Sirens, ruptures and a choreography of defiance
Inspired by El Naddaha, the mythical siren of the Nile who lures men to their doom, performers Noura Seif Hassanein and Salma Abdel Salam reinterpret this folkloric figure through a contemporary lens, in the context of Egypt’s #MeToo movement. No Mercy emerges as a powerful response to the ongoing fight against gender-based and sexual violence. It speaks directly to an audience shaped by the post-Arab Spring era, challenging the culture of victim-blaming and the silence that allows sexualized violence to take root and grow into larger, more insidious forms.
The floating arms and synchronized rotating movements of the upper body invite an uncomfortable intimacy into the space. The two performers seduce with a strong presence of isolated arms, glass nail-extended hands that make the finger gestures and wrists look like they are ready to strike back at any time. El Naddaha seems on the verge of breaking out but, as she seems to slowly start riding the cyberfeminist wave, the question remains: When will she attack?
The orientalizing and exoticizing gaze is inescapable, creating an ambivalence of excitement and unease as circular movements stretch out at a deliberately discomforting pace. In contrast, the rapid, fragmented rhythm of the performance evokes the chaotic and continuous scroll of a TikTok or Instagram feed, while also referencing the ongoing struggle of Arab feminists – fighting battles on many fronts.
A rebellion against silencing, a mix of digital activism, anger, celebration, revenge, and reclaiming space. Noura and Salma embody two sirens I personally would not mess with but rather be complicit with, as their pelvic tilts thunder downwards in sync with pounding electronic beats, grounding their formations with unyielding energy. Swipe – The performers disappear and re-emerge with a table laden with junk food. It feels like a post-cathartic feast, an afterlife celebration. The sounds of dried seaweed crinkling, chicken wings snapping, and cartilage cracking between teeth fill the space, as well as the smell of chewed and spat-out food. What begins as a mukbang-style afterlife scene quickly spirals into a binge-eating frenzy: fries, nuggets, octopus – until Britney Spears’ “Gimme More” starts to play, as one of the performers’ mouth bursts with burrata. “Gimme more” indeed, as the binge eating transforms into a direct, almost vertical swipe, looping into repeated, commercialized dance sequences, like a glitch stuck on overconsumption. Scenes move at internet speed, hitting vertically and repetitively – simple and unapologetic.
As my foot tapped to the rhythm, the person in front of me turned around, silently trying to make me stop moving. I did for a brief moment but stubbornly continued as I felt the beat under my feet expanding. I imagined being alone with the performers – not for the sake of intimacy but rather for the sake of breaking the silence, the gaze, and with conformity. To my disappointment, there was no artist talk, which would have provided insights into the performers’ creative process in the specific social and political context to which the piece responds. At the end of the day, nasa4nasa’s No Mercy did not only reclaim the night and the streets, resisting the systematically employed techniques designed to deter women from acting as political agents, but it also closed with a powerful statement: the performers don the keffiyeh, breaking the silence on Gaza.
Myassa Kraitt is a performance artist, rapper, director and social anthropologist. Her work deals with direct and indirect forms of violence like epistemicides, coloniality, patriarchy and necropolitics as well as anti-discriminatory artistic practices. In her multidisciplinary performative rap project KDM – Königin der Macht, she combines the genres of rap and performance to open up queer-feminist and anti-/decolonial discourses and lectures on performance and music stages. In her current piece, The Last Feminist, she combines the genres of performance, dance, rap and experimental pop as a director. The Last Feminist is dedicated to the internal conflicts of feminist movements, reinterpreting feminist solidarity in the face of their failure and the loss of unity. Kraitt currently heads the digital stage GL!TCH4 at DSCHUNGEL WIEN – Theaterhaus für junges Publikum and is working on the series Epistemic Ruptures at intersections between art and science. She is a board member of WIENWOCHE – Festival für Kunst und Aktivismus.