The movement experience today helped me to consolidate my comfort in the studio further. Experiencing the type of movements a second time felt familiar and understandable, less foreign. I could recognize this especially when the audio system stopped working: suddenly I felt comfortable to move, blindly or guiding someone else, even independently of the rhythm of the music.

In talking about “Paris is Burning” with Trajal, I started to remind myself of the attention that I have given the concept and expression of gender in my life thus far. But still, the notion of the liminal space, in which rules are suspended, your horizon of expectation shifted beyond what existed before, struck me the hardest. In imagining and reminding myself of my own privileges and contextualising the space of the ball in “Paris is Burning”, there is a sobering aspect to speculating that the ball as a suspended place cannot be transcended. But what does transcendence mean here? In terms of motion, of movement of the body, the space might be able to travel with the body after the ball – there is privilege in overcoming the space in terms of self expression, and there is also something else there: the memory of the experience and the narrative of familiarity that is created within these balls, this is something that cannot be taken away.

Considering realness at NYUAD and what is performed at this university, I think of many behaviours. There is an individuality to the people at NYUAD, but still there are general codes of behaviours which stay consistent. However, there seems to be a sense in which as an institution, in many ways there is an addition to the typical code of university experience, an addition to the choreographed dance which students experience, its’ own tone. This does not mean that other universities do not experience this tonal addition, I merely speak since NYUAD is the only university I have been to, so the code is the one I am accustomed to.