Badke is an incredibly conflicting piece. It is full of joy that fills me with the urge to join in the dance, but it is also simultaneously deeply unsettling and disturbing as I followed the narrative arc of the characters. Badke is an inversion of the Palestinian folk dance, dabke, which is primarily performed at weddings. The codified language of dabke becomes part of the Badke performance. Through the stage design, an open ground level floor plan without wings or a backstage for the dancers to hide in or exit through, Badke hints at dabke’s usual informal context, a wedding celebration. I sit in the first row with nothing separating me from the stage area.

Then the performance begins. The light goes completely dark and we hear the footsteps of the dancers entering. Before light or dance, there is sound: the voices of the dancers, the call and response, the footfalls, the rhythm. The sound is intense, building and echoing through the dark empty space. Badke begins by being felt instead of seen.

When the light comes up, the performers are still unaccompanied by music; the focus remains on the sound of breathing, movement, bodies and feet.

All at once, there is sound. The collective dance reminds of dabke’s wedding origins. So much happens at once that my eyes skip back and forth between individual pairs and soloists. The individual solos, duets and rests reveal stories through which each character lives. There is a couple whose jealousy manifests into dangerous physicality. There is a young girl who is shy at first, but over the course of the dance becomes the center of attention, engaging in a series of acrobatic tricks with the male performers. They reassemble, dancing together and then breaking into groups again.

The light shifts and changes, the music loops and it becomes clear that we are not watching a performance in real time. We are instead watching something that has gone on and will continue far longer than the piece’s hour-long run time.

Suddenly everything dies out, lights and sound, leaving nothing but the soft panting of the dancers. Instead of music, they return to the sound and movement from the dark beginning, now whistling and drumming on an empty water cooler. Through the percussion, the singing and the ululation, the partying and dancing continues.

The lights come back on with a blinding brightness. The dancers come back together, whipping past me in the first row. I can feel the wind and the sweat off their bodies.

As the piece progresses, movements change into deeply unsettling images through the dilation of time. The motion of kneeling and clapping for another dancer from the traditional dance slows down, so that as they kneel, with their hands joined, the dancers appear to be caught in a moment of prayer. Hands raised in a moment of surrender are subverted as those hands flutter in a seductive, come-hither motion. This is a resilient and a resistant dance. The haunting image of all of the dancers lying on the floor with their heads shielded is perhaps the most chilling. The motion reminds me of every news story that narrates the dropping of a bomb on a wedding celebration. The association is intensified as the sounds of a crying child and an air-raid siren are woven into the music. The symbolism is not heavy-handed, which makes the impact of these moments hit even harder.

All of the dancers stay on stage the entire time. We do not see them enter and they are unable to leave. When the music fades and the stage goes dark, the dance goes on, and it keeps going on.