Dance or die — and the fight to be more than a headline

Episode 36: Ballet Dancer Transcript

Julia Dixon Evans: Today, dancer Ahmad Joudeh performs right here in San Diego. He's also danced on some of the biggest stages in the world. But the dance that changed his life forever? It didn't happen on a stage at all.

Ahmad Joudeh: And they were like, you go first. I'm like, yeah, I'll go. I know every corner in this camp. I grew up here.

Evans:  It was in the middle of a refugee camp, in the midst of the Syrian civil war. At the time, the camp had been taken over by ISIS and they didn't want him dancing there.

Joudeh: And then they told me, stop, you see that curtain? I'm like, yeah. They said, there's a sniper behind it and this is ISIS. I'm like, sure, I'm gonna dance here then. So I did dance and they were, they shot at us like the sniper three times. I kept dancing and they were like, let's take a cover. I'm like, no, you go take a cover. So…

Evans: I mean, what was going through your mind right then?

Joudeh: It was like, if I'm going, I'm going as a dancer, you know. I wanna finish this life dancing. That was the only thing. And where? Where I grew up.

Evans: In the video of his dance that day, he's surrounded by rubble — a war zone, wearing all black. At first, his movements are subtle and measured, but it builds. Skillful and graceful spins and twirls, and an undeniable strength and power. And it was filmed by a Dutch journalist.

Joudeh: And that reportage was on TV in the Netherlands and got super viral back then.

Evans: That dance, and the documentary, made him known all over the world.

Joudeh: I made sure for this story to live and to stay there even after I go to inspire more people and to reach more people who need to hear that your life is your own, and don't let anyone steal your joy from you.

Evans: But this story of being so committed to dance, to doing what he loves? It started to get away from him.

Joudeh: Let's be honest, I have a story that sold, I have a story that became a subject. And that became headlines. I was frustrated with the amount of cameras around me.

Evans: That story was that of a refugee dancer who escaped war and ISIS threats. And he went on to star on TV shows and dance for a prestigious European ballet company. The tale the media told was about a person to be inspired by, but also maybe to feel sorry for.

Joudeh: They were like, oh, pity little refugee guy who dances. I refuse to feel that I'm just a story.

Evans: Ahmad's quest to keep inspiring people on his own terms, led him here to San Diego. But first he had to learn how to say no.

Joudeh: After a year, I was like, stop. No, that's not happening anymore. I'm going to find my own path. But now, after 10 years from that, we have the dancer, not the refugee guy who dances.

Evans: Ahmad was born stateless. He had no official national identity or passport. He grew up in a refugee camp. And he started the camp's first ever dance studio, before the country and then the camp itself was engulfed in war. And to get from there to performing with San Diego's Golden State Ballet, to becoming known as a dancer, not just the refugee who dances? It took an unwavering commitment to the art form that he was truly willing to die for.

Joudeh: My name is Ahmad Joudeh. I am a dancer. I was born in Syria.

I had a feeling that I risked my life to protect and I still have this feeling till today when I'm dancing. They would call me, say they wanna cut my head.

It's a bit dark, but it's a happy ending.

Evans: From KPBS Public Media this is The Finest, a podcast about the people, art and movements redefining culture in San Diego. I’m Julia Dixon Evans.

[Theme Music]

Evans: Ahmad was born in Damascus, Syria in a camp for Palestinian refugees. It's easy to assume a place like that was full of suffering and desolation.

Joudeh: It was really amazing to be there. Like the weather is always good. We had four seasons. Everything. My grandfather was there, my uncles, my family. I was loved. I had everything I wanted. We went to the camp schools. That's why I speak English. I played in the streets and music was my thing. My father is a musician, so he taught me and my brother, my sister music. I used to sing. I used to play keyboard and guitar. Growing up in a camp was beautiful because it was so small. The world was so small. The sky to me was like little piece of sky that I would look at between buildings. But I was always curious. Why are we here? And why we have a different accent than the Syrian people?

Evans: Ahmad grew up in the Yarmouk camp. It's one of several similar camps just outside of Damascus and across Syria. These camps started taking shape in 1948, when the modern state of Israel was created.

Being born in a camp is a strange phenomenon, like a geopolitical no man's land, where inhabitants are citizens of no country — technically stateless.

Joudeh: And this refugee camp was created for the Palestinian refugees.

My father was born in the camp. His father left Palestine. He was born in, if you know, the Lake Tiberias in the north of Palestine. So the part of Palestine that he is from is now Israel. That's why statelessness happened.

Evans: About half a million people in Syria live in this nationless limbo. Ahmad's mother is from Syria, but she moved into the camp to marry his stateless father. Even though by blood Ahmad is both Syrian and Palestinian, because he was born in the camp, he wasn't officially a citizen of any country.

Joudeh: I met Palestinian dancers who told me that I was not Palestinian.

And I met Syrian people who told me, why do you say you're Syrian? You're not Syrian. And they kept tripping this from me, taking this from me away. And I was like, you know what? I'm just a dancer. And dance doesn't need nationality. And art is, that's my identity.

Evans: But dance wasn't really a part of life in the camp when Ahmad was a kid. Remember, he was a singer. And it was an early school recital, when he was eight, that changed his life.

Joudeh: And actually this is how I found out about dance for the first time. I was performing with my brother and sister. And it was like the end of the year school celebration where they chose us from the camp, the camp school, and they took us to the city center school where we performed our piece. And then after that there was like the girls' school where it was six girls dancing ballet. And that was the first time I saw, I heard classical music for the first time, which was Swan Lake. And I saw this type of dance and the movement with harmony. And I was like, what am I doing with an instrument? I have the instrument, I am the instrument. So I had a great life, even in a refugee camp, until I decided to become a dancer.

Evans: Dancing was what Ahmad was born to do. He could feel it immediately. He imitated the girls he saw at the recital and dancing he saw on TV and he practiced wherever he could around the camp. But even as a child, dancing made him a target. First, in the eyes of his father.

Joudeh: My father is an amazing artist, but unfortunately dance for him was not an option for his son. So he tried everything you can imagine to stop me. Like for example, once he twisted my ankle. He wanted to injure me to stop dance. Imagine. I also had appendix, the thing, and he didn't want to take me to the hospital. He wanted me to get really injured. I remember my mom fought with him. She took me to the hospital to do the operation. He did a lot of abuse to me because it became like a war between me and him. Who's gonna win? You're my son. You have to do what I tell you. And I'm like, no, I am my own person. This is my own life. My father got crazy and he was like, or study or dance. And I'm like, or dance or die. And that was the first time it came to my mind.

Evans: Dance or die became something of a motto for Ahmad. And he chose to dance. He trained hard, with a ballet master.

Joudeh: It was difficult on everyone else, but for me it was a joy. You know that pain when you're trying to do a split for the first time, I found joy in it somehow. I don’t know why.

Evans: And he even had a chance to perform outside of the camp, even outside of Damascus.

Joudeh: For me it was like going to Palmyra was so epic. We had a very big ballet. We brought all of this ancient city back to life. We didn't only perform on stage, we performed all over the place.

Evans: When he was 17, his mother divorced his father and got him out of the house, out of harm's way, where he could focus on dancing. He thrived and became the principal in the dance company.

Joudeh: And I was studying in the Higher Institute for Theatrical Arts, something like Julliard here.

Evans: He also started a business.

Joudeh: My best friend, Sayid, he's a b-boy. He's a break dancer. And I was the ballet dancer and we had a studio together where I taught ballet and he taught breakdancing. It was in the camp. That was the first dance studio ever opening in the camp.

Evans: It was yours.

Joudeh: It was, yeah. And so we made good money and then I could, my grandfather built for me like a little loft on top of the building that we lived. And he was like, this is your house. And then I had my business and I was saving money to buy a car. My life was amazing. I was like 21 and I was still studying, but still I had my business. I had my my home. I was so proud being a ballet dancer. My posters were all over the city and the theaters and people would like stop me, take photos with me. People love me. Syria was such a beautiful country. It was amazing. Full of culture, full of love. People lived together. You can go from a neighborhood to another to find different types of food, different type of lifestyle, but they still lived in peace. But when the these extremists came to the country, everything has changed.

Evans: 2011 was the year of the Arab Spring. In Syria, pro-democracy protests were met with violence from the government and the country erupted in civil war. And in the chaos that followed came Islamic extremism — ISIS and other groups like it. Ahmad tried to go on living his life as best he could, but eventually the war arrived at the camp.

Joudeh: You know that studio was underground like it was a basement. But then when the war broke up, that became a shelter for people. So we would host people there, protect them from the bombs and stuff. And the moment we left, oh god, these memories. Yeah, literally we were driving on pieces of bodies, of people. I've seen a lot in this war.

Evans: But he kept on studying at the arts school and continued teaching kids to dance wherever he could.

Joudeh: I was going to orphanages to down syndrome, places like schools. I would take my bike and go there and just give dance classes to the children just to make them feel better. To make them develop this confidence that we have as dancers. And that made me a big target for these extremists because they are afraid of freedom and they don't want their children to see that one of us made it. Yes, ballet. We know ballet. It's for Western people, that's not for us. So they wanted my head basically.

I used to receive threats to my phone. I used to receive threats on Facebook. They would put my photo there, they would call me, say they wanna cut my head, and my response to them was dance or die. And I got that tattoo on my neck and I carry it with pride because if they would've caught me and cut my head, that would be the last thing they can see from me.

Evans: Damascus got so bad that Ahmad's mother, who had supported him through everything, finally had to flee.

Joudeh: Basically they bombed the whole camp. And that was gone in front of our eyes.

Evans: Wow.

Joudeh: And everything was gone and five people from my family were, were killed: three cousins and two uncles. So my mother was like, Damascus on fire. Let's just go away from here. Like, no, I need to graduate. I need to do my exams. I can't because if I don't finish my exams, they take me to the army. Even though stateless people are there without any rights, but then they have to serve the army. And if they take me, I'm a ballet dancer, my life would be gone.

Evans: So even if Ahmad could keep evading ISIS and the bombs dropping on the city, he had a ticking clock looming over him. Once he wasn't in school anymore, he was going to be forced into the military in the middle of a horrific war.

Joudeh: So basically, I have to keep my studies. I stayed in Damascus. There was no place for me. I literally had a camping tent on the rooftop of a friend of mine’s house. So I’m going to put my camping tent on your rooftop, at least I can use the restroom in here. But I had it there in January. I was so cold. For two months and a half until I finished my exams. And I was close to graduation. I finished my exams and I was like, OK, it's time. It's time to say goodbye to life. So I went on the rooftop of the house and I filmed myself dancing and I posted this dance, it's still there on YouTube. It's called Skin and Bones. I had no followers. I had no one who would see me or anything, but I was like, this is my last dance. I'm gonna just put it on YouTube. And then three months after that, I was supposed to be in the army. And that video took attention of a Dutch journalist, his name Roozbeh Kaboly, and he contacted me on Facebook and he asked me, I wanna film you dancing, where shall I film you? Where do you wanna dance? And the first thing was: my neighborhood.

Evans: That was the dance we heard about earlier, the one with ISIS snipers shooting at him. It was part of a documentary called “Dance of Die.” And it didn't just reach thousands of people online, it reached the head of the Dutch National Ballet. After the break, how Ahmad was whisked out of a warzone into a media frenzy in a totally different world. And how he took control of his life and story again. Stay with us.

[Theme]

Evans: In 2016, when he was 26, the Dutch National Ballet offered Ahmad a scholarship and a student visa even though he had no passport.

Joudeh: And I went to the Netherlands and started a new life in only four hours and a half flight from literally darkness and death and surviving to Amsterdam, which is the Dutch National Ballet, that big theater. These people who I used just to look at on YouTube. And suddenly I'm walking into the studio with them. And then the day after I'm taking class there and I needed to get more education, like proper education about ballet because during the war for five years, I didn't get a proper ballet class, like proper ballet class. So I reworked on my technique. Yeah, rehearsals, all of that. I worked very hard. I worked, sometimes I would take two classes per day. It was insane. But I needed to prove myself because I wanted to feel I'm here because I deserve it, not because I have a story for media. You know, which was also big of the part of the reason why I was there. So it was kind of, if I can use a word for that, win-win situation. They saved my life, but they also got a lot of marketing.

Evans: Did you feel like you wanted to distinguish yourself from that?

Joudeh: Of course, always.

Evans: Yeah.

Joudeh: Always, always, always. Like I was very happy and lucky and grateful for being saved and for having a great life that I should be thankful to. At the same time, I felt sometimes that I'm just a subject, I'm just a headline for whatever interview. And they took me in and they because I was living on a student visa, I was always scared to say no because I thought they will send me back to Syria.

Evans: He felt kind of trapped in his story, like it was his only ticket out of war.

Joudeh: And I have a story. Yes, I have a unique story, but that's not who I am fully. I'm also a human. I'm also, I have feelings and I'm also an ambitious dancer. I dream a lot and I work hard. I work very hard. That frustrated me a lot and I left the company and then I just worked with them as a freelancer — a guest artist. Because…

Evans: And this was, I mean, this was in direct result of the like the media pressure?

Joudeh: That was the media pressure. Yeah. It was the media. I could not anymore. And then I left, I went to the refugee camp in the Netherlands and I applied for refugee asylum for the first time of my life.

Evans: With asylum, Ahmad got independence. For the first time in his life, he got a passport from the Netherlands. And he started his career not as the refugee dancer, but just the dancer.

Joudeh: I graduated from the Dutch National Ballet Academy and I am the first ever Arabian person who has this diploma ever in history.

Evans: He performed at the Fire Island Dance Festival in New York City. He danced and was a judge for Ballet Beyond Borders in Montana, where two students he taught in Syria got scholarships to compete. He danced on TV in the Eurovision competition, representing the Netherlands. And with all his success, he was able to support the person who gave up so much to make his dreams come true.

Joudeh: My mother, the strongest person I've ever known. She is very beautiful. She's very determined and she's very independent.

Evans: And she always supported you as a dancer.

Joudeh: Always, always, always, always. So I worked very hard, very hard. I worked a lot. And I bought her a house. I bought her a house. And not too long ago I bought her a car. So she, she now learned driving, I think a month ago or something.

Evans: Wow.

As for his father, he finally saw Ahmad dance on the big stage.

Joudeh: When I was dancing a solo through the Dutch National Ballet. In the second biggest theater in the Netherlands, which is the Concertgebouw, the concert hall with all the orchestra behind me. And I was the solo dancer there. And then he saw that and he was crying. That was for him after 11 years of me being a dancer. And he was like, I'm sorry for preventing you from being this hero.

Evans: But despite this moment of closure, things with his dad didn't really improve and Ahmad had to make the call to cut him out of his life entirely. Ahmad learned to draw boundaries in his personal life. He learned to say no to the constant media attention, to his father. He took control of his story and maybe started sorting out what it all meant. He knew what he stood for and was ready to advocate for it with some of the most powerful people in the world. He became a Young Global Leader with the World Economic Forum.

Joudeh: I met a lot of presidents, kings, queens, everybody. My highlight was meeting the Governor Newsom.

Evans: He had a few very specific messages for those world leaders, advocating for stateless people, LGBTQ+ rights and funding for the arts.

Joudeh: I'll tell you why, personally. I was going to this camp school right in Syria. I had a choice and my classmates had choice. Some of my classmates joined ISIS and I joined the ballet company. If we can stop underestimating art and culture, we will have better future for our people.

Evans: Ahmad also agreed to do another documentary about his life. But this time is different: He was given control. They would do it his way. The filmmakers followed him at the World Economic Forum and at other major performances. But there was one more thing he wanted for the movie.

Joudeh: I wanted to go back to Syria. And I was very careful.

I was like, you know, undercover and everything, but like legally. I have no problems because I left Syria with a scholarship. So I legally left. I didn't flee as a refugee or anything. And I was just an expat. So I went there and I visited my family and I went to my neighborhood. I didn't even find the rubbles. It was taken, I only found the ground. And I danced there. I danced there my dance style, which is the mix of Sufi dance, the dervish Sufi dance and ballet because my mother's uncles in Palmyra, they're dervishes, they would do all these rituals. When I was a child, I used to watch them. So that's how I mix ballet with the Sufi dance through that skirt which is the Sufi dress. And yeah, it became my artistic signature in the dance world.

And it is very spiritual. It takes me to a divine place in my mind. And I performed that there on that ground.

Evans: It was an incredible full circle moment for Ahmad. But just like last time, there were people in Syria who didn't want him dancing there.

Joudeh: They literally had a reportage on TV encouraging people to go get me and kill me. On TV. And it went all over social media. And I was only three days around my family. I planned to stay for a month and a half. I literally had to flee. Then I fled and my heart was shattered.

And literally on the border, the last person who stamped my passport, he knew who I was. And he's like, you need to come with us. I'm like, what do you mean? He said, we need investigation with you, with the Assad regime people. And I'm like, no, I'm not. I'm a Dutch citizen and you already stamped my passport and I was never Syrian. You can't do this to me. He's like, yes we can. Who cares about this passport?

The driver who was taking me, who is a friend, he told him, he's an ambassador for the U-N-H-C-R, the refugee agency. You can't just do that to him and take him. He said, yeah, I know. And he's an ambassador for something else, which is the Pride Amsterdam. I am an ambassador for Pride Amsterdam, the LGBTQ+ organization in Amsterdam. And I'm so proud of that. He wanted to take me because of that. I would've ended up in Saydnaya. The whole world now know what is Saydnaya. It's the prison where they tortured people and killed them there, where I had a cousin who was died there.

The driver, he gave him 300. I bought my life for $300. And he took the $300, I took the passport from him and then he said, never come back here. So, no, I said goodbye to Syria and I think it was a farewell.

Evans: Ahmad's new film just had its premiere. He's still waiting to see where it will end up; he hopes for Netflix. But he'll be waiting to find out here in San Diego.

What brought you here?

Joudeh: My partner.

Evans: Yeah.

Joudeh: Yeah.

Evans: Where did you meet your partner?

Joudeh: In Amsterdam. Yeah, I met my partner in Amsterdam six years ago, and then we did it like Amsterdam, San Diego, back and forth for a while. And then when I'm here I would like, I looked for a place to take class while I'm here. So I would go to Golden State Ballet take class and yeah, I volunteered just to help them in return for the classes. And then the year after, I applied for my green cards because I wanted to work. I wanted to be able to work. I'm so lucky. I got it in six months. I was like impressed. I did the interview with my partner and they saw us, I mean, we're like love birds, you can see it. And then, yeah, I got my green card and here I am working and living here.

Evans: He quickly became a valued member of the Golden State Ballet. It's a job he got himself. He just moved to a new city, looked up one of the local ballets and started taking classes. He's now a company dancer in the ensemble. The ballet performs in San Diego several times a year, including the holiday favorite, “The Nutcracker.” For “The Nutcracker” last year, not only did he perform the Arabian dance, he poured into it his lifetime of experience and study. He made something authentic, something that reflects the beauty he remembers from his home region.

Joudeh: I helped choreographing it. So I brought things from the culture, from the Sufi Middle Eastern culture for the female dance and also for the male dance, the Egyptian. That's how you do it.

Evans: For Ahmad, dance was a way out and a source of autonomy. But he's never treated dance — or his story — as a means to an end. He was ready to die for dance and now, he lives for it.

Like, was there a moment when you're quietly in a studio by yourself, maybe you're just like putting your ballet shoes on and dancing? Like, do you, did you ever have those quiet moments? Maybe not on a stage. Maybe it's just you.

Joudeh: I always have these moments. These moments are the 30 seconds before I step on stage. These literally like 30 seconds before I go on stage, I would be standing there thinking of my past and my future and I bring them together like that in front of my heart. And I literally, it's my, it might sound crazy. I literally feel like there is a divine energy that enters my body and get wings from my back. And then I have my posture and then I go on stage. This is insane. I don't know why, but that's how I live.

Evans: So it's not even, it's not like you're clearing your head of everything outside of the performance. It's like you're grounding yourself in everything that's happened.

Joudeh: Exactly.

Evans: Everything you are.

Joudeh: Facing everything. You just, just facing, facing everything

Evans: Amazing.

Joudeh: And honoring it. Honor it. Honor your feelings. Make space for a new heart to grow. If you see me, how I changed my life, then you understand. I was nothing. I was just a number in a refugee camp and my family were just numbers. There's always hope. That's how I live.

Evans: Special thanks to Ahmad Joudeh and the Golden State Ballet for their help with this story.

And thank you so much for listening. If this episode resonated with you, please subscribe, leave a rating or comment. It makes a real difference and helps stories like these reach more people.

The Finest is a production of KPBS Public Media in San Diego. I'm your host Julia Dixon Evans. Our producer is Anthony Wallace, who also composed the score. Ben Redlawsk is our engineer, and Chrissy Nguyen is our editor. This episode was written in researched by Anthony and me.

This transcript has been edited for clarity and conciseness.