Temporary Stay
In an old family home in Beirut, an audio cassette is found in amongst a heap of abandoned objects. A cassette from 1976, a time when Lebanon was in the throes of civil war. The owners have left, fleeing the violence. On the recordings we hear the voices of migrants who have just arrived in Europe. Based on this ‘found object’, Waël Ali and Chrystèle Khodr examine the stories and traces of survivors and explore a migration history that runs from the Ottoman Empire at the start of the 20th century to the Europe of the 2000s. Against the backdrop of the current war in Syria, they tell a story of exile as a shared history. The story of children who see their native cities collapse and slowly disappear behind them.
concept & text Chrystèle Khodr & Waël Ali | direction Waël Ali with Hassan Al Balkhi, Waël Ali, Chrystèle Khodr, Khaled Yassine | set design Bissane Al Charif | music Khaled Yassine | light design Hasan Al Balkhi | video Toni Geitani | production Festival Sens Interdits | co-production Zoukak Theater Company & Cultural Association (Liban), Institut Français de Beyrouth (Liban), Les Subsistances, laboratoire international de création artistique (Lyon), Festival Les Rencontres à l’échelle, Les Bancs Publics (Marseille) | support Les Subsistances, laboratoire international de création artistique, la DRAC Auvergne- Rhône-Alpes, de Mophradat, de l’AFAC (The Arab Fund for Arts et Culture), Ettijahat et le Goethe-Institut du Liban et de l’Institut Français à Beyrouth, l’Office National de Diffusion Artistique, la SPEDIDAM, le Tandem Scène Nationale (Douai) | residency Théâtre des Asphodèles
