I am Nobody

film still of animated line drawings of dancers

Choreography and Animation: Katie Phelan
Poet: Haifa Abu Al-Nadi
Music: Fjodor Music
Voiceover: Liat Graf

I am Nobody

Haifa Abu Al-Nadi

I am nobody.

I spin in a strange and nameless orbit that cannot see me.

I am the falling life-line in my mother’s palm before she died.

I am the drawing of a squeezed heart on a wall immersed in moisture!

I am the first day after parting my beloved,

I am the first fifteen minutes of a long, long night;

Which feeds on my life as much as it desires,

And leaves my heart beats pounding,

Whenever your name echoes in my head.

I am “the nobody” who desires to summon you after I have delivered you.

I am the embrace between two strangers when love abandons them.

I am the imaginary presumed city in your head; without a river, a plain, or a mountain.

I am the margin in a single, lonesome book, begging you to read, before your bookshelves casts me out!

I am the air in your shadow, unknowingly, hidden from you.

I am the wall on which you hang your photos.

I am your unseen center of being,

I forgive you for not seeing me;

For I am the damp dust that whispers to you “I am no longer here!”

About the Collaborators

Katie Phelan // Choreography and animation
Katie Phelan is a screendance creator, researcher, choreographer, and educator pursuing her MFA in Dance at the University of Iowa. She holds a BFA in Dance, a minor in journalism, and a minor in advertising from Oakland University. The founder of 16:9 Dance: a ScreenDance Collective, Katie has worked with Eisenhower Dance, Gregory Hancock Dance Theatre, Motus Dance Theatre, Phoenix Rising Dance Company, AscenDance Chicago, and J. Lindsay Brown Dance. Her choreographic works have been seen in NewDANCEFest by Eisenhower Dance, Cultivate by Motus Dance Theatre, and Hope by AscenDance Chicago; her films have been shown at Festival of the Arts, Beijing Dance Academy's Dance Forum, Trifecta Dance Collective's Choreographer Showcase, American Dance Festival Association, FilmFest by Rogue Dancer, and Frostbite International Indie Fest.

Haifa Abu Al-Nadi // Poet
Haifa Abu Al-Nadi (fiction writer, screenwriter, translator; Jordan) teaches English at the Applied Sciences University in Amman, and translates for the Kalima and Al-Qattan foundations. Author of screenplays and magazine articles, in 2012 she published the volume of stories على أهبة الحلم [On the Threshold of Dreaming] and, in 2016, the collection مُراودات   [Propositions].