Zoukak's Mentorship Program: Presentations of the works in progress!

After 6 months of work, the Mentorship Program is coming to an end!

We are excited to close it with five performances of the works in progress developed throughout these 6 months:

At Station Beirut:

- Monday 6 December, 7:30pm: Cement is a Memory - Work in Progress, an installation-performance by Chada Halwani

Chada presents her project "Cement is a Memory" while screening parts of her film, followed by a discussion with the audience.

The project works on the time that is not yet consumed in a construction site. It is the time before places are defined, named, and determined.

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.

Free Entry – Limited Capacity
Registration required: https://ihjoz.com/events/6340

- Tuesday 7 and Wednesday 8 December, 7:30pm: Flee - الجوع والعطش, a theatre performance by by Karim Chebli and Kathy Younes

“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.

Followed by a discussion with the audience.

Free Entry – Limited Capacity
Registration required: https://ihjoz.com/events/6342

- Thursday 9 December, 7:30pm: All About Eva - Work in Progress, a video installation by Joseph Rouhana

Video installation, screened in intermissions of 10 minutes each, followed by a discussion with the artist.

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?

Free Entry – Limited Capacity
Registration required: https://ihjoz.com/events/6345

At Théâtre Monnot:

- Friday 10 December, 7:30pm: Meaning Making Cocktail - كوكتيل شقف بلا معنى, a theatre performance by Jana Bou Matar

Theatre Performance of a work in progress, followed by a discussion with the artist. 

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.

Free Entry – Limited Capacity
Registration required: https://ihjoz.com/events/6346

Online:

- Wednesday 8 December, 5:30pm: An online presentation and discussion about Dancers of 17th of October - Work in Progress by Alia Hamdan

Alia presents her project "Dancers of the 17th of October", followed by a discussion with the audience.

Alia met Ahmad and Wahid early November 2019. They were intensively dancing during a night protest, on Ring Fouad Shehab. At that time, the uprisings were cemented by a performative unity, Alia was interested in filming dance and they were looking for a space to train and perform. Two years later, she contacted them for a dance film project. Ahmad was absent, possibly in Syria. She hence met with Wahid, on Sunday afternoons, in the uneasy summer of 2021 Beirut, engaging in conversations, walks, performing and filming actions, in activities that were common during the uprisings and now funded by an art project. 

Zoom link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87090959470

Zoukak's Mentorship Program is supported by Fondation de France, Drosos Foundation, AFAC - The Arab Fund for Arts and Culture, Culture Resource المورد الثقافي, UNESCO Office in Beirut