Works & Highlights (Selection)

 — Partitur from Hell | Piece for partitur & string player 2022

Created and composed performance by Neam Tarek, Partitur from Hell challenges the rigid structures of European classical musicas a system of obedience, perfection, and control—questioning its role as a deeply ingrained capitalist ideology. The score, much like a holy script, demands absolute devotion, leaving the musician trapped in an endless cycle of following without questioning.

Premiered at LOD Theater and developed at Bijloke Summer Academy in Ghent (2022), the piece was performed by two cellists confronting a score that pushes them beyond conventional technique—playing with water, resisting control, and ultimately destroying their instruments. As they navigated the tension between submission and defiance, the performance became a raw and physical act of rebellion, exposing the fragility of tradition and the limits of artistic autonomy.

 — Ayda | Opera in crisis 2021-2023

Ayda was initiated in 2021 as a critical reexamination of Eurocentric narratives in high culture, using Verdi’s Aida to deconstruct Orientalist representations and reclaim artistic agency. The first season, developed in collaboration with Damian Ibn Salem, premiered at the Museum of Fine Arts Leipzig. The project then evolved into Ayda Tani, conceived and artistically directed solely by Neam Tarek, and staged at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig (2023).

Blending Verdi fragments, Péter Eötvös’ Radames, and compositions by Sayed Darwish with Egyptian classical music, poetry, and pop, the production dismantles colonialist opera traditions, offering fluid, multi-layered identitiesinstead of static portrayals. Aida is no longer a passive victim but a complex figure, caught in shifting power structures.

With video art by Eliza Goldox, theatrical direction of Leonie Sowa & Soubhi Shami,  project direction by Eva Morlang, Ayda Challenges Eurocentrism, cultural appropriation, and artistic power dynamics, expanding into an open framework for rethinking inherited narratives.

 — Handel with care | Gob Squad 2024 

In 2024, Neam Tarek joined Gob Squad's production Handel with Care as a performer and narrator at Residenz Leipzig. The project explores themes of care, community, and togetherness in a world where social bonds are often eroded by capitalist structures. Through storytelling, music, and collective rituals, Handel with Care creates space for shared experiences—cooking, talking, and singing—while questioning how we can form new communities and reimagine care beyond traditional structures.

— Performative Speech | Archivio Performante 2021

As part of Archivio Performante, a performative procession marking the farewell of Prof. Alba D'Urbano at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig (HGB), Neam Tarek contributed both as a performer and author, creating a piece within the collective action.

Her performance engaged with feminist discourse, intertwining personal and collective narratives into the moving exhibition. Centered around the question, "Do you remember the first time you heard the word feminist?", the piece explored the embodied experiences of gender, language, and societal imprints, resonating with the project’s broader themes of body, biography, and public space.