Presented By: School of Music, Theatre & Dance (SMTD)
Leyya Mona Tawil and collaborators in "Happy Days Finale"
Work-in-progress showing followed by Q&A
Join us for an informal showing of Happy Days Finale, a new performance work by Leyya Mona Tawil in collaboration with Zari Lionudakis (dance), John MacDoughall Parker (music), and Scott Tallenger (costume).
What does happiness mean in a time of revolution? With each day anew, what is our capacity for communion, grief, resistance, chance? In a world of relentless injustice and collapse, we question what is ending and what is beginning. DANCE ELIXIR's Happy Days Finale is an invitation to test these questions, in body and time.
At the heart of Happy Days Finale is Tawil’s “choice-based choreography,” where each performance unfolds uniquely. The dance composition is driven by decisions that transform the work into an ever-evolving conversation between movement, space, and sound. Tawil calls it “an act of agility and adaptability,” - a dance that contains multiple truths with every iteration.
Happy Days Finale is an invitation to think critically and collaboratively, to explore how we, as a community, can face the challenges of today’s world. Tawil has created a space for modeling new ways of being in an unpredictable world. Happy Days Finale proposes dancemaking as a potent tool for liberation, urging us to question, to mourn, and to labor, together.
Presented by Daring Dances and the Center for World Performance Studies.
If you are a person with a disability who requires an accommodation to participate in this event, please contact the Center for World Performance Studies at [email protected] at least one week in advance of this event. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the University to arrange.
BIOGRAPHIES
LEYYA MONA TAWIL, Conceptual Score, Choreography, and Performance
Director of DANCE ELIXIR, Leyya Mona Tawil is an artist, performer, and cultural activist working in hybrid performance practices. Tawil is Palestinian and Syrian; engaged in the world as such. Her choreographies and sound projects have been presented throughout the states, Europe, and the Arab world. Highlight engagements: “My Name is Palestine” exhibit at Southern Exposure (SF), performance commissions from Abrons Arts Center (NYC) and Sibelius Museum (Turku), and residencies with Sharjah Art Foundation (UAE), Wysing Arts/British Council (UK) and PlayHouse Labs (Detroit). Tawil was nominated for a 2019 “Bessies” Award in Music (NYC) and received the Ruth Arts Artist Choice Award 2026. She has stewarded TAC Temescal Art Center in Oakland since 1997, and is the founding director of Arab.AMP - a platform for worldbuilding artists from the Arab/SWANA diaspora and our allied communities.
ZARI LIONUDAKIS, Dance Collaborator and Performer
Zari Lionudakis is an artist and educator who challenges perceptions of either/or. A lone wolf in lineage, heritage and praxis, Zari's work in liminal space bleeds into her performance, technique classes, scholarship and healing modalities. The late historian Hayden White called Zari a "radical visionary," as every mode of Zari's work challenges existing notions of what "is." Whether ballet or vernacular, slang or scholarship, Zari uses languages that work towards liberation. She has performed extensively with DANCE ELIXIR since its founding in 2003.
JOHN MACDOUGALL PARKER, Music Collaborator and Performer
John MacDougall Parker creates improvisational future-folk compositions where sound is amalgamated and congealed into a resolution of crossed signals. He has devised instruments focused on the interface between humans and machines, which are arranged to make music in the moment. Parker, of American and Korean origin, floats between NYC and São Paulo.
SCOTT TALLENGER, Costumes
Scott Tallenger is a Left-Handed/Right Brained, photographer, skateboarder and fashion designer. Based in Detroit and working nationally, Scott specializes in one-of-a-kind event garments and accessories. His first costume collaboration with performer Leyya Mona Tawil was in 2006, and he has since created over 11 unique costumes for DANCE ELIXIR.
What does happiness mean in a time of revolution? With each day anew, what is our capacity for communion, grief, resistance, chance? In a world of relentless injustice and collapse, we question what is ending and what is beginning. DANCE ELIXIR's Happy Days Finale is an invitation to test these questions, in body and time.
At the heart of Happy Days Finale is Tawil’s “choice-based choreography,” where each performance unfolds uniquely. The dance composition is driven by decisions that transform the work into an ever-evolving conversation between movement, space, and sound. Tawil calls it “an act of agility and adaptability,” - a dance that contains multiple truths with every iteration.
Happy Days Finale is an invitation to think critically and collaboratively, to explore how we, as a community, can face the challenges of today’s world. Tawil has created a space for modeling new ways of being in an unpredictable world. Happy Days Finale proposes dancemaking as a potent tool for liberation, urging us to question, to mourn, and to labor, together.
Presented by Daring Dances and the Center for World Performance Studies.
If you are a person with a disability who requires an accommodation to participate in this event, please contact the Center for World Performance Studies at [email protected] at least one week in advance of this event. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the University to arrange.
BIOGRAPHIES
LEYYA MONA TAWIL, Conceptual Score, Choreography, and Performance
Director of DANCE ELIXIR, Leyya Mona Tawil is an artist, performer, and cultural activist working in hybrid performance practices. Tawil is Palestinian and Syrian; engaged in the world as such. Her choreographies and sound projects have been presented throughout the states, Europe, and the Arab world. Highlight engagements: “My Name is Palestine” exhibit at Southern Exposure (SF), performance commissions from Abrons Arts Center (NYC) and Sibelius Museum (Turku), and residencies with Sharjah Art Foundation (UAE), Wysing Arts/British Council (UK) and PlayHouse Labs (Detroit). Tawil was nominated for a 2019 “Bessies” Award in Music (NYC) and received the Ruth Arts Artist Choice Award 2026. She has stewarded TAC Temescal Art Center in Oakland since 1997, and is the founding director of Arab.AMP - a platform for worldbuilding artists from the Arab/SWANA diaspora and our allied communities.
ZARI LIONUDAKIS, Dance Collaborator and Performer
Zari Lionudakis is an artist and educator who challenges perceptions of either/or. A lone wolf in lineage, heritage and praxis, Zari's work in liminal space bleeds into her performance, technique classes, scholarship and healing modalities. The late historian Hayden White called Zari a "radical visionary," as every mode of Zari's work challenges existing notions of what "is." Whether ballet or vernacular, slang or scholarship, Zari uses languages that work towards liberation. She has performed extensively with DANCE ELIXIR since its founding in 2003.
JOHN MACDOUGALL PARKER, Music Collaborator and Performer
John MacDougall Parker creates improvisational future-folk compositions where sound is amalgamated and congealed into a resolution of crossed signals. He has devised instruments focused on the interface between humans and machines, which are arranged to make music in the moment. Parker, of American and Korean origin, floats between NYC and São Paulo.
SCOTT TALLENGER, Costumes
Scott Tallenger is a Left-Handed/Right Brained, photographer, skateboarder and fashion designer. Based in Detroit and working nationally, Scott specializes in one-of-a-kind event garments and accessories. His first costume collaboration with performer Leyya Mona Tawil was in 2006, and he has since created over 11 unique costumes for DANCE ELIXIR.
Cost
- Free - no tickets required
Co-Sponsored By
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