Peaceful Panic
November 14, 2026 - 5:30 PM
Presentation House Theatre - Studio, North Vancouver
Duration: 45 min performance
Written and performed by Masa Kateb, the work features Quranic recitation and an Indigenous song shared with the consent of Elder Maila'injij (Marian Nicholas).
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Photo by Indigenous Elder Marian Nicholas
Description
She walks onto the stage carrying everything: a scroll, a drum, a voice trained in prayer and song, a body shaped by professional sport and broken by it, and stories spanning Damascus to Turtle Island through the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula. Masa begins with childhood under a dictatorship that taught silence as survival, hope as treason, and obedience as love. Part theatre, part ceremony, the piece braids politics, spirituality, peace, healing, community, nature, culture, food, language, and history; tracing one woman's journey through forced displacement toward discovering that ‘home’ was never left behind. A determined act of collective healing led by a woman still healing herself.
Masa was part of the launch of the first Refugee Advisory Network of Canada and served as a Refugee Advisor at the Annual Tripartite Consultations on Resettlement (ATCR) in Geneva (2022). Keynote speaker at IRCC’s BC and Yukon Summit (2022).
