Meet The Lebanese Pop Artist Proving That Pole-dancing And Protest Go Hand In Hand

From the heart of a diverse, youth-led revolution, Blu Fiefer sings truth to power

- Kevin Knodell Kimberly Westenhiser

It’s a chilly December evening, and Blu Fiefer is sitting in a dim, sparsely populated cocktail bar in Beirut’s trendy Mar Mikhael neighborhood. Recent economic upheavals have reduced an otherwise thriving nightlife scene to relative quiet—a situation that started well before the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’ve all been victims of Lebanon’s violent history and the bitter taste it has left in everyone’s mouth,” says the Lebanese pop artist, reflecting on the wave of popular protest that began last year and the vicious civil war that preceded it. “When the revolution started, the main comment you would hear was ‘We don’t want another civil war.’”

Fiefer is wearing a turtleneck sweater under an army camouflage jacket. Her fingers are tattooed, adorned with rings and crowned with long, darkly painted nails. She speaks with a latent intensity, but she’s approachable and radiates generosity.

The country she calls home is situated between Israel and Syria, and conflicts from both often spill across its borders. Refugees account for almost a quarter of its population. The civil war stretched from 1975 to 1990, pitting religious communities against one another as a mix of militia groups aligned with different factions split the country. Upward of 120,000 people were killed; thousands remain displaced. To this day it occasionally endures flare-ups in political violence.