. I just had the word of a friend, and my own gut feeling, that there was something to…
The studio space for the Wahab Shah Dance Company is not very easy to find. I was called to rehearsals to join the troupe performing Norwegian folk dance for a conference in Islamabad, and besides the initial “what the hell??”, I thought it seemed like a great idea. I researched the address as much as…
Stories of an American dancer/choreographer spending 4–5 months in Lahore, Pakistan working to expand the nascent contemporary dance scene. In production Adnan’s house is the house of an artist. It is not a show house — there is no dedicated sitting room or hidden kitchen where the cooks prepare food. What might have been a…