Katma
By Azzam Mohamed
Presented by Luminato Festival
Supported by St. Joseph Communications
In Partnership with Fall for Dance North
You’re at the club — but this one is for everyone.
“Katma” is Sudanese slang for “suffocation” or “no room to breathe” — a word that captures the charged intensity of an underground dancefloor. Created and directed by Azzam Mohamed (Sculptured Riddims, Sydney Festival 2024) with the Katma team, this immersive performance channels that frenetic energy, drawing inspiration from Sudanese and Australian party scenes as well as legendary dance spaces like The Loft in New York. Developed from its Western Sydney base at PYT Fairfield, the work reflects the inclusivity and energy of the community it was born in.
With no seats and the dancefloor at its centre, Katma unfolds as a living club ritual. Seven dancers move through a dynamic fusion of street and club styles — breaking, hip-hop, krump, waacking, locking, house, and Afro dances — shifting between solo expression and collective rhythm as the room fills with movement and sound.
In acknowledging the origins of these forms, the Katma creatives extend gratitude to the communities who birthed them — the African diaspora, Black and Latino communities, and the LGBTQIA+ underground. The work celebrates dance as a shared language: a space where rhythm, movement, and presence transform a room of strangers into something electric.
Part performance, part dancefloor, Katma invites audiences to step inside the energy of the club — to witness, move, and feel the pulse of a living culture.
