The Balancing Arab

19 3Arts supporters
$6,370 raised of $5,000 goal
3ARTS MATCH
0 Days 0:00:00 LEFT
Funded on March 09, 2012
    • 3ARTS MATCH
    • 127% contributed

A new theatrical piece and video play in one, "The Balancing Arab" explores tensions that exist between political cultures and the pitfalls of messaging that gets either lost in translation or stranded in context. 


About This Project

Jamil Khoury’s The Balancing Arab (previously Fear No Arab or Two Chicks and a Bosu) tells the story of an Irish American personal fitness trainer and her once morbidly obese Arab American client. Set in a downtown Chicago gym amidst a strenuous workout session, things turn complicated as the two women recount an event at the Arab American Cultural Center a few nights earlier - an event at which the evening’s political discourse got filtered through decidedly different lenses. The Balancing Arab explores tensions that exist between political cultures and the pitfalls of messaging that gets either lost in translation or stranded in context.   

Silk Road Rising hopes to create an online video play of Khoury’s The Balancing Arab, to be directed by Anne Jacques and featuring actors Leslie Frame and Amira Sabbagh. The video play would run approximately twelve minutes in length and would be made available online for free. 

To realize our dream of turning The Balancing Arab into a free online video play, we need to raise $5,000 to cover the artist’s salaries. So if you believe in supporting artists and believe in paying artists for their work, please help us reach our goal. If we raise at least two thirds of our goal 3Arts will cover the rest. Be a dream maker and make a contribution today. Your support means the world to us!

About Silk Road Rising (www.silkroadrising.org)

Silk Road Rising (formerly known as Silk Road Theatre Project) creates live theatre and online videos that tell stories through primarily Asian American and Middle Eastern American lenses. In representing communities that intersect and overlap we are advancing a polycultural worldview.

About Online Video Plays

Silk Road Rising sees online video plays as a new frontier in theatrical storytelling.  Essentially, a video play is a marriage of genres, a hybrid of theatre and film, leveraging the unique strengths of each medium. Neither filmed play nor feature film, it is performed entirely in SRR’s theatre space, yet staged and shot cinematically, drawing talent from both the theatre and film communities.  

Thank yous

Contribute any amount or choose from the levels below.

  • $25
    Thank You! ($0.00 is tax deductible.)
  • $100
    Receive a DVD copy of Jamil Khoury’s “The Balancing Arab” ($0.00 is tax deductible.)
  • $250
    Everything above plus a Silk Road Rising gift item ($0.00 is tax deductible.)
  • $500
    Everything above plus an invitation for two to the “The Balancing Arab” launch party ($0.00 is tax deductible.)
  • $1000
    Everything above plus inclusion of your name as a producer in the video play’s credits ($0.00 is tax deductible.)




Jamil Khoury

Jamil Khoury is the Founding Artistic Director of Silk Road Rising, a Chicago-based, nonprofit theater and media arts organization that tells stories through primarily Asian American and Middle Eastern American lenses. Promoting playwrights of Silk Road backgrounds is a passion …

View Jamil Khoury's profile
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    • Thank you to the following for contributing to 3Arts with the recommendation that we support this project.

    • Mark Becker

    • Jon Satrom

    • Frank Buttitta

    • Rana Kazkaz

    • Jo Anne Davis

    • Sheila Chapman

    • cheryl hamada

    • Jerome Seidenfeld

    • Mary Lou Haddad

    • Lina Patel

    • Diane Sakai-Furuta

    • Fawzia Mirza

    • vic chao

    • John Tofik Karam

    • John Katonah

    • Barbara Njus

    • Zayn Kassam

    • Karen Atwood

    • GEETA CITYGIRL

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3AP Presenting Partner:

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 Additional support provided by: 

Department of Cultural Affairs logo  Illinois Arts Council