Dancer in long sleeves|| Painting

Egyptian artist Sara Tantawy’s first exhibition in the UAE embodies a language that she discovered when she was dealing with trauma, which led her to experiment with dance and movement therapy a few years back. This experience resulted in Survivors, a series of 12 realism paintings of women in dance poses that is now hanging at Fann A Porter gallery in Dubai until February 10. It is the artist’s second body of work in her exploration of the ancient roots of communal belly dancing and movement as a vehicle to express grief, resilience and euphoria. “I began researching this subject after I attended a dance and movement therapy course to deal with my own trauma and past experiences,” says the artist, 29, who graduated in fine arts from Helwan University in Egypt in 2017. "I found that dance has been used for centuries as therapy and expression and I wanted to specifically look at its roots in Egyptian culture. “Dance has always been ritualistic and communal, and has been used for every occasion throughout history — to honour, to celebrate and to mourn.”