by Ossama Halal

Liban-Syrie

The Trees Dance Sometimes is a musical performance. We use songs to uncover memories of our cities and critique our relationship to death that befalls us and our disintegrating cities, our relationship with our voices and bodies that change with the bodies of such cities, and our relationship with life and death as well as construction and demolition, and the interplay between them. We use songs to highlight the importance of personal stories, how they affect others, and how they contribute to personal growth and change.

The performance is a call to life and a mean to confront the culture of violence. In the show eight professional musicians/performers take part, carrying their trees on their backs, so that the tree becomes an object analogous to their identity, and forming a choir that walks in the streets of cities devoured by death/wars. Hence follows an opportunity to delve into their memories to document and reveal them, and to talk about the people who experienced them. It follows that the show is heavily based upon the memories and situations experienced by the participating artists and hopes to impart, in an artistic medium that combines performance and music, what they desire our cities to be or what they believe they have become.

Scenography & Direction: Ossama Halal

Musical training and supervision:
Khaled Omran
Samah Boulmona

Performers:
Abigail Carroll
Deiaa Hamza
Hussam Dalal
Khaled Omran
Maxim Abou Diab
Romy Melhem
Samah Boulmona
Technical director
Ahmad Hafez

Production: Koon Theater