“This is who I am.” Hamzeh Al Hussien stands before us. Beyond him, the words he speaks are projected on to the irregularly shaped canvas panels of the set, written in English to our left and Arabic to our right. Beneath the panels, clearly visible, hang rows of jackets on hangars. Less obvious are hats, scarves and other accoutrements that might affirm/ convey/ suggest identity.
Who Hussien is – who any of us are – the performance implies, is in part a matter of projection; we project who we want to be through our choice of attire; we are projected on to by the circumstances that shape and/or frame us.
At the end of this 70-minute solo show, in which the artist and performer enacts for us the story of his life – or those parts of it he wishes us to know, and thinks we can endure – it feels as if we have experienced a genuine encounter; that we have a sense of a person in their complexity and yet not in their totality. Which is as it should be; after all, who can ever fully know another?
Co-created by Hussien and director Amy Golding, the narrative skips through time and place, between Hussien’s present life, settling into Gateshead (learning to cook, dancing in nightclubs, losing control of his mobility scooter) and his past, growing up in Syria (stealing fruit from neighbours’ trees, hiding in caves from falling bombs, adapting to life in Zaatari refugee camp). At times the story stumbles, delivery of background information coming across as look and learn.
Why the title? “Penguin!” is what the children used to shout at Hussien because of his gait, caused by the particular arrangement of his lower limbs. In accepting their projection, he escaped its definition and its limitations, liberating himself to move and dance as only he can; to present to the audience this “I am”.
