• 2023 Postdoctoral Fellow at Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh (UK)
• 2017- 2023 PhD in Choreography, Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh (UK)
• 2014-2016 Visiting Scholar and adjunct lecturer, Brown University (US)
• 2008-2009 MA degree in literary translation, Higher School for Linguistic Mediators of Vicenza (Italy)
• 2004-2008 BA degree in Linguistic and Cultural Mediation, University for Foreigners of Siena (Italy)

As a scholar and dance artist, Saleh’s research focuses on self-discovery, narrative appropriation, and bodily archives as a form of a decolonial practice. In her practice-based research The Archive of Gestures she intertwines choreography, video installation and spoken word to unearth hidden narratives of the Palestinian history and construct a living archive of gestures. She also experiments with participatory performance to disseminate the bodily archives she unearths, making them accessible to others, and reflecting on who can create, own, and access archives within the Palestinian colonial context. These research explorations will be published in her forthcoming book The Archive of Gestures (Bloomsbury 2027).

Saleh also recently co-edited the special issue “Cultural Resistance to Genocide”  (Global Performance Studies, Vol. 7, n.1 2024) foregrounds the critical importance of archiving lived experience as a form of resistance and testimony. Prioritizing narratives grounded in embodied, affective, and artistic responses to ongoing violence, the issue seeks to counter erasure, fragmentation, and historical distortion. By centring the immediacy of experiences under occupation and the material realities of dispossession, the issue not only archives the present moment in Gaza and other contexts but also models a methodology of care, solidarity, and attentive listening, demonstrating how performance studies can serve as a critical tool for witnessing, recording, and mobilising against structural violence.

Her performances were presented venues and festivals in the Arab World, Europe and the US, such as Ramallah Contemporary Dance Festival, Dance International Glasgow, Fruitmarket Gallery, Somerset House, Liverpool Arab Arts Festival, Granoff Center, New York Live Arts, Veem House, Avignon Festival, Hebbel am Ufer, Edinburgh International Festival and Alserkal Avenue.

Saleh’s new research project focuses on decolonial embodied practices at the university and how these practices can be integrated in the teaching and become part of the drive to decolonise the university and its curriculum. Saleh aims to engage with Glasgow University archives and monuments of colonial/slavery significance and to explore with the students participatory and creative ways of responding to these archives and monuments through public and participatory artistic interventions and performances. The objective is to create debate around them and make collective decisions on their future status at the university.

Research areas

• Decolonial embodied practices
• The body as archive
• Participatory performance
• Digital and hybrid performance
• Practice as research methods

List by: Type | Date

2025 Balfour Reparations, Made in Scotland Showcase (£25000)

2024 The World We Share, Creative Scotland Open Fund (£85000)

2024 Balfour Reparations, Culture & Commission (£15000)

I welcome PhD proposals in the following areas:

• Global Majority Performance
• Choreography
• Decolonial practices
• Political Performance
• Participatory and digital performance

• Sy, Moss
  Becoming Sensate Explorers

I teach across levels and contribute to several courses, current teaching includes:

• Theare and Society (Level 1)
• Thinking Through Theatre Histories (Level 2)
• Thinking Through Theatre Marking (Level 2)
• Advanced Theatre Making (Hons)
• Postcolonial Encounters (Hons)
• Honours Dissertations
• Contemporary Devising (Masters)
• Contemporary Dramaturgical Practice (Masters)
• Masters Dissertations

Website www.farahsaleh.com