**vaccinated and boosted, with a focus on covid-safe practices as i travel
*** many of my older references use she/her or refer to me as female; i use they/them and identify as genderqueer/trans non binary now!

CURRENT MISSION

to be grounded where i am and open and intuitive about what's next.

ABOUT ME

i really like to tell people my story and hear theirs. and i am passionate about certain things, but i always want to learn and grow, so i want to hear what you have to say and see how it changes my perspective. i get super deep and serious, then i get hysteria-inducingly silly. and i'm loud as hell.

i am a performance maker. sometimes it looks like performance art, sometimes it looks like dance, sometimes it looks like indefinable vocal stuff. doing this kind of work for me is about trying to be more human, and fight it, and share it.

i am also a queer, so be queer friendly or don't host me. passionately anti-racist and a radical free thinker as well so!

i've traveled a fair amount, and since being a bit more stuck due to the pandemic, i've got the itch again. i want to see more of the world, in due time, with patience and tolerance at the fore of my journeys.

whatever you want to do, i'm up for. i'm incredibly low-maintenance. but i never just sit around. i'm the kind of person who happily runs myself to the ground. so let's go! (or, if you need me out of your hair, i'll go!)

PHILOSOPHY

enjoy what i'm experiencing now with the discipline to appreciate it, the freedom to make it full, and the tolerance to just love it...and expect nothing and everything.

worry less, expand myself more

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

i've just attended a meeting and surfed a couch twice. but i hope to be part of the awesome CS community more in the near future when i get my own place. i host a ton of people off CS through my artistic communities. i love hosting as much as i love being a guest.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

surfing: i did my first surf in utrecht and it was unbelievable! i was lucky enough to be there when there was a meeting being held, so i met lots of awesome CSers. also, having gotten in touch with more than one CSer about surfing, i met more than just my host outside the meeting. i found people with a travel philosophy to which i could relate and an attitude i fell in love with...so i got hooked.
i surfed in portland maine and had some great adventures.

hosting: see above

Interests

dance, performance art, somatic techniques such as alexander technique and feldenkrais, clothes mismatching as a personal style philosophy, a wide range of quality music, street performance, exploring cities and their histories, my family and friends, hiking, swimming, defining "nature" and what it means to me, writing as a way of processing experience, sharing and listening

• arts
• writing
• performing arts
• photography
• dancing
• dining
• clothing
• traveling
• music
• hiking
• surfing
• swimming

Music, Movies, and Books

these are things i'd like to talk about more in person than on this forum. but for now, what i'm into:

music: is so important to me. currently running on bette davis, matt ohyung, locate S1, leonie pernet, beverly glenn copeland, serpentwithfeet

books: david wojnarowicz, eileen myles, michelle cliff, joy williams, gwendolyn brooks, anne carson

movies: i'm one of those people who sociologically studies movies like cruel intentions for their cultural value but also digs deep into dallas buyers club. a film i saw recently that's unlike any other i've seen: neptune's frost.

i mostly see and am involved in a lot of live performance, so that takes up a lot of my time and defines my taste and interests a lot.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

i've toured around the US performing. i've returned to my fathers home country (lebanon) and barely made sense of everything. i teach kids, they know everything

Teach, Learn, Share

i want to travel to see how my own philosophy can be changed, improved, turned on its head, and dissolved from what i learn. i want to see so much because getting too comfortable allows me to avoid acknowledging what's good AND bad about where we are AND where we can go.

couchsurfing is a great way to do this because it's about an exchange, it's about giving. my first experience surfing exposed me to people who had ideas that changed my mind about things in more ways than i expected. i met so many people who instead of trying to achieve something in life just wanted to experience it and share themselves with others. my host francois, for example, took so much time to show me around, make me food, take me out...it made me realize that my way of thinking is severely flawed. all i often think about is what i need to do and what i am trying to achieve. at one point, francois said he wouldn't be doing anything interesting if his surfers weren't around.

the way i have begun to practice this kind of giving perspective recently is through my artistic practice. i've been trying to engage with audiences in a way that provides fertile ground for diverse and hidden perspectives can grow and be grappled with. this is truly the way in which i feel most grounded now.

and the short answer:
i love teaching meditative, clarifying voice and movement practices, and would love to get up early one morning and share some (slightly bastardized) qi gong with you. i will be sharing these practices with queer refugees during my travels in europe this summer.

What I Can Share with Hosts

see teach/learn/share section

Countries I’ve Visited

Canada, Croatia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, India, Lebanon, Mexico, Netherlands, Slovenia, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States