by Farah Saleh
Sat June 21st
4pm – 5:30pm
The Studio, Festival Theatre, Edinburgh
What if the UK publicly apologised for the Balfour Declaration—and promised reparations to the Palestinian people?
Inspired by archival materials, Farah Saleh’s unique and powerful performance lecture investigates ways of confronting the United Kingdom’s colonial legacy in Palestine. The role of Arthur James Balfour, the country’s Prime Minister (1902-1905), Foreign Secretary (1916-1919), Chancellor and Rector of many UK prominent universities (1886-1930), is examined in the denial of Palestinian political rights in their homeland. Saleh takes us through history, fiction and fantasy, situated in the future, in 2045. The audience interact as members of the reparations’ evaluation committee reflecting on the imagined apology letter that the United Kingdom will have issued in 2025 to the Palestinian people.
Helen Trew, Director Art27 Scotland said:
“At the heart of the performance is a confrontation with the UK’s historical responsibility in displacing Palestinians and undermining their right to self-determination. Drawing on frameworks such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), Art27 considers how the ongoing occupation continues to deny Palestinians’ ability to freely pursue their cultural development and indigenous identity. Audience members are not passive observers—they become part of the narrative as a reparations evaluation committee, asked to assess the impact of the imagined UK actions. This framing turns the performance into a space for collective reflection and engagement with our own history. As part of Art27 Scotland’s CULTURE = LIFE programme for Refugee Week 2025, this performance embodies the programme’s ethos: that cultural rights are human rights, and that art can be a vital force for truth-telling and transformative justice.”
Artist Biography
Farah Saleh is a Palestinian dancer, choreographer and scholar based in Scotland. She took part in projects with Sareyyet Ramallah Dance Company (Palestine), the Royal Flemish Theatre and Les Ballets C de la B (Belgium), Mancopy Dance Company (Denmark/Lebanon), Siljehom/Christophersen (Norway) and Candoco Dance Company (UK). Since 2010, Saleh has also been teaching dance, coordinating and curating artistic projects, including the Sareyyet Ramallah Summer Dance School, which she co-founded. In 2014 she won the third prize of the Young Artist of the Year Award (YAYA) organized by A.M. Qattan Foundation in Palestine for her installation A Fidayee Son in Moscow and in 2016 she won the dance prize of Palest’In and Out Festival in Paris for the duet La Même. She was an Associate Artist at Dance Base 2017-2021 and in 2023 she earned her practice-based PhD from Edinburgh College of Art. In 2024, Saleh started a lectureship in Global Majority Performance at the Theatre Studies department at Glasgow University.
Credits
Concept and choreography: Farah Saleh
In collaboration with
Filmmaker: Lucas Chih-Peng Kao
Poster photography : Lucas Chih-Peng Kao
Researcher:Nicola Perugini
Dancers: Nadia Khattab and Jamal Bajali
Rehearsal support: Luke Pell
Graphic designer: Michaela Pointon
Music: Kim Moore & Wasef Jawhariya
Funded by:
The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH), Common Ground Festival and Culture &.
Special thanks to:
Adam Perugini Saleh, Ben Fletcher-Watson, Emil Perugini Saleh, Emily Nicholl, Hannah Draper, Joy Parkinson, Lauren Galligan, Lesley McAra, Mira Knoche, Pauline Clark, Qais Saleh, Sawsan Shunnar, Sophia Lycouris and Stitches
Visit Capital Theatres – Accessibility for access information.