How are movement and dance be an integral part of artists’ practices? What are the variety of ways participating and capturing performance and dance makes us more human and attune to our bodies - in our gender and ethnicity? How do viewers interact with performance? How important is movement as a form of therapy in artists work?

In this episode of “Whistle While You Work”, Suzy Sikorski discusses these questions and more with performance artists Marwah Almugait and Sarah Brahim.

Marwah AlMugait

Marwah AlMugait is a visual artist from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. She has a BA in Business Administration from King Saud University, and pursued her master degree in Photojournalism at the University of Westminster in 2012. While developing her visual perspective, Marwah tends to seek an intimate portraits of stories, presenting channels which reveal the subtle perspectives of her subjects internal realms. Marwah focuses on exposition: shedding light on things that people overlook or discard. Her work encompasses a wide variety of themes but embodies the desire to explore the gap between different ways of communicating. Through different body of works, she emphasizes the fluidity and turbulence by drawing from a wide range of technologies and a heightened sense of awareness, Marwah invites her audience to pay attention to the pauses in human interaction.

Sarah Brahim

Sarah Brahim is a movement artist passionate about creating meaningful work with artists of varying mediums. She grew up studying, choreographing, performing, and teaching jazz, ballet, and tap in Portland, Oregon. Studied at the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance and in 2016 she graduated from London Contemporary Dance School (LCDS) and holds a BA Honors degree in Contemporary Dance. At LCDS she further explored the depth and resonance of movement, discovering her passion for improvisation, collaboration, choreographing, and healing through movement. Since graduating she has worked professionally performing, choreographing, and directing movement. In 2018, she was a resident at Spaceness Artist Residency, New Expressive Works 6 month choreographic residency, produced two shows premiering an original piece Dream of a Common Language, created an original performance for Portland Design Week, performed an original show with Portland Tap Company, and was artist in residence at 33 Officina Creativa in Italy. She created Coyote Collective with writer Michelle Overby, a night during which artists of different mediums pair up to collaborate and perform original work together and also performs regularly as SSL, a band composed of a drummer, dj, and tap dancer. In 2019, she has been awarded the American Dance Festival Studio Subsidy Grant and a Professional Development Grant from the Regional Arts and Culture Council with which she will begin to create her first evening length work.

Suzy Sikorski 

Suzy Sikorski is an art researcher in Dubai running Mid East Art, a digital storytelling platform covering modern art analysis and contemporary practices. The platform’s overarching emphasis seeks not only to contextualize the contemporary within regional modern art history, but also in bridging both Western and Middle Eastern audiences and thinking critically within global art historical discourse. 

In 2016-2017 Suzy received a Fulbright Scholarship to the UAE and shares her research in regional publications and institutional collaborations,  most recently in a digital programming with the UAE Embassy in Washington, DC. She is currently an Associate Specialist at Christie's in their Middle Eastern Modern & Contemporary art department.