AMMAN: An Iraqi self-taught dancer who defied conservativism and threats ahead of his stage debut last year was among the scores killed in a massive suicide truck bombing over the weekend in Baghdad.

The 23-year-old dancer, Adil Faraj, was buying clothes in the neighbourhood of Karrada for Eid al-Fitr when the attack happened.

An IS bomber detonated the truck in a crowded shopping area around 1am on Sunday, on a street filled with Iraqis preparing for the holiday or just seeking a nighttime break from the sizzling Baghdad summer heat before the start of their fast at dawn.

By Tuesday, the death toll from the attack rose to 200 — one of the deadliest in more than a decade of war and violence in the Iraqi capital.

Faraj, a recent law school graduate who last year travelled to Jordan for his on-stage dancing debut, was among the victims. “I wish I had a time machine to go back and fix what happened,” said Bilal, 18, Faraj’s younger brother who spoke to The Associated Press by phone from Belgium, where he lives as a refugee. Faraj’s body was found intact, Bilal said, and he was buried on Monday in a cemetery in the Shiite city of Najaf, south of Baghdad.

Faraj bucked conservative Iraqi culture to teach himself how to dance via YouTube and Skype, inspired by a Michael Jackson performance he watched on DVD.

He danced to videos in his cramped family home — hiding from a society scornful of the art form and from the chaos that engulfed Iraq after the US-led invasion in 2003.

Then, he was discovered by the Manhattan-based Battery Dance Company and brought to Jordan to train professionally and perform for the first time on stage.

In a dark hall in Amman, Jordan, under a single spotlight, he slowly moved with the haunting Gary Jules’ song ‘Mad World’ — his first solo performance. After it, Faraj told the AP in an interview that it was “like a dream”. But though he said at the time that instability and conservatism in Baghdad made the city no longer feel like home, he continued to live in Iraq with his family so he could complete his studies.

“Adil just wanted to fly, to experience life to the most,” said Rania Kamhawi, the director of the dance festival where Faraj performed in Amman. “I would have liked for him to fly.”

Published in Dawn, July 6th, 2016