Egyptian artist Sara Tantawy transforms the art of dance in first UAE show
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Loading... - Irene Floris
- 23 Jan 2023
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Painter explores a gamut of emotions through movement in Survivors at Dubai's Fann A Porter gallery
Egyptian artist Sara Tantawy’s first exhibition in the UAE embodies a language that she discovered when she was dealing with trauma, which led her to experiment with dance and movement therapy a few years back.
This experience resulted in Survivors, a series of 12 realism paintings of women in dance poses that is now hanging at Fann A Porter gallery in Dubai until February 10. It is the artist’s second body of work in her exploration of the ancient roots of communal belly dancing and movement as a vehicle to express grief, resilience and euphoria.
“I began researching this subject after I attended a dance and movement therapy course to deal with my own trauma and past experiences,” says the artist, 29, who graduated in fine arts from Helwan University in Egypt in 2017. "I found that dance has been used for centuries as therapy and expression and I wanted to specifically look at its roots in Egyptian culture.
“Dance has always been ritualistic and communal, and has been used for every occasion throughout history — to honour, to celebrate and to mourn.”
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Tantawy learnt about the culture of belly dancing, which originated from travelling dancers in ancient Egypt. She wanted to understand the significance of shapes, colours, clothing, nature and moods on a dancer’s movements and attempts to capture the spiritual quality of dance in her paintings.
“The paintings show dance as a medium to explore your feelings. You can show your pain, your happiness, your anger and your contentment without saying anything at all,” she says.
For example, in the Dancer At Silver Centre series of three oil paintings, the artist chose circular canvases to depict eternity. Draped in a white dress and golden waistbelt that Tantawy handmade, the subject, the artist’s friend, poses with open hair and arms swaying in the paintings. Read More…
