Performance, Memory, and Resistance

The Goldsmiths Research Centre for Comparative Literature (CCL) is an interdepartmental Centre drawing from the Department of English & Creative Writing (formerly English & Comparative Literature) and the Department of Theatre and Performance, with contributions and collaborations across Goldsmiths and beyond.Building on an established tradition of teaching and researching literary, visual, cultural and performance texts from all areas of the world and in many different languages, the CCL aims to foster innovative research in and on the theory, practice and history of comparative literature, world literature(s) and theatre, reception of the classics, multilingualism and translation, intercultural theatre, and creative writing.

Centre for Comparative Literature

Palestinian performance artist Riham Isaac completes  ‘Body-thoughts’: the Centre for Comparative Literature Postcolonial Dance Series 2025

‘Body-thoughts’: The CCL Postcolonial Dance Series

Embodied performance arts like dance are central to questions of decoloniality, as bodies marked by enslavement, discrimination or occupation can both express and resist oppression. This series of talks examines how dance becomes a form of thinking

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In this artist talk, multidisciplinary performance maker Riham Isaac reflects on the role of performance in shaping collective memory, reclaiming narratives and spaces, and imagining freedom under conditions of occupation. Drawing on works such as Another Lover’s Discourse (2023), Stone and Road (2014), and her performance-based workshops in public spaces, Isaac explores how performance becomes a space for poetic disruption, embodied resistance, and community-based storytelling.From the streets of Ramallah to stages across Europe, with personal stories rooted in her hometown of Beit Sahour and a broader exploration into land and archival memory, this talk invites us to consider how performance can serve both as an active agent and as an urgent response to ongoing colonial violence—a radical act of liberation in the face of colonial systems.Isaac’s work is a refreshingly playful and profound commentary on gender, politics, and the arts, foregrounding the role of women, collective imagination, and community in political resistance. Her practice engages deeply with spaces, asking how bodies move through—and are shaped by—physical, political, and emotional landscapes. She investigates how the body itself holds memory, and how reactivating space through performance can shift narratives and provoke collective actions.​​Currently in her research, she is exploring the intersection of performance and land liberation, delving into how performance practices can deepen our understanding of land injustices—bridging the urgency of land-related activism with performance’s potential to transform audiences and landscapes.Speaking from her lived experience as an artist navigating systems of occupation, borders, and cultural erasure, Riham shares how creative practice can become a means of imagining otherwise. This talk invites us into an intimate conversation with her process, offering insight into the transformative potential of performance when rooted in land, liberation, and collective memory.The talk will be chaired by Manal Massalha (Goldsmiths, University of London, UK). Riham Isaac is a multidisciplinary artist weaving acting, singing, dancing, and video to explore new mediums of live performance. In 2017, she co-directed The Alternativity in Bethlehem alongside Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle and Banksy—a highly political yet playful show spotlighted in a BBC2 documentary. In 2023, her solo performance Another Lover’s Discourse, commissioned by the Belfast International Arts Festival, captivated UK audiences and was nominated as the VAULT Festival Show of the Week.She holds an MA in Performance Making from Goldsmiths, University of London. Through themes such as gender, politics, resistance, societal dynamics, and collective imagination, Riham challenges prevailing perceptions, embracing risk-taking to provoke meaningful dialogue and change within audiences.She is currently a PhD candidate in Performance Practice at the University of Exeter. Her research focuses on the intersection of performance, land liberation, resistance, and cultural activism, with a deep investment in how performance practices can deepen our understanding of land injustices and bridge activism with the transformative power of art.Manal Massalha (chair) is a sociologist, ethnographer and social documentary photographer. She teaches Photography and Urban Cultures at Goldsmiths. Her work celebrates conviviality and visualises displacement, social inclusion/exclusion, urban health and their intersection with race, class, gender and coloniality. <h3>The Series</h3>Embodied performance arts like dance are central to examining questions of decoloniality, given that bodies marked by enslavement, discrimination or occupation can both express and resist these oppressions. Dance becomes a creative practice, and a form of thinking.Moreover, if colonial ideologies have historically devalued, even eradicated the cultural practices of their colonized subjects, rhythms and movements can be stored in, and replayed by, the performer’s body. Inherited cultural practices like dance can thus re-enact past histories. Dance becomes a system of learning, storing, producing and transmitting knowledge: ‘body-thoughts’, to borrow the words of Black British choreographer-performers Alexandrina Hemsley and Seke Chimutengwende (‘The Future Stared Back at Us for the First Time: Black Holes Revisited’. Contemporary Theatre Review, 31. 1–2 (2021), 197–203).Since 2022 the <a href="https://sites.gold.ac.uk/comparative-literature/" title="https://sites.gold.ac.uk/comparative-literature/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Goldsmiths Centre for Comparative Literature</a> has hosted a series of talks on postcolonial performance(see the <a href="https://sites.gold.ac.uk/comparative-literature/the-ccl-postcolonial-theatre-series-may-2022/" title="https://sites.gold.ac.uk/comparative-literature/the-ccl-postcolonial-theatre-series-may-2022/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">May 2022</a> and <a href="https://sites.gold.ac.uk/comparative-literature/the-ccl-postcolonial-theatre-series-may-2023-south-asia-and-the-diaspora/" title="https://sites.gold.ac.uk/comparative-literature/the-ccl-postcolonial-theatre-series-may-2023-south-asia-and-the-diaspora/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">May 2023</a> series), and this year’s focus is specifically on dance.We are delighted to welcome academics and performers who will discuss and analyse the theme of postcolonial dance from geographical areas which, while varied, share a common interest in resistance to oppression and/or occupation; the revival of indigenous or inherited practices; and the interrogation of fluid identities in a postcolonial world. These areas are Africa, South Asia, Latin America and Palestine.All talks are online. Find out more on the <a href="https://sites.gold.ac.uk/comparative-literature/body-thoughts-the-ccl-postcolonial-dance-series-2025/" title="https://sites.gold.ac.uk/comparative-literature/body-thoughts-the-ccl-postcolonial-dance-series-2025/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">CCL's webpage for the 'Body thoughts' Series</a> Photo credits: From a performance of Seke Chimutengwende, It Begins in Darkness. Photo by Jemima Young.

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Performance, Memory, and Resistance

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