Photo: Marion Chuniaud & Ruben Naranjo
Dona-Bella Kassab
Artistic Statement
My practice is rooted in an indisciplinary approach, where surrealism meets performance. I draw from the liminal spaces of my imagination to create intermedial stage architectures, conceived as thresholds of latency where conventions begin to tremble. By engaging both reason and affect, my work seeks to trigger moments of awareness within immersive experiences.
My work calls upon a raw, even impulsive, authenticity. Guided by the playfulness of the inner child and the vulnerability of presence, I weave in references to current events in order to explore shame and fabulation as two sides of the same coin. By inhabiting these tensions, my research ultimately seeks to transform the management of discomfort into a source of nourishment for consciousness and its complexity.
My artistic approach comes from a need to take part in the struggle for truth. Each person carries a truth that resonates with the truths of others. It is the feeling of standing on one’s own axis: grounded, yet capable of self-modulation. I strengthen this state of presence through a mesh of empathy, integrity, humility, ego, ethical responsibility, and intrinsic love.
I begin from the intimate place within me that I feel to be universal.
Within the BIG BANG program, I am exploring dance as my main artistic medium.
Introduction to the Artist
Dona-Bella Kassab, like so many others,
seeks to belong in order to better take flight.
Between learned isolation and invisible connection,
between the labels of identification imposed upon us
and the overused territories we inherit,
they are a gargoyle with a dislocated jaw.
And even then, to tame the overflow,
let the weight of our masks run off.
Between spleen, abyss, and discipline,
let us become kamikazes of appearances.
Let us adopt a chimera heart,
aspire to build worlds that love us back,
and learn, by trial and error,
to play the truest instrument.
Biography
Dona-Bella Kassab is a Québec-based artist of SWANA origin, based in Tio’tia:ke. They perform on dance, theatre, and other stages with a naturally distinctive quality of presence. Since 2020, they have been developing their voice as a creator in performance and installation art, presenting their work in various festivals across Québec, from Gatineau to Haute-Gaspésie, as well as in situ through their monthly series Performance à Domicile.
After studying visual and media arts, they continued their academic path at the École supérieure de théâtre and in contemporary dance at Concordia University. They move across live arts disciplines with an approach that advocates for innovation in both aesthetics and methods.
In addition to being a performer, they are a dramaturg whose perspective is shaped by activist knowledge, an inclusive approach, and a clear, empathetic gaze on the world.
They also take part in and develop various citizen-based projects, always with the aim of bringing a revolutionary function to this “useless, and therefore essential” field.
Today, Dona-Bella Kassab continues to create and to accompany necessary poetries.