HERitage emBODYment: Re-Storying Egyptian Antiquities is a multi-media, multi-modal, multi-lingual (English, Arabic, Fadjiki) piece that tours as a site-responsive performance installation inside museums across the US renowned for their Ancient Egyptian and Nubian collections. Deeply satirical, humorous, and rooted in our indigenous performance traditions (oral storytelling, music, dance, puppetry, clowning), we invite audiences to witness us re-author what it means to be Egyptian, Nubian, and American. Embodying the personal as political, our bodies serve as extensions of our ancestors’ memories as we intertwine our lived histories with theirs. We interrogate how our own exoticized and politicized bodies are like the artifacts: on display for western consumption. Doing so, we mirror the migration and displacement of humans and artifacts.

This performance is made possible with funding by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Theater Project, with lead funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and additional support from the Doris Duke Foundation.

Read the NEFA Announcement about the eleven ensembles receiving $120,000 to create and tour an original piece in 2026.

For updates on the research, devising, and tour dates, visit the HERitage emBODYment website, and follow us on Instagram @heritage_embody