Farah Saleh's "Balfur Reparations" Confronts UK Colonial History at TEA Tenerife

This Saturday, TEA Tenerife Espacio de las Artes will host Palestinian dancer, choreographer, and academic Farah Saleh. She will present "Balfur reparations (2025–2045)," a powerful performance and lecture that explores and challenges the United Kingdom's colonial history in Palestine.

Saleh combines history, fiction, and fantasy to examine the role of Arthur James Balfour. As a former UK Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary, and influential thinker, Balfour created policies that denied the rights of Palestinians in the region. This thought-provoking work, which starts at 6:00 PM at TEA, uses elements of critical fabulation and Afrofuturism. It blends real historical records like videos, photos, and documents with imagined future scenarios.

This performance is part of "Por Asalto," a public live arts program. "Por Asalto" is a space for experimentation, bringing together different art forms and ideas. It is curated by Sabela Mendoza, Mari Paula, Masu Fajardo, and Javier Arozena. Entry to this event is free.

During "Balfur reparations (2025–2045)," the audience is asked to imagine they are in the year 2045. They will act as members of a "Reparations Committee," reviewing a fictional letter of apology from the British Government, supposedly issued in 2025. This shared experience transforms the stage into a place for political thought and symbolic healing. The performance asks: How do we hold people accountable? What different forms can justice take? It encourages the audience to actively participate in the discussion and the process of reparation.

Farah Saleh, who is based in Scotland, studied linguistic and cultural mediation in Italy while also training in contemporary dance. Since 2010, she has worked on projects both locally and internationally. Her collaborations include Sareyyet Ramallah Dance Company (Palestine), the Royal Flemish Theatre and Les Ballets C de la B (Belgium), Mancopy Dance Company (Denmark/Lebanon), Siljeholm/Christophersen (Norway), and Candoco Dance Company (United Kingdom). Beyond performing, Saleh has taught dance and coordinated and curated various artistic projects. She co-founded the Sareyyet Ramallah Summer Dance School in 2016.

In 2014, Saleh won third prize at the Young Artist of the Year Award (YAYA) for her installation "A Fidayee Son in Moscow," an award organized by the A.M. Qattan Foundation in Palestine. She received the dance award at the Palest’In and Out festival in Paris in 2016 for her duo "La Même." From 2017 to 2021, she was an associate artist at Dance Base in Edinburgh. In 2023, she earned her doctorate in artistic practice from the Edinburgh College of Art. This year, 2024, she started as a lecturer in Global Majority Performance in the Department of Theatre Studies at the University of Glasgow.