Biography

Mohanad Smama is a Palestinian contemporary dancer, choreographer, and videographer from Gaza. Graduated from the Faculty of Physical Education, he is recognized as one of the pioneers of contemporary dance in his city. He is the founder of Hai Team for contemporary arts , the first studio and company dedicated to contemporary dance in Gaza. There, he developed a unique movement methodology that merges traditional Palestinian Dabke with contemporary dance, while integrating social issues, personal narratives, and his daily experience under blockade before his arrival in France at the end of 2024. He also managed several cultural and artistic programs, as well as a dance festival in Gaza in cooperation with various Palestinian institutions.

His work reimagines the Palestinian body as a living archive of memory, resistance, and creativity. Over the past decade, Mohanad has trained hundreds of young artists, created numerous award-winning choreographic works, and produced innovative dance films.

After surviving six months of genocide in Gaza, he is now continuing his artistic practice in exile, based in Marseille, where he teaches, performs, and develops multidisciplinary projects combining dance, cinema, and creative technologies.

Mohanad is a recipient of the PAUSE program of the Collège de France and is currently in a two-year residency supported by Les Rencontres à l’échelle / Bancs Publics, Shonen Company, the Ballet National de Marseille, and La Friche la Belle de Mai.

He is currently developing the choreographic solo Limitless, the lecture-performance Moment, and the participatory project Dabke Alive, all of which explore the relationship between memory, displacement, and the living heritage of Palestinian movement.

Artistic project

LIMITLESS is a solo dance performance by Palestinian choreographer and dancer Mohanad Smama. The work explores a body reshaped by genocide, forced displacement, and the invisible traces these experiences leave on memory, identity, and movement.

By bringing together Palestinian Dabke and contemporary dance, Mohanad develops a unique movement language in which Dabke becomes a living archive of collective memory. It appears not only as a cultural heritage but also as a contemporary physical language through which the body carries stories of survival, loss, resilience, and transformation.

LIMITLESS unfolds as an intimate dialogue between the dancer and himself, moving through fear, grief, vulnerability, unexpected strength, and the desire for liberation. The work explores how the body responds to states of emergency, sudden displacement, and the arrival of traumatic news, and how these physical and emotional memories continue to inhabit the body even after leaving one's homeland.

The body becomes a living archive, carrying places, experiences, and histories beyond geographical borders. Although rooted in Gaza, the work expands into a broader reflection on how human beings rebuild their relationship with identity, memory, and belonging after experiences of loss and displacement.

Conceived as an immersive experience, LIMITLESS can be presented in theatres, public spaces, and outdoor environments, creating a direct and intimate relationship between the performer and the audience, where memory is transformed into movement and presence becomes a shared experience.

Beyond the performance, the project extends through workshops with young people and local communities, using Palestinian Dabke and contemporary dance as tools for expression, connection, and the transmission of embodied memory.

Format: solo performance / adaptable for indoor and outdoor spaces 

Size of audience: adaptable according to the venue

Specific location: different spaces, in the street between buildings, in an open area close to the environment from which the idea originally emerged, the city of Gaza, or in nature among trees, or on the seashore.

Timing/duration: 56 minutes