Sadiq Ali is a mixed heritage, queer, circus performer, theatre maker and cabaret artist working in the UK and internationally. The Chosen Haram (‘haram’ meaning ‘forbidden’), his debut work based on his own experiences explores themes of faith, sexuality, addiction and shame through the use of two Chinese Poles (tall vertical poles often used in circus performance) accompanied by an upbeat soundtrack. The show follows the journey of two men establishing a relationship and battling to overcome the social and cultural barriers that they face.
How did the Chosen Haram find its way to the Greenbelt Festival [an annual faith, activist and artist gathering] in 2023?
We did Edinburgh Fringe in 2022 with The Chosen Haram, which is how we’ve managed to take it on tour. We’ve been all over the world to Stockholm, Malmö, Copenhagen, lots of places in Europe and we’re going to Malta and Slovenia, all off the back of Edinburgh. The Chosen Haram was my first full length work: I’ve done a lot of work in cabaret, I’ve done a lot of solo acts, but this is the first show that I’ve made that’s a full cross between circus and theatre to be programmed in theatre spaces. It’s been a wild ride.
How did you centre an emotional and personal story within the genre of circus, which is usually a visual spectacle?
To create the work, every pole sequence, every section of choreography, had to enhance the narrative. That meant stripping back a lot of the circus ego: a lot of the biggest tricks we can possibly do just had no place in the story, whereas a single step on the pole, with intention, says much more than a backflip.
It was very helpful working with my co-performer, because Hauk [Pattison] has a background in acting and theatre training before circus. I think that’s what gave us the ability to create something that wasn’t about the spectacle. We use a tool [Chinese Poles] that’s normally used for spectacle and trick-based performance, and every time we touch it it’s to tell story, which is really hard to do.
In the show your character has a really clear choice between the man that he loves and his religion. Do you think that queer people will at some point in the future be accepted in Islam?
There’s so much work for Islam to do that. I think, fundamentally, large sections of it will not do and are opposed to it because the whole thing is that the Qur’an must be followed by principle. That’s tricky to manage, yet I meet people who are able to reconcile their faith and sexuality massively based, in my opinion, on the social structures of your family. If you have supporting parents, supporting friends, then you’re gonna be able to manage it. I think the journey that they’re on is hard because you’re overcoming your own teaching, and at the same time trying to exist physically within a community that, a lot of it, is against you.
There are groups like Imaan and the Hidayah [meaning ‘guidance’] which are LGBTQ+ groups that support practising Muslims, queer Muslims and ex-Muslims. And then there are a lot of other groups like the Council of ex-Muslims of Britain, which support anyone that’s persecuted by Islam. They do a lot of work with refugees, a lot of work with pulling people out of countries where they can’t exist as queer people in Islam.
Obviously, in the UK, it’s easier to fly under the radar or to kind of get away with being queer and religious, and in other places you’re still on death penalty or imprisonment. So maybe, but it’s a long, long way away. Ask me in 100 years.
What did you take away from the post-show Q&A?
The Q&A was probably one of the most powerful interactions I’ve ever had with an audience. The questions were very poignant. I think the ability to think about queer youth within the structures of Christianity but taking it through the lens of Islam, and through the story of the show, allows people to ask questions and confront things they’re probably dealing with themselves.
Some of the questions were really about allowing me to say that I believe that some of the negative outcomes of what happens in the show are essentially based on shaming our youth, on how much shame that we carry through us through life. And the way to avoid that, in my belief, is to continuously show love, kindness, care and acceptance.
Afterwards, some of the people that came up to me were self-identified trans people and queer people within a Christian festival, who cried and hugged me, and I was like, ‘what is happening here’? That was really powerful.
What safe spaces are important for the queer community? And what’s missing?
What I don’t see, that I would love, is music and social spaces that are not bars, not drug based and not drink based, because we really don’t f*cking have them. Trying to live a sober life as a queer person in London means that I feel like I end up just not partaking in all of the social environments that I thought made me who I was.
In terms of other queer spaces that I really benefited from were LGBTQ+ youth groups, because I was living in a family where my faith and my sexuality were not compatible. The LGBTQ+ youth groups that I went to on a weekly/bi-weekly basis, secretly, anonymously, and their confidentiality in their spaces so they didn’t have to tell parents of faith that may not agree at that point, was necessary for me to be somewhat okay with who I am. Because otherwise, I wouldn’t have had any space where it was okay.
How can we maintain faith, religiously or not, in ever more troubling times?
You’re asking the wrong person.
Trying to remember that some of the negative voices out there, the criticising voices, are actually a minority, they’re just very loud. I try to narrow my gaze and I try to exist amongst the people that are closest to me in the world I’m actually in, because we’ve got social media, we’ve got the internet, our scope is far too wide to be able to look at it and retain faith.
It’s in small acts of kindness, it’s in encounters with friends, conversations with family, that there’s good experiences and good times to be had.
Whether I have faith with the world and humanity on a larger global landscape: no, I do not. I look at the social structures of the world, the homeless, those struggling with addiction – we just turn our blind eyes to them. We do not, as a larger society, have care for people at our forefront: we have profits, and we’re f*cked.
Until that changes, until we look at an addict on the street and we see them as a human being who has had a range of life experiences or potential mental health issues, that has ended up in this position, and they are still deserving of respect and love and kindness – until we as a society treat every person like that, I don’t have faith: but I guess I can have faith in people who do approach things that way.
For more information about Sadiq Ali, visit his website here.
