“Rah Eleh introduced The /Da (2018), a proposal crossed by her experience of the diaspora and the forced adoption of the linguistic ideologies of our country. With her eminently choreographed performance and the precise execution of coordinated gestures, Rah Eleh denounced her compulsory literacy. The action referred to the reminiscences of her arrival in Canada, while at school, an instructor squeezed her mouth to correctly articulate and pronounce the word “the.” To recall the stigma of this integration as a diasporic child, she infused this incisive gesture by the (dis) twist of his jaw by repeating “The” and “da”, even continuing the choreography to transgress the limitations of her body.”
-Jean Michel Quirion
