May He Rise is a dance performance and a ceremony, where death, in all its primitiveness and violence, emerges from the depth of the earth to become a rite for life. The woman, the mourning priestess, summons the men so that they may experience grief and the pain of loss. Like a goddess, she brings them to the threshold of life and death, she moves their bodies, and from their anguish releases an action for life.
ALI CHAHROUR (Lebanon)
At the national Institute of fine arts, where Ali studied since 2008, “dramatic dance” -taught in second year- is the only choreographic training at university level in Lebanon. As a student, Ali Chahrour diversified his approaches to movement through workshops and trainings, In several European countries. He created his first piece for two dancers “On her lips, snow”, questioning the end of love, and presented it soon after his graduation in Beirut and the Netherlands in 2011. One year later, he created Danas that “explores the daily violence against the body”, a first step in building an aesthetic in his social, political and religious context, rejecting bodies that are formatted by the known technics of contemporary dance and putting forward a body “that has forgotten the grand discourses of the Arab world”. His most recent creations, Fatmeh and Leila’s death question the chiites rituals and their contemporary metamorphosis As Part of A trilogy Based on the presence of the Body in the death rituals in the Arab world and the intensity of the Body gestures in such an intense religious and social and political context, this 2 show was part of the official program of 70th edition Festival d’Avignon 2016 And many other festival in the USA, Canada, France and Germany…
One year later he crated “ May he Rise and Smell the fragrance” as the last part of this trilogy, Based on poems, Myths and Stories From the Mesopotamians, Exploring the intimacy and the roughness of Lamentations and Sadness, that’s rooted in the history and the daily practice of this culture.
