alaa minawi: No Man’s Land

Lees in het Nederlands

If the present is broken, can we reimagine the future? In his first work for the stage, alaa minawi continues the search he started with The Liminal. Traveling through Lebanon, Egypt, and Palestine, he explores the “no man’s land”: a space between worlds where the imagination can breathe again.

We are looking for a place  
Neither on stage nor among the audience  
Neither in the imagination nor in the pleasant reality we are living 
Neither inside the body nor outside its peripheries  
A place that is neither here nor there 

In his first work for the stage, No man’s land, alaa minawi invites the audience to explore the potential of the space in between. The performance is the second part of his series on Arab Futurism, a movement that reimagines the future from a present that no longer functions. While his award-winning installation The Liminal (IDFA 2024) explored the physical confinement of living “within the walls,” minawi now embraces the poetic and political openness of the theatre.

Joined by performer Wajdi, minawi travels through the histories of Lebanon, Egypt, and Palestine. Together, they navigate a territory that belongs to no one: no man’s land. The greater the tension between two worlds, the larger this space becomes. For minawi, this no man’s land is not a void, but precisely the place where the imagination can breathe again. 

No man’s land is a powerful response to today’s reality. It is a plea to seek out the spaces where a new future can emerge, especially when the present feels broken.