Conceived by Instant Dissidence’s Artistic Director Rita Marcalo, Dancing With Strangers: From Palestine To Ireland is a choreographic act of resistance, in which four dancers in Gaza offer people an embodied experience of their personal story of occupation and genocide. 

As Israel continued to obliterate Gaza, Gaza-based dancers Agour, Just, Khaled and Maryam worked remotely with Rita creating duets to perform. Blockaded, under fire and unable to travel, members of the international dance community acted as their ‘body avatars’. Through them (and the exchanged gift of dance) Agour, Just, Khaled and Maryam invited members of the public to dance, to hear their voices, and to feel their touch (a dancer on a city street, with outstretched arms and a t-shirt that says Dance With Me, invites passers-by to dance with the stranger and complete the connection). 

Once the invite was accepted, participants chose from a set of cards featuring a child’s drawing of each dancer (protecting their identities). They were given headphones playing audio created by them, and danced with them whilst listening to their music and personal stories. Video recordings were uploaded to social media, enabling the Palestinian dancers to see the results of their intended duets, and feel the solidarity from all over the world.

To date Dancing With Strangers: From Palestine To Ireland has been performed in France, England, Portugal, Croatia and Ireland. The short film is a record of the performance in Dublin.

Directed by documentary film maker Gavin Fitzgerald Dancing with Strangers: From Palestine To Ireland is a short film which creatively captures a Dublin performance of this piece.

 While Dublin pedestrians are invited to dance, they soon find themselves transported into the intimate and very real world stories of Palestinian artists. The camera surveiling their every move as life in the background remains starkly unaltered.

The film has recently been awarded the An Sophie Fontaine Human Rights in Documentary Film Award (Fastnet Film Festival, Ireland), and the Jury Commendation Award (Tyre International Short Film Festival, Lebanon).

A Promise Fulfilled: Bashar Al-Belbeisi Dances as Himself (Paris, April 2026)

When Dancing With Strangers: From Palestine To Ireland began, Instant Dissidence's promise to each dancer was: "We will keep your real identities concealed until the day you are safe. We will be your body avatars until you can take up that role yourself."

For nearly two years, the world knew him as Khaled: a dancer in Gaza, a pharmacist, a teacher of Dabke. His voice came through headphones, and his movements were performed by others as his body avatars. His name was hidden to protect him.

Then, in June 2025, an IOF bomb changed everything: the dancer we called Khaled was injured. Medically evacuated, he was flown to France. Through a series of surgeries on his leg, he began the long, painful work of recovery and of becoming Bashar Al-Belbeisi in public.

On 16th April 2026, at the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris, the promise was fulfilled. For the first time since the bombing, and since the evacuation and the recovery, Bashar's participation in Dancing With Strangers: From Palestine To France happened not as a remote collaborator, but in person as himself.

The re-worked choreography entailed a participant first dancing 'Khaled's' dance with Rita Marcalo (as his body avatar) outside, guided by 'Khaled's' recorded voice. Then, Rita took their hand and led them inside. There, in a darkened room, sat two chairs in the same configuration as the chairs outside, and on one of them, Bashar himself. "His real body facing us, with a wounded leg," wrote Libération newspaper, "the only adult so far evacuated from Gaza for medical reasons." The participant danced a second time, but this time not with an avatar: with Bashar himself. 

The remaining dancers in the project (Agour, Maryam, Just, Spirit and Medoo) remain in Gaza. Their stories still travel through the bodies of others, the promise has not been fulfilled for them yet. 

Artistic director/production: Rita Marcalo 

Production support: Rima Baransi, Nour El Tibi, Ríonach Ní Néill

Executive producer: Octo Productions 

Choreographers and film footage from Palestine: Agour, Maryam, Just, Khaled, Spirit and Medoo

Music: We Will Not Go Down (Song for Gaza) by Michael Heart; Girar O Mundo by Pattern Drama; Dammi Falastini by Mohammed Assaf; Ezel by Amino Records; Sad Piano Music by J. Mendez Music

Live performance team: Rita Marcalo, Bashar Al-Belbeisi, Tatiana dos Santos, Fatoumata Gandega, Mia DiChiaro, Julie Lockett, João Oliveira, Diogo M. Santos, Sibéal Davitt, Lara Peres Rocha, Fionnuala Doyle-Wade

Film performance team: Tatiana dos Santos, Fatoumata Gandega, Rita Marcalo, Mia DiChiaro 

Voice-overs: Junior Yusuf, Rima Baransi, João Oliveira, Diogo M. Santos,

Translators: Ameer Hassouna and Hiba Farajallah 

Portrait artist: JAL 

Film director/editor: Gavin Fitzgerald 

Cinematographer: Darragh McCarthy 

Titles and design: Dylan Kendle 

Sound Mix: Eoghan O’Donnell

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