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The Mentorship Program

The program aims to develop the artistic skills of emerging performing artists residing in Lebanon, and to support them in the creation of an original work. 

Through ongoing and comprehensive guidance from an assigned mentor, along with capacity-building workshops and production support, the selected artists will be guided in developing and presenting either a finished work or a work-in-progress by the end of the mentorship program.

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MENTORSHIP PROJECTS

A realistic play set over the course of a spontaneous evening in a Damascus home, where a group of young Syrians and a Lebanese guest gather under the shadow of the Assad regime. As alcohol flows, hidden secrets begin to surface, and the evening transforms into a space for raw self-confrontation. Tensions rise, confessions unfold, and humor seeps through moments of resistance and reckoning, revealing their personal and political struggles with society and the regime.

How can two hands—curiously exploring the world and its extension of a body, touching a lovers’ face until it feels warm and less wet with tears, switching delicately between one voice and another, one idea and its nemesis—become such a restraint for the one who moves them?
An autobiography of two hands and their mover.
Her relationship with them and their relationship with the other.

A theatre performance that tells the story of a young man and woman, carrying within them a buildup of repressed anger and helplessness. Having lived their entire lives within cycles of war, conflict, displacement, and exile, they turn to their artistic tools to embark on a journey of release. It’s as if fire surrounds them on all sides — yet they must keep their hearts frozen in ice.

In this reimagining of Little Red Riding Hood, “Loula” must find her way through a forest of fears and lies—narratives passed down through generations. To attain freedom, she must decide whether to step out of the story she was given or follow the path laid out for
her. Written during wartime, the play reflects the experience of the Lebanese post-civil war generation—raised on the constant fear of war, one that always seemed near but never came… until it did. It explores how fear is passed down, shaping children’s realities from
the family home to the failing leadership of a “grandmother” figure, embodying the erosion of the blind obedience as a value system in Lebanon. Blending satire, absurdism, and physical theatre, the play unfolds through a series of encounters. On this epic journey, Loula must choose: follow the story written for her or find her own way out.

The story of the Karentina neighborhood is retold through a journey of different voices, recalling painful, bittersweet memories, and a hope for a better tomorrow.

Why do I empathize with people who ceased to exist? “Those Who Remain” is an interdisciplinary performance that focuses on the consequences of enforced disappearances, exploring the power of memory in the face of loss, and told through the voices of women, the keepers of memory.

A play project started by three friends before the war — it was paused for a while, but it never ended. Today, they return to complete it.

Beirut, 2024. Ralph is waiting for his sister to come back from abroad. As she is going up the elevator, the electricity cuts and she is stuck in it for hours. A conversation starts between the siblings as if they are getting to know each other for the first time…after the 4th August explosion.

A sonic dwelling of 12 moments suspended in time and place, coming from the personal family archive (photos taken by Al Baba’s late grandfather) documenting the Abu Ali River flood in 1955 Tripoli, Lebanon. By choreographing the flood, Al Baba narrates the story of the drowned city of Tripoli, Lebanon, and its relation with its (many times flooded) Abu Ali river. The flood of the river, the city, its people, and the flow of sorrows. From the personal archive of the Abu Ali River 1955 flood to the illegal immigration boats, all possibilities to escape the city end in eternal drowning(s).The city also has a relationship with rain – each time it rains heavily, the whole city drowns with its roads and its people.

An ode to a sunken city. A rain prayer called “Au Rituels des Pluies”.

The river, the city, and its people. What does it mean to walk the city and follow the favourite path of a loved one? What does it mean to follow in his footsteps?

It’s a way to mourn our city by mourning ourselves; through movements, lights, and sounds, I have become the city, and its river flows in me.

For 15 years, the theater has been silent for her, its echoes fading into memory. At the height of her career, she embodied Rose—a character so consuming it unraveled her sense of self. Now, determined to reconnect her relationship with her daughter through memories of her own childhood, she returns to the stage to untangle herself from Rose’s threads. Through raw monologues and poignant reflections, she weaves a new narrative—a character that tells her own story for the first time.

The Reject invites you to listen. As it tells you stories, recounts dreams and memories, and draws dynamic images in space and time — this performance builds a bridge between Man and the woman who resides within him. It explores the gap formed between them in a binary system. Can the different voices ever listen to one another without drowning each other out?

The Mentorship Program

“Daffodils” is a dance performance that shares the story of a soul struggling in a body that can’t seem to rest. Through the lens of insomnia, we explore the journey of this being.
What keeps us up at night? How can we feel safe and at home in our own bodies again and find refuge from our fears? And if we are fortunate enough to fall asleep, what compels us to rise each morning, and face the new day?

Zayzafouneh and her partner live in a place somewhere in no particular city. It is a city they both know very well, but it no longer knows itself nor does it know them. Zayzafouneh’s partner will go to great lengths to keep her with him. But when the unthinkable happens, everything changes, although it was never the same in the first place. Is love enough to save ourselves and those we love? Is dreaming enough? The questions are big and many, but the room is very small.

Antoine, Tony, and Tanios live in poverty, stuck in an oppressive and unwelcoming space. As they struggle to survive and coexist, their traumas creep up on them in the form of memories they’ve been trying to suppress. Unable to escape either the mental or physical space that they find themselves in, they constantly lose their sense of reality and become immersed in images of their past. In these instances, the characters’ true mental state is revealed: denial, anger, anxiety, and depression are all laid bare. Eventually, the mounting psychological and economic pressures become unbearable, causing Tony to go into psychosis.

Banana Village

The violence that has continued for years has turned a remote village into a strange place with all its details, where the people are unbalanced and live in a world of hallucinations without any meaning.

Actions result in Reactions. Reactions result in Actions. Hence creating this interconnected chain of reactions. The play “Chain Reaction 101” is a process, and a mixture of various complimentary stories that dive into the world of revolution, expression, power dynamics, and Death. This play is an adaptation based on “Mauser” written by Heiner Müller.

Hasan’s experiment aimed at exploring the tangible association between space and time through various relationships. Are people affected by one another regardless of their present and what they do? Or is it just a big random wave with some chosen moments that carry humans and things to an unknown destination?

How do we process the loss of a loved one? Can the objects left behind help us live with their memory? “Living with a Piece of Furniture” is an immersive performance about a family experiencing different stages of grief, by injecting new life into a static piece of furniture through smell, sound, sight, taste and touch.

Anxious voices tell the story of a break up in a time of collapse. The text is a combination of personal writings, diaries, and intimate material that touch upon the feelings of love, and loss within a crisis. A big part of the director’s research revolves around exploring how to deal with and stage such intimate material. And how to convey the states of despair, anger, and obsession, using only human voices.

Beirut, my home. There was a view to the port from my balcony, it is no longer there. August 4th 2020 is the day I swiped away my dreams of you. “Kayan” is a piece that tells the story of the powerless and fragile body within the political environment it inhabits where its very own existence is threatened every day. It is a prayer for those who left this world, and those who remained but lost their soul.

Meaning Making Cocktail is the story of someone leaving a city, someone staying in the city, as the city is falling apart. The three characters are in the grip of time,ideology, sex, death, illusion, and truth, as the ‘here and now’ keep escaping from them. They long to be each other, to kill one another, to disappear, and to failingly create themselves outside of their love. In the face of the absurdity of politics, the performers struggle against associating meaning to a prevailing abrupt reality in this region of the world. Yet on stage, they compose condense, suspended, and resonating moments in space and time, as they question whether we can ever exist outside of meaning, and whether we can ever exist outside of love?

The room is very dark. A humanoid ghostlike presence is among the space. Her name is Eva. Internet Culture is everywhere, interwoven with pop culture. Something sinister and spiritual is afoot. A voice is heard from time to time, it’s Eva. She questions reality and identity when it comes to the virtual. She has a lot to say about her life and her un-death. She knows no time or space. The performance had already started in another realm. Her body will distort and expand at times eating up the whole space. The audience will be part of her, and of Us. This is the manifesto of Eva’s life and her “existence”. Where is she going?

This project started in journeys to the south of Lebanon through the way Beirut extends to the south on the littoral zone. The familiarity of the place has its own affective thickness and resonance. Chada stops to observe the sensations that capture this familiarity of the place. In the natural site there is still movement, changing, and deforming. The mountain is still there and the material is continuously being extracted. The sonority of the natural site is still audible in the form of echoes’ resonance. It is like a thick white light that hits a surface.

The room is very dark. A humanoid ghostlike presence is among the space. Her name is Eva. Internet Culture is everywhere, interwoven with pop culture. Something sinister and spiritual is afoot. A voice is heard from time to time, it’s Eva. She questions reality and identity when it comes to the virtual. She has a lot to say about her life and her un-death. She knows no time or space. The performance had already started in another realm. Her body will distort and expand at times eating up the whole space. The audience will be part of her, and of Us. This is the manifesto of Eva’s life and her “existence”. Where is she going?

“Flee” is a theatrical performance of a play within a play, which sheds the light on two aspiring actors rehearsing and co-directing Ionesco’s “Hunger and Thirst”. While rehearsing, the two find themselves inheriting their characters’ anxieties which transfuse into their own thoughts making them realize their irreconcilable differences and disrupts their project.

A dance phantom revisits the relics of a family, hailing from a past when dancing was proof of their bodies feeling safe.

“Evidence of Things Not Seen” is a performance about home, and the sensation of its presence, and its loss. It is also the story of a family living the “phantom limb syndrome”, experiencing sensations, whether painful or otherwise, in a limb that exists no more.

How can a Man fall in love with a Bird?

Humans shift and change with fear, love, betrayal and death. These are experiences that cause deep thoughts and feelings, such as vulnerability, attachment and obsession. In relationships, upon exposing our vulnerabilities, we either experience completion or lose ourselves. This state of loss of identity could be reflected within the relationship itself, leading to a shift in the dynamic between the parties involved.

 

After injuring Bird, Man redeems himself by sewing up her wound, growing more and more attached to her. He needs to be loved, but his monstrosity leads to a fallback in the relationship to one being the “obsessed” and the other being the “possession”.

An innovative theatrical attempt at reimagining linguistic styles, the piece examines a day in the life of a young woman living in current revolutionary Lebanon. This one act play highlights an anti- heroine’s attempt to avoid the outside world, a task that becomes increasingly difficult as the day drags.

Rehla ila…is a multidisciplinary performance and parade that challenges notions of public space and collective creation. Through visual arts, circus, dance and music, it aims to show the sensorial journey of a group of travelers in their efforts to bridge the oppositions between the modern world and one that they aspire towards.

Shadi is preparing for an interview at the Canadian Embassy in Beirut. His girlfriend May meanwhile is preparing to deal with her old friend Mohammed with whom they are staying in Beirut. Since leaving Syria, Mohammed has been living in total isolation in Beirut, severing all ties with his homeland especially his family after a botched suicide attempt. Faced with the desire to travel in search of a better future, it is the character’s memories that control their decisions and behavior, and shape the course of this play.

“The Ho-ha Dance” is a visual theatrical ritual where the audience is no longer a receiver, but rather an interlocutor with the future fateful question that is dealt with. The performance moves from individual memory to collective memory regarding the case of the Native Americans, all the way to the Syrian people, via discussions and narratives about ideology, utopianism, anarchism, dystopia, characters, and historical events that are repeated periodically through time.

Holed-up in an old Beiruti house decorated with her shed skin, Maaden flees the city’s turbulence in an attempt to reach a clear train of thought. Suffering from an agonizing itch, she soon becomes distracted and drifts into her memories and reveries, only to realize that she has no more neighbors or view on the sky and sea. Seeing no other solution, she heads down to the attic and starts digging until she can build a taller building from which she would have a proper view on the sea.

An adaptation of the play Hamletmachine by German dramatist, Heiner Müller, which is loosely based on Shakespeare’s Hamlet. By means of different visual scenarios, imagery, and cognitive behavior, the performance will implicate the machine as a representation of digital media and aesthetic environments on stage, using cyberspace. Lena will analyze and stimulate dramatic stories, childish games, and role-playing. The play’s soliloquies reveal the truth behind human representation and experience and are a form of both self-consciousness, and universal expression.