Achraf El Abed + Kaia Portner

Achraf El Abed is a product designer by profession, and a dancer, choreographer and performer by passion. His artistic journey spans street jazz, modern jazz, contemporary dance and voguing, while remaining deeply rooted in Tunisian feminine folk dance and oriental dance. In Tunisia, he performed in notable productions, including Lasmer Tounsi, Nouba and Zine et Aziz, where he developed a choreographic language blending cultural heritage with contemporary creation. In 2019, he created his first solo show, Howa Walla Heya, presented at the opening of the Mawjoudin Queer Film Festival, exploring gender, identity and freedom through movement. In 2022, Achraf moved to Montréal, where he has continued performing and collaborating across cultural events, including Festival du Monde Arabe, Orientalys, Laylit, and Festival MURAL. Through his work, he builds bridges between cultures, identities and generations, using the body as a tool for transmission, resistance, and celebration.

Nader Hajri specializes in the creation, design and implementation of soundscapes for live performances. His work ranges from producing original audio content for dance events to the technical management of sound systems. Each project is built around precision in execution, musical coherence, and adaptation for the stage. As a DJ known as Nad_R, he has developed an advanced understanding of musical dynamics and ability to read the energy of an audience, which he integrates into his creations and sound design choices. In dance-related projects, he composes soundscapes conceived as an extension of movement, where sound structures, accompanies and intensifies the performance without dominating it. In event production, he ensures the coordination and reliability of the audio component, from preparation to execution in live conditions. His practice centers on creation, technical mastery, and the overall coherence of the live experience.

Anas Jellouf is a Montréal-based lighting technician who works at the intersection of the performing arts, music, and immersive art. Drawing on his background in audiovisual media and stage production, he has developed a sensitive approach to lighting, which he views as a language in its own right, that serves the body, space, and emotion. His work is rooted in a quest for dialogue between technique and storytelling, where each lighting atmosphere becomes a vehicle for meaning, accompanying performers in their states of presence, transformation, and memory. Alongside his technical work, Anas is also a musician and creator under the name Sidi Blue Moon, exploring the connections between Gnawa traditions, African rhythms, and electronic music. This dual practice fuels his understanding of rhythm, stage energy, and performative dynamics. Through interdisciplinary projects, he collaborates with artists from the worlds of dance, theatre and music, paying particular attention to socially engaged works where the personal meets the political. In Howa walla heya d’aujourd’hui, he supports the choreographic process by sculpting light as a space of revelation, vulnerability, and rebirth.

Zeyneb Raissi is a product designer and Tunis Institute of Fine Arts graduate with experience spanning design and contemporary art production. She served as production coordinator for Titled Frame, overseeing execution and cross-functional coordination, and as curator of Cluster of Matter, shaping the exhibition’s spatial and narrative experience.

This performance explores memory, desire and resistance through movement, honouring my ancestors and the stambeli spiritual heritage of my childhood. Central to the work is Tanit – an ancient North African goddess that opens a reflection on femininity, the sacred, and freedom – reimagined through the imagery of a traditional Tunisian wedding.

The show also investigates sexuality within traditional Tunisian dance, uncovering hidden narratives of desire, power and transgression embedded in gestures passed down through generations. Situated between heritage and reinvention, it invites audiences to reconsider what traditions carry and conceal.

The work is dedicated to queer people in Tunisia, honouring their resilience against systems of erasure. By invoking figures like the Bacha Bazi and other historically marginalized bodies, I seek to recover forgotten memories and celebrate those who persist in the face of suppression.

Kaia Portner is a Montréal-based dancer, choreographer and showgirl performer whose practice bridges contemporary dance, burlesque, and nightlife performance. She holds a BFA in Contemporary Dance and Choreography from Concordia University. Her choreographic work situates showgirl performance as a cultural magnifying glass. Through heightened aesthetics and choreographic precision, Kaia examines how bodies are consumed, celebrated and politicized across stage and nightlife environments. Her most recent solo work, Capital Erotica, was presented by Tangente as part of Danses Buissonnières in 2024. She has also presented excerpts of her choreographic research I’m-Pulse at Studio 303’s Marathon, and in collaboration with Art Volt x POP Montréal. These works reflect her ongoing interest in liminality, the performance ritual, and the body as both spectacle and agent of disruption. Kaia’s artistic identity is deeply intertwined with her showgirl persona, Nomi Nova, developed through extensive experience in Montréal’s nightlife, including at eclectic venues such as Yoko Luna, Bordelle, La Voûte, The Wiggle Room, La Nuit Shanghai, and Cabaret de Curiosités. This sustained engagement with the nightlife industry informs her choreographic approach, allowing entertainment and critical inquiry to coexist within her work. Alongside her choreographic practice, Kaia collaborates widely across disciplines, contributing to live and screen-based performances. Notable collaborations include Beli for Osheaga 2025, K. Maro, Maze, France Castel, and Xela Edna. Her commercial credits include dancing and modelling for Brown’s Shoes Winter 2024 campaign. In addition to performing, Kaia teaches Sensual Flow and Heels based classes at Studio Bizz, fostering embodied awareness, agency and sensual movement within an inclusive and supportive environment.

Mada Mada is a Montréal-based artist whose music merges pop and alternative influences into richly textured, dreamlike soundscapes. A film composer by trade, his cinematic sensibility shapes every aspect of his songwriting and arrangements, where each layer is carefully crafted for emotional impact. With three EPs and a recent appearance at Vue sur la Relève, Mada Mada continues to carve out a distinct space in the indie music scene. He also works as a director (Sandrine St-Laurent, J.A.M., Miro, Claudia Bouvette, and the animated feature Butterfly Tale), and has worked on films such as Les chambres rouges.

The process began by referencing Victor A. Turner’s Liminality and Communitas, where concepts of transformative rituals are explored in social identities. By leading with three distinct phases – separation, liminality, and aggregation – Turner’s text becomes a relevant structure for the choreography. As I reflect on the act of metamorphosis, I am fascinated by how our cultural and erotic desires are mirrored in the trends we seek in live entertainment. This framework is not only structural but conceptual. Turner’s stages allow me to examine the sociocultural implications of sensuality as power, the audience-performer contract, and the ways performance spaces mediate intimacy. Liminality becomes a tool to interrogate, embody and recontextualize a burlesque performance through an extended format, more extensive costume research, and a morphing identity for my showgirl persona, Nomi Nova.