Hazem Header: Held in the Cage of Your Promises(Egypt)

What connects us can also limit us.

Four anonymous figures move within a shared, shifting space, connected not by walls, but by invisible agreements. Their bodies are covered with long veils that conceal identity, gender, and expression, rendering them unrecognizable to one another.

Held in the Cage of Your Promises explores how promises – personal, social, and political – can function as structures of control. Through intimate relationships, cultural traditions, and institutional systems, promises are used to secure belonging, loyalty, and obedience. In return, bodies are often expected to adapt, endure, and remain silent.

As the performers move through closeness, tension, and resistance, the veil becomes both protection and a tool of erasure: concealing, yet also suppressing the individual. The choreography unfolds as a negotiation between autonomy and submission, revealing how care, duty, and expectation can transform into forms of constraint.

Hazem Header is an Egyptian contemporary dancer and choreographer. Born and raised in Egypt, he studied physical education and further trained in biomechanics and kinesiology. His deeper encounter with contemporary dance began through his work at the Cairo Contemporary Dance Center (CCDC), where he gained both formal dance education and his first choreographic experience.

In 2013 he founded NÜT Dance Company (NDC), which has become one of the most interesting contemporary dance platforms in Egypt. The company stands out for its bold physical expression and themes that have long been taboo in Egyptian society—gender, feminism, sexuality and political context.

Header is also the founder of the Breaking Walls festival, the first Egyptian festival of site-specific performances. His artistic work extends beyond Egypt, with his company’s performances presented internationally. His work often combines physical performance, dance, drag elements, cabaret and lip-sync, exploring identity and political and social norms, particularly those concerning the LGBT community and freedom of expression in conservative societies.

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