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Knife Hearts

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Knife Hearts

  • Knife Hearts

    Knife Hearts

    © Nataliya Nikolska

  • Knife Hearts

    Knife Hearts

    © Nataliya Nikolska

  • Knife Hearts

    Knife Hearts

    © Nataliya Nikolska

  • Knife Hearts

    Knife Hearts

    © Nataliya Nikolska

  • Knife Hearts

    Knife Hearts

    © Nataliya Nikolska

A dance performance, sharp as a knife and strong as a heartbeat.
Four bodies enter the arena. Between confrontation and celebration, they loop, resist, and transform.
Knife Hearts is an international co-production between Egypt and Germany, bringing together four dancers — three Egyptian and one Turkish-German. As Artists of Color, they challenge Western definitions of dance and performance, as well as the expectations imposed on them. Drawing on the long tradition of Raqs Sharqi (belly dance) and Mahraganat (Egyptian street dance), as well as blending urban dance practices from Egypt and the region, the performers expand and reconfigure the vocabulary of contemporary dance.
The performance engages with Mahraganat, a burgeoning music and dance genre which literally means 'festivals'. Often described as an Egyptian adaptation of hip-hop, shaabi music, rap and electronic dance music, Mahraganat blends these influences into an intensely festive context that celebrates marginalised bodies. Emerging in the urban outskirts of Cairo, Mahraganat represents  and speaks to communities that are often marginalised, stigmatised or labelled as dangerous. Despite strong social stigma and repeated attempts by the state to suppress it, Mahraganat has disseminated significantly and grown in popularity across the region and globally over the past two decades.
By using Mahraganat dramaturgically, the dancers challenge social scripts in both Egypt and Germany, creating a performance that raises challenging questions: Who gets to perform, and why? What happens when dance is displaced from its original context? What is the role of the audience in receiving and interpreting a dancing body?
In a climate of growing discrimination, exclusion and racial violence against Black, Indigenous and People of Colour in Germany, Europe and beyond, Mahraganat may well offer a different way of seeing things. Within the Mahraganat movement's dance vocabulary, there are recurring dance motifs that imitate fighting and the use of knives and fire. This ritualised choreography speaks of virtuosity and control, but also of how dance can facilitate the avoidance and mediation of conflict. People dance to avoid fighting, transforming gestures of aggression into shared moments of connection and sublimating violence into the possibility of togetherness and celebration.
The knives may be out, but here they cut through borders and assumptions, creating space for encounters, connections, and collective celebrations.

ca. 60 Minuten

Production: Islam Elarabi, Tümay Kılınçel Co-production: FFT Düsseldorf, Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm Supported by: Goethe-Institut - International Co-production Fund (IKF), Hauptstadtkulturfonds, Kulturamt der Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf, Kunststiftung NRW, City of Frankfurt am Main, NRW Landesbüro Freie Darstellende Künste e.V. With the kind support of theaterhaus berlin © 2026  Islam Elarabi, Sherin Hegazy,Tümay Kılınçel, Mohamed Toto, Goethe-InstitutDirection, choreography and performance: Islam Elarabi, Sherin Hegazy,Tümay Kılınçel, Mohamed TotoDramaturgy: Ismail FayedLighting design: Catalina FernándezSet design: Cheng-Ting ChenMusical direction und co-composition: Dmitrii MakhoninMusic production: Ali ElharamGraphic design / key visual: Nedal DewaryPress and public relations: Marcelo Vilela da SilvaVideo and photo documentation: Nataliya NikolskaCreative production: Urszula Heuwinkel

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