Danas

Mawt Saghir – First Movement

Directed by Ali Chahrour

Choreographed & performed by Ali Chahrour and Emilie Thomas Mansour

9, 10, 16 & 17 March 2012 - Maqamat Dance House – 8.30pm

My sisters’ lamentations have raised in me the desire to dance.

My mother is crying over my grave. Her sobs make me want to sing.

Lying on top of me, a corpse. Its cold flesh and dying fluids try to seduce me, pulling my body in a perfect embrace, endless orgasm.

Sighs and stifled tears gush from my father as if to masturbate over my picture faded by time.

Danas exposes destitute bodies. Moving bodies in search of motivation, might it be a soul or anything that could make them reclaim their self-control. An instinctive quest for a meaning or a vanished reality. A reality condemned by religious texts and scientific progress. A reality whose only relief is to echo the farewell cries blaming its absence.

Danas inhabits the intimate moments of a buried body
A body in a mass grave
In a morgue
At the bottom of the ocean
A body lifted by men in a funeral procession
A cremated body
A stuffed body
A body without skeleton
nor hips
A schizophrenic body
Amnesic
Decapitated at birth
and ignored by history...

Ali Chahrour and Emilie Thomas Mansour began their collaboration in 2010 during Takween Collective through Maqamat Dance Theatre in Beirut. "On the Lips, Snow", Ali Chahrour’s first creation performed in duet with Emilie Thomas Mansour Ali Chahrour was presented in April 2011 during the Arab Dance Platform. The performance was programmed at Maqamat Dance House in September, October and November 2011 before touring in Holland for the Festival Dancing on the Edge in December 2011. "Danas. Mawt Saghir - First Movement " is their new creation.

Danas
Mawt Saghir – First movement

Directed by Chahrour
Choreographed & performed by Ali Chahrour & Emilie Thomas Mansour
Voices: Layla Chahrour
Light design: Louise Parnel
Video: Jowe Harfouche
Co-production: Maqamat Dance House and Institut Français du Liban
Supported by Maqamat Dance Theatre, lnstitut Français du Liban and the French Embassy in Beirut
Special thanks to: Omar Rajeh, Mia Habis, Omar Abi Azar, Junaid Sarieddeen, Jowe Harfouche

Informations
Maqamat Dance House
Estral Center 2^nd floor
Hamra Street - Beirut
01 34 38 34
info@maqamat.org
www.maqamat.org