animates / together we walk, beirut
Picture taken by Tarek Haddad for British Council Lebanon, featuring Alice Massabki, Serge Mouawad, and Marie-Therese Ghosn.
On the occasion of the inauguration of British Council Lebanon and Syria’s new offices on June 14th, 2023, we were invited to present a Yaraqa production: Together We Walk Beirut.
After a lot of thought, looking back at our years of partnership with British Council Lebanon, we decided to present something we had never done in direct collaboration with them before.
We went back, and exercised our skills of creative and collective thinking by taking a moment to stop and reflect on our production Together We Walk, an immersive installation composed of digital monoliths, representing fragments of our existence as Lebanese people.
Premiered at Dubai Expo 2020, Together We Walk showcased seven performers locomoting within and between the monoliths in moments of absurdity and physical comedy, all of which lend themselves to a non-linear storyline. This experience invited the audience to assemble personal understandings of and relationships to their own existence, depending on which pathways they choose to walk the installation…
This creative reflection led to the conception of Together We Walk Beirut, an exploration and confrontation of a people coming face to face with themselves.
In person and in relation to the digital monoliths, two dancers engage with the content, exploring their relationship to themselves as represented in the past. Asking questions, responding and experimenting with their former selves through movement.
In Together We Walk Beirut, we are finally bringing Together We Walk home, inviting the Lebanese and those who live here - to come face to face with ourselves 2 years later. What does it mean for us today to witness ourselves as we were in the not so far past? Have things changed? Are things still the same?
The performance, produced by Yaraqa, choreographed plus directed by Caroline Hatem, and performed by Alice Massabki and Lisette Chehade took place in the garden of the Beirut Digital District’s British Council Offices and merged a live 20 minute performance in interaction with a digital installation (two wide screens showcasing curated moments of Together We Walk Dubai).
Picture taken by Tarek Haddad for British Council Lebanon, featuring Lisette Chehadi, and xx on screen. Lisette Chehadi as well as Serge Mouawad and Marie-Therese Ghosn.
We thank our choreographer/director Caroline Hatem, our performers Alice Massabki and Lisette Chehadi as well as Serge Mouawad, Marie-Therese Ghosn, Omar Sfeir, Riwa Houssami and Mounir Al Serawan.
We thank James Chehab of course, our technical director and editor, as well as his team for all their patience, commitment and passion without whom none of this could have been made a reality.
And we thank the entire team behind the first edition of Together We Walk, without your work and initial involvement Together We Walk Beirut would not have been possible.
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