Salma Salem, Nik Rawlings and Mahmoud Magdy al-Gazzar
about the show
The Two Wheel Code will focus on three characters who live on wheelchairs in Cairo, presenting the choreography of their daily life while negotiating the urban architecture of the city. This project will explore a journey of movement research on wheels, creating a new performance while integrating the sounds of the participants and of Cairo itself into the soundtrack for the work. The collaboration brings together movement score from Egypt and sound score from the UK and hopes to challenge the idea of “disability”.
Mahmoud Magdy al-Gazzar (Egypt)
Mahmoud Magdy al-Gazzar is a contemporary dancer based in Giza. After a car accident left him with paraplegia, he started practicing contemporary dance and in recent years he has led a group of dancers on wheelchairs and been involved with movement workshops.
Mahmoud Magdy al-Gazzar has performed in many works including with StopGap Company and Florance Mutain and notably in Horizon, choreographed by Shaymaa Shoukry, and performed along with Salma Salem in the 2019 edition of the Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival (D-CAF).
Salma Salem (Egypt)
Salma Salem is an independent dancer and choreographer based in Cairo. Her work focuses on active research into forms of dance. During her career she has become interested in body-and-mind practices, the ability of the body to adapt, environmental awareness and healing through movement.
Salem graduated in psychology from the American University in Cairo and worked as an occupational therapist for autistic children before devoting herself to her career as a choreographer and dancer. After starting out in jazz dance at the Samia Allouba Dance, she began practising contemporary dance and physical theatre in 2011 following a course at the Centre for Contemporary Dance in Cairo and the Cairo Opera House Centre of Creativity headed by artistic director Karima Mansour. She also took part in projects with companies including Ex Nihilo, Don Gnu and StopGap Company.
In 2019, Salma Salem performed at Sophiensaele in Berlin and the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris. In 2020 she was invited by the Pina Bausch Foundation + l’École des Sables to take part in a workshop in Tunisia. Her solo production Anchoring was then presented at the Biennale of African Dance in Marrakech, the Joint Adventures festival in Munich, the Arab Arts Focus in Cairo and Festival Du Marseilles in France.
Nik Rawlings (UK)
Nik Rawlings is a countertenor vocalist, composer and DJ. They make spatialised sound and voice works that consider networked presence, polymorphous bodies and vocal transformation.
Rawlings is a permanent resident at the Pervasive Media Studio, based at the Watershed arts centre in Bristol, UK where their project breathing.systems was a recipient of the Expanded Performance Prototype grant from Bristol and Bath Creative R+D. Their recent works also include I was in the tide, the tide was in me, an immersive A/V work dealing with Bipolar time made in collaboration with Egyptian artist Ghada Eissa while on residency in Glasgow and Alexandria.
They have shown sound works and performances at Trinity Centre in Bristol, LUMA Foundation in Zurich, Guest Projects, The Surrounding and DIY performance spaces around London. They have contributed recordings of renaissance vocal works to artist Bryony Gillard’s work I Dreamed I Called You on the Telephone shown at Jerwood Space in London, and sang on Colin Self’s record Siblings alongside Lyra Pramuk.
