In a time of increasing political division fueled by nationalist rhetoric, surveillance and incarceration, Asad Ali Zulfiqar andMandeep Raikhy—artists from Pakistan and India—recognize an urgent need to come together and develop a dance that not only acknowledges their intertwined histories but actively deconstruct them. The border between their home countries is not merely a geographical marker but a deeply performative site where nations continually re-inscribe their identities, often in opposition to one another. As queer artists working on both sides of this border, they ask: How can this "either-or" dynamic be broken? If the border is the skin of a nation, both protective and permeable, how can their own skins meet when they dance together on a fictive Attari-Wagah border?

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Performed at Atelier No. 72 at PACT Zollverein, Germany on June 4, 2026