Zoukak Sidewalks

Zoukak Sidewalks is a point of encounter providing a shared space between international artists, local practitioners, students and interested audiences. Through a program of artist talks, workshops and performances, spread across the year, Zoukak Sidewalks aims to spur debate around performance practices and create the opportunity to get a closer look on processes of creation and thought of various accomplished artists and companies, and possibly produce the momentum for new and unexpected collaborations. Each month a contemporary practitioner or company is invited for a residency in Zoukak's studio to share their practice by showing works in progress, performing pieces of finished work (solo or group performances, play-readings), opening up practical work processes through workshops and master classes and confronting audiences with their discourse through talks and informal encounters.

Zoukak Sidewalks - The Festival is a platform for artistic exchange and a space for intercultural reflection that takes place every two years in Zoukak Studio and in various venues in Beirut, bringing together international and local artists and practitioners from various backgrounds and disciplines through theatre, music and dance performances, film screenings, public conversations, masterclasses and presentations of works in progress. Two editions of the festival have already taken place in 2016 and 2018, bringing together artists and companies such as Milo Rau, Stanislas Nordey, DuZieu, Chris Thorpe , Suite42, Thomas Ostermeier​​​​​ and much more.

Focus Liban
Zoukak launched Focus Liban in 2015, in partnership with the French Institute, as a platform to support the presentation and dissemination of the work of local performing artists. As a direct result of this showcase, local artists’ works were presented in various prestigious festivals around Europe.

 

Zoukak Sidewalks – The Festival 2018

Wednesday, October 31, 2018 - 20:00 to Sunday, November 11, 2018 - 23:00

Zoukak Sidewalks – The Festival 2018 returns this year with theatre, dance and music performances, film screenings, readings, project presentations, public conve

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Performance: Manwatching

Wednesday, October 31, 2018 - 21:00

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival: 

Fouad Yammine in Manwatching

A funny, frank, and occasionally explicit insight into heterosexual female desire, read out loud by a man

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Performance: Manwatching

Thursday, November 1, 2018 - 01:30

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival: 

Fouad Yammine in Manwatching

A funny, frank, and occasionally explicit insight into heterosexual female desire, read out loud by a man

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MasterClass: Directing New Texts by Lucy Morrison

Thursday, November 1, 2018 - 11:00 to 14:00

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival

Lucy will share her experience of working exclusively with new plays, covering dramaturgy, writing, directing and performing new texts. The session will include practical writing and acting exercises. 

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The Festival's Opening Reception & Exhibition

Thursday, November 1, 2018 - 19:00

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival presents :

Opening reception & Exhibition 

Zoukak Studio will host an opening reception for the launching of Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival as well as an an exhibition :  "BOURJ HAMMOUD - Psychogeographic Explorations Beirut #3 , a collaboration between Youssef Tabti, French artist, based in Germany and Rani Al Rajji, Lebanese architect, based in Beirut. Initiated by Goethe-Institut Libanon.

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MasterClass: Conceptual Art in Theatre by Deborah Pearson

Friday, November 2, 2018 - 11:00 to 15:00

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival

A urinal, a decorated phone booth, a glass of water. What can theatre learn from conceptual art?

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Dance Performance: Et Pourtant Elle Tourne

Friday, November 2, 2018 - 21:00

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival

A unique piece where music and movement share equal status, reclaiming strong elements of popular culture.

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MasterClass: Global Realism by Milo Rau and Stefan Bläske

Saturday, November 3, 2018 - 11:00 to 15:00

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival

What does it mean to be an artist in the globalized world at the beginning of the 21st century? What are the crimes and tragedies of our time, and how can you tell about them on stage?

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Film Screening: The Congo Tribunal

Saturday, November 3, 2018 - 19:00 to 21:00

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival

Milo Rau's movie examines the causes and background to the Congo War in the Great Lakes region in a unique and stunningly political cross-media art project.

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Public Conversation: Milo Rau in Conversation with Junaid Sarieddeen (Zoukak)

Saturday, November 3, 2018 - 21:00 to 22:00

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival

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MasterClass: Working on the Texts of Edouard Louis by Stanislas Nordey

Sunday, November 4, 2018 - 10:00 to 16:00

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival

French director will be conducting a performance-building masterclass based on the text of Edouard Louis “Qui a tué mon père” in which the author decrypts the mechanisms of domination that crush human-beings and their relationships

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Reading: Qui a tué mon père

Sunday, November 4, 2018 - 16:00 to 17:00

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival

The reading is the result of the masterclass given by Nordey on the same day and will be performed by the participants.

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Round Table with Stanislas Nordey and Roger Assaf

Sunday, November 4, 2018 - 17:00 to 18:00

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival

In collaboration with the French Institute and the Salon du Livre, a round-table discussion with 2 of the theatre’s most prominent figures in Lebanon and in France

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Performance: Breivik's Statement // Followed by a Public Conversation

Sunday, November 4, 2018 - 21:00

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival 

Witness the statement that the terrorist Anders B. Breivik adressed the Oslo Discrit Court, long time banned from television and withheld from the public.

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Film Screening: The Moscow Trials

Monday, November 5, 2018 - 19:00 to 20:30

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival

Rau thematises the issue of artists and dissidents' show trials, staged by Putin's system to prevent any form of democratic change, by drawing on the techniques of political theater. 

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Performance: Dreaming Zenzile (work in progress)

Monday, November 5, 2018 - 21:00

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival

Dreaming Zenzile is a play framed as a meta-performance based on the extraordinary life of South African singer and political activist Miriam Makeba, set on the night of her final performance. 

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American Theatre Landscape: Public conversation

Tuesday, November 6, 2018 - 19:00 to 20:00

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival

Have you ever wondered about the ecosystem of the arts scene in the United States? How does the creative economy in the US engage with art from outside their borders?

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Performance: Pretty Fire

Tuesday, November 6, 2018 - 21:00

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival

In five autobiographical vignettes, Charlayne Woodard tells of tales of her family's survival through three generations of love, struggle, and triumph.

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MasterClass : Getting My New Play to Fly! by Philip Himberg

Wednesday, November 7, 2018 - 10:00 to 15:00

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival 

This intensive is for theatre-makers new to Sundance Institute who want to deepen their knowledge of the play development process

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Performance: Criminal Tribes Act

Wednesday, November 7, 2018 - 18:00

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival

Criminal Tribes Act is a theatre piece that examines the inescapability of the 'us', 'them' and 'the other' social order.

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Designing the Artist's Experience: Public Conversation

Wednesday, November 7, 2018 - 19:00

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival: 

Designing the Artist's Experience
Public Conversation : Christopher Hibma (Sundance Institute) with Omar Abi Azar (Zoukak)

Join Sundance Institute Theatre Program Producing Director Christopher Hibma and Omar Abi Azar for a conversation about how environments for Sundance artists are designed. Learn more about how creativity and community are expressed both in physical space and in the relationships producers have with artists. Introduction by Jumana Al-Yasiri.

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Performance: Criminal Tribes Act

Wednesday, November 7, 2018 - 21:00

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival

Criminal Tribes Act is a theatre piece that examines the inescapability of the 'us', 'them' and 'the other' social order.

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MasterClass: Starting with the Actor by Catherine Coray

Thursday, November 8, 2018 - 11:00 to 15:00

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival

A workshop for actors, playwrights and directors who would like to explore writing scenes and monologues inspired by improvisational work and specific exercises designed to prompt behavior that can lead to character/relationship/text development.

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Sankar Venkateswaran in Conversation with Maya Zbib (Zoukak)

Thursday, November 8, 2018 - 19:00 to 20:00

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival

Join us in a public conversation with Indian theater director Sankar Venkaterswaran to discuss his views on social exclusion in India and how theatre could mend these divisions. 

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Dance Performance: Fa'Addebhou li

Thursday, November 8, 2018 - 21:00

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival 

« Fa'addebhou li » interrogates the construction of the male body in the Arab world.

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Concert: Aya Metwalli

Thursday, November 8, 2018 - 22:30

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival
 

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Project Presentation: Under Correction

Friday, November 9, 2018 - 15:00 to 15:30

Zoukak Sidewalk 2018 - The Festival

A tragic yet ironic body hesitates between becoming tamed and well-conditioned to integrate society, or displaying its deformity and reclaiming its unique being.

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Reading: The Date

Friday, November 9, 2018 - 15:30

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival

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

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Project Presentation: 077

Friday, November 9, 2018 - 16:00 to 16:30

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival presents:

077
Project Presentation
Wael Kodeih and Randa Mirza

"3amil 77" is an audio video concert by the band "Love and Revenge" that mixes, cuts and rearranges old Arab songs and movies using contemporary electronic aesthetic. The recurrent theme is hybridity; the mixture of two cultures and identities.

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Project Presentation: The Ho-Ha Dance

Friday, November 9, 2018 - 16:30 to 17:00

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival
 

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Performance: The Confession

Friday, November 9, 2018 - 18:00 to 19:00

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival 

The Confession takes us into the realities of one day of Jalal's life, a former officer who is asked to return to service after a popular uprising in the country. 

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Performance : Two Heads and a Hand

Friday, November 9, 2018 - 21:00

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival

Based on Shakespeare's texts and his savage political commentaries, this play analyzes and questions the dominant archetypes of patriarchy in our context.

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Concert: Jawab

Friday, November 9, 2018 - 22:30

Zoukak Sidewals 2018 - The Festival

 

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The Story Of The Man Who Inhabited His Shadow

Saturday, November 10, 2018 - 11:00 to 12:30

Invitation only 

An art exhibition and a theatre performance share the same space to alternatively, and each at a time, construct and tell the story of Kevork Kasarian and his unfinished works. 

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Project Presentation: Augurs

Saturday, November 10, 2018 - 15:00 to 15:30

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival

Two actresses and an actor reflect on their theater carrier; from the moment they have started working in theater in the early 80s during the Lebanese civil war. 

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Reading: Ghalia's Miles

Saturday, November 10, 2018 - 15:30 to 16:15

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival

Zoukak's new creation is an invitation to follow the journey of Ghalia through the Arab World where she will encounter several women who guide her as she sacrifices almost everything she has to make the crossing

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Project Presentation: Playground in Emergency

Saturday, November 10, 2018 - 16:00 to 16:30

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival

Evicted from their home, an elderly couple gambles with their lives as they transgress social norms. What will it take for us to blur the lines that separate global crises from those of the everyday variety?

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Project Presentation: Everything is Just Fine

Saturday, November 10, 2018 - 16:30 to 17:00

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival

Two women, in a fake duplication of the "real world" participate in an experiment in which they are asked to fulfill a constructed daily life routine and tell their stories.

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Performance: Illusions

Saturday, November 10, 2018 - 21:00

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival

« Hello. I want to tell you about a married couple. These were wonderful human beings. They lived together for fifty-two years. Fifty-two years! Always together. Their life was complete. A fulfilling life! Extraordinarily beautiful love. Her name was Sandra, his was Denny… » 

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Audiovisual Performance: The Promise of a Field

Saturday, November 10, 2018 - 22:30 to Sunday, November 11, 2018 - 23:30

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival

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Installation & Performance: All the names

Sunday, November 11, 2018 - 11:00 to 14:00

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival

All the Names is an interactive installation project inspired by Kafka’s Trial and Castle, and All the Names by José Saramago.
 

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Project Presentation: HamletMachine

Sunday, November 11, 2018 - 15:00 to 15:30

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival

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Reading: Ecdysis

Sunday, November 11, 2018 - 15:30 to 16:00

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival 

The Man is a foetus, his three daughters and concubines take care of his health in an attempt to keep him alive. In exchange, they shed his skin to decorate their home.

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Performance: 36 Abbass Street, Haifa

Sunday, November 11, 2018 - 18:00 to 19:00

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival

36 Abbas Street, Haifa is the story of the Rafa & Abu Ghaida's families - one that stayed in Palestine an another one who was forced to leave and left to wander all corners of the world in search of a country they could call their own.

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Perfomance: Untitled

Sunday, November 11, 2018 - 21:00 to 22:00

Zoukak Sidewalks 2018 - The Festival 

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Past Sidewalks Events

zoukak sidewalks 2016

2016 Download

zoukak sidewalks 2015

2015 Download

zoukak sidewalks 2013

2013 Download

Upcoming Events

Friday, June 2, 2023 - 22:00
Friday, June 9, 2023 - 20:00
Saturday, June 10, 2023 - 20:00