Upcoming:

• April 26 - 27th Spring Dance Concert at Macalester
  Where Should the Birds Fly After the Last Sky (Premiere)
  Choreographed by Leila on an ensemble of Macalester students.
  Performances: Friday 7:30pm, Saturday 2pm and 7:30pm at Macalester College -
  St. Paul, MN

• April 25 - 27th Candy Box Festival 
  Nothing ; dancing in a new work by Paula Mann | TimeTrack Productions
  Performances: Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 7:30pm + Saturday 2pm at the Southern Theater - Minneapolis MN

• April 29-May 17th Residency at Ragdale
  Awarded a solo artist residency at Ragdale to develop McKnight Solo - Lake Forest, IL

• May 10-11th Ballare Teatro Performance
  Featuring choreography by Leila: My Friend in Gaza a duet created for two students of Ballare.
  Performances: Friday at 7pm, Saturday 2pm and 7pm at the Tek Box - Minneapolis, MN

• June McKnight International Choreographer 

  Leila will be hosting Thessaloniki-based choreographer Meryl Zaytoun Murman in the Twin Cities. Community workshops on June 1st, 2nd, and 28th in Minneapolis. Specific details on this residency can be found in the above link!

  *The overall residency will primarily take place in Winona with the dear Sharon Mansur through her creative platform, The Cedar Tree Project. 

• July - August Art Omi Residency
  Leila will be an artist in residence at Art Omi - Ghent NY

• September McKnight SOLO Show
  Premiere of a new work choreographed by Alexandre Paulkevitch for Leila Awadallah, McKnight Dancer Fellow of 2022

• November 1-3 Body Watani at the Southern Theater
  After the Last Red Sky created and performed by Noelle & Leila in collaboration with musicians Tarek Abdelqader and Lyla Abukhodair.

Leila Awadallah (she/her) is a dancer, choreographer, and film wanderer based between Minneapolis, Mni Sota Makoce and Beirut, Lebanon. Her research in dance centers movement that activates relationships to land / place / peoples, rooted in the context of her own skin as a body and soul that holds indigenous Palestinian, Arab-American, SWANA, Sicilian and mixed Mediterranean worlds and ways. She is the founder of the Body Watani (body-as-homeland) dance project and practice in collaboration with Noelle Awadallah. Body Watani's first piece, TERRANEA is supported by National Performance Network, Goethe Institute, MSAB, ARENA, Links Hall and the Arab American National Museum and will premiere at Red Eye Theater in April 2023. Her solo work YISSH (2019) which was commissioned / presented by the Cedar Tree Project (Winona) has been performed at festivals in Lebanon, Egypt and soon: Palestine, and Italy. She is a McKnight Dancer Fellow (2023), Jerome Hill Fellow (2021-2023), and previously a Springboard 20/20 and Daring Dances Fellow. Leila's works have been supported through research residencies and performances at the Hammana Artist House, Amalgam, and Lebanese National Theatre (Lebanon), Camargo Foundation (France), Diyar School (Palestine), Arab American National Museum (Michigan), and most widely across spaces and places in and around her home in the Twin Cities. Mentored by Ananya Chatterjea, she trained, taught and performed with Ananya Dance Theatre as a company member (2014-2019) and she is a founding member of the Kelvin Wailey dance trio (2015-2023). Leila has a BFA in Dance and minor in Arabic Language & Literature from the University of Minnesota.