You can now follow the latest news for free through the Telegram app
Click here to subscribe
Beirut: The eighteenth edition of the Beirut International Contemporary Dance Festival “Baypod” kicked off with a show in which banners were used to the beat of the drums of war.
The festival opened with the show “Ara! Ara!” The Italian duo Ginevra Panzetti and Enrico Ticconi simulates the relationship of the body with the birch, which symbolizes belonging to the earth. For 50 minutes, the music of military drums inlaid with bird chirping resounded, and the dancers moved in harmony, using the softness of two blue and yellow bars.
With high morality, similar to the soldiers, manifested by the movements of the legs, hands and head, they waved the flags that seemed to be an extension of the body, a weapon for resistance at times and a tool for surrender at other times.
cultural disobedience
In front of an audience that filled the Beret theater hall, festival founder Omar Rajeh said in the opening speech, along with artistic director Mia Habis, “Through the title of this edition, we hope to move towards achieving justice, equality, openness, awareness and many other topics related to race, color and gender.”
The festival’s activities will continue until May 29, and this edition, in addition to dance performances, presents videos, workshops, dialogues and discussions on the topic of cultural disobedience and is broadcast on the citerne.live streaming platform.
Rageh told AFP that cultural disobedience is an issue that “begins when a person rejects the reality in which he lives”.
He added, “When we address cultural disobedience, we shed light on the activists’ work and interaction, the artist’s situation and his psychological and physical needs, and the suppression of his freedom, supremacy, racism and corruption.”
He asked, “Is culture just entertainment or is it part of active political and social work?” “Culture should be a catalyst for change,” he added.
Most performances are held outdoors, in the gardens of the Sursock Museum.
Rageh explained that the goal is to “create a different dynamic and a different approach to performance in a new form to establish a new relationship with the audience outside the boundaries of the theater.”
In the program, a work by choreographer and dancer Fabien Tome entitled “Moa Joe” regarding the conflict between the ego and the ego, focusing on the work of the body in unifying movement and breathing, and another by the French artist Alexandre Roccoli, inspired by Moroccan dances, where it is repeated in music and movements.
In a performance called “Nebula”, Brazilian dancer Fania Fano compares the human body to nature. In “Pina My Love” show, Bassam Abu Diab tries to embody the reactions of inhuman practices that push the body to dance in order to survive.
The festival concludes with a show entitled “From Scratch” by the choreographer and Greek dancer Ioannis Mandaphons, who relies on the present audience’s suggestions and turns them into an improvised dance board.
