Today we’d like to introduce you to Marium Khalid.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Marium. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I have moved every year and a half since I was born in London, England. Having lived in 13 cities around the world, by the time I was fifteen, made for a child filled to the brim with stories, experiences and perspectives vastly different from what is considered “normal.” There was never a specific moment when I knew I wanted to create theater or film. I suppose, it just always was. I come from a long line of storytelling women, akin to my G.Grandmum, Noor-us-Sabah Begum, who along with being a leader in the women’s rights movement in the 1940’s, and one of the founders of Pakistan, was a poet and novelist. She wasn’t the first, but she definitely set the bar high for anyone in the family, with a hunger to create.
By the time I graduated from University, it had been drilled into my psyche that there was no place for an immigrant female storyteller and performer in this city. Especially with a penchant for rib cage opening, spiritual, sensory soaked stories- let me rephrase, there was a place, there is always a place, but not many people were interested in creating it.
So I decided to do it myself. I founded Saiah Arts International in 2011, under which we produced ‘City Of Lions and Gods’ (2011, 2013), ‘Rua | Wulf’ (2012), ‘Moby Dick’ (2013), ‘Terminus’ (2014) and much more. By the grace of all things beautiful and Saiah’s patrons, we accumulated over 20+ awards.
Then my body broke. This was the part of my journey where the physical staged a coup d’état and imprisoned the rest. I crashed as I received a diagnosis of Myasthenia Gravis, Lupus and MCTD – and attempted to find shore for 2 years, moving through it as if in slow motion and everything I had worked decades towards was floating away.
Through all of it, however, the submission was the word that knocked on the proverbial door. Submission to the body, exactly as it is. Submission to wisdom coming from unfathomable places… and ultimately, I made peace with this new “me.”
I started learning to calm my ever-spinning mind and practiced listening- not just to/for stories yet to be told, but for self. Then one day, I heard the story of the Sky Creature, while in the ICU, surrounded by sights that still bring me to an overwhelming sensation. I was told that a sky creature is the one who holds the space for all others to experience their highest selves; the one who sees the truth from all perspectives and then connects with the other elemental creatures to share it with them, bringing them to their precipice, so they may consider a more encompassing journey.
I woke up and decided that if there was anything to keep fighting for, it was this.
I founded Sky Creature in 2017, a company that tells stories through film, immersive and site-specific theater, performance art, visual art, etc with the vision statement, “To bring closer to, paths yet un-faced, mysteries to be revealed, explore, a new choice in hand. That is Sky Creature.” That is where I’ve landed.
Has it been a smooth road?
The simple answer? No.
To convince people, whether patrons, investors or even the performers, that this work, if done with courage and integrity; if experienced with an open mind and heart, can shift us on a molecular level. However, this has always been the most difficult battle. There are too many preconceived notions of what our work is, because of the medium we use, because of risks I have taken, and people at times, become afraid to be part of a process that isn’t vanilla. We are used to the comfortable and breaking folks, myself included, of that pattern, has always been a struggle.
Not to mention, the process of true immersive work is not for the faint of heart. As much as some might crave to be part of it, but can’t push through. It is a difficult pill to swallow for both creator and performer.
To do this work is difficult, to begin with, but I have chosen a path that sometimes means risking parts of yourself that are too delicate. However, the moment of witnessing someone take a breath for the first time in years, as the performer reveals a sacred part of self to them, makes every moment worth it.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the SKY CREATURE story. Tell us more about the business.
At times, trying to explain what we do and why we do it, minimizes the actual entity. So I came across this passage from ‘Women Who Run With The Wolves’ by Clarissa Pinkola Estés, that comes close to explaining it.
“…Story in every way possible thrives only on hard work – intellectual, spiritual, familial, physical, and integral. It never comes easy. It is never “just picked up,” or studied in one’s “off times.” Its essence cannot be born nor maintained in air-conditioned comfort, it cannot grow to any depth in an enthusiastic but non-committed mind, neither can it live gregarious but shallow environs. Stories cannot be “studied.” It is learned through assimilation, through living in its proximity with those who know it, live it and teach it more so through all the day-to-day mundane tasks of life, much more than the clearly ceremonial times.
The healing medicine of the story does not exist in a vacuum. It cannot exist divorced from its spiritual source. It cannot be taken on as a mix-and-match project. There is an integrity to the story that comes from a real life lived in it. A story is clearly illuminated from being raised up in it.” Ultimately, Sky Creature has always and continues to specialize in creating sensory enveloping spaces to house stories based in truth, that have revealed themselves to us.
Utilizing scent, taste, touch, sound and sight, in all their beauty and grotesqueness, these stories and the characters who inhabit them, find a way to reveal themselves to us, as guides.
I am most proud of two factors about Sky Creature. One- the people who show up for the work, particularly in our most recent experience Sin Piel. I had the privilege to work with some of the most gracious, courageous and hopeful people, I have ever encountered.
Second, our patrons. My goodness, Sky Creature has ballsy patrons. They encourage us to take risks that make us tremble, and we make the work more and more challenging, pushing boundaries whenever we can- But every time, they come in to experience the work, with an even stronger force and higher expectations. To receive response pieces to our stories, whether an email sharing how the piece opened them up in a way they didn’t expect or a visual art piece, each moment makes me want to keep going harder and push the bar higher.
So you see, for me, I don’t consider what sets us apart from others. I believe in balance with all things- There is a need for all sorts of art. It depends on the patron and what they are ready to experience.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
We are transitioning deeper into the age of wisdom, which asks us to seek knowledge at any cost. Our desire for instant gratification is accelerating faster than we realize. I believe that film and theater, in order to save themselves from becoming a stagnant art form, will adapt to match the pace of its surroundings. Through brilliant innovation, they will become art forms, that encompasses various, yet to be explored mediums, including virtual reality, sensory explorations and immersive will take on a whole new meaning.
Perhaps keep an eye on Sky Creature and you’ll find out.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.skycreature.com
- Phone: 404-308-0116
- Email: skycreaturellc@gmail.com
- Instagram: @skycreatureproductions
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/SkyCreatureProductions/
- Other: http://artsatl.com/marium-khalid-journey-sky-creature-upcoming-sin-piel/
Image Credit:
The Hadley(s), Chris Stanford and Dustin Chambers, Ashley Anderson, Isadora Pennington, Alexandra McColl, Laura McCraine and Brandon Ross, Chris Anthony Hamilton
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