CCDF 25|The Love Behind My Eyes

6/6
The Love Behind My Eyes
55’, 14+
ALI CHAHROUR
Lebanon

Directed & Choreographed by: Ali Chahrour
Performed by: Leila Chahrour, Chadi Aoun, Ali Chahrour
Music: Abed Kobeissy
Lighting Design, Scenography, & Technical Director: Guillaume Tesson
Production Manager: Christel Salem
Lettering: Ali Assi
Communication Manager: Chadi Aoun
Copywriting: Isabelle Aoun
Production: Ali Chahrour
Co-production: Kunstfest Weimar, Culture Resource, Les Rencontres à l’échelle Festival - Marseille, Hammana Artist House, Houna Center, Art Jameel

The Love Behind My Eyes touches upon the fading away of love — violent endings to forbidden stories, where lovers die with gaping eyes, wide open, staring into the killer’s gaze that had once given them their reason to be. The performance is part of a new triptych entitled Love and addresses the different myths of love and passion based on Arab heritage. It is anchored in the stories, legends, and lyric poetry (ghazal) of the Arab patrimony, and their relation to the concept of love and the different ways it is expressed in contemporary societies.

The performance also examines lyric poetry — an art form sung in highly musical verse to convey powerful feelings. Lyric poetry, always spoken in the first person, is but one genre of Arab sung poetry, yet perhaps the one that most closely reflects its propensity to provoke emotion. Here, it expresses love in all its complexities, and the emotions of lovers. Throughout the performance, we see how these intricate feelings are reflected in the soul and the body, and how these in turn affect the body’s presence and movement. All of society and its taboos are interwoven in the forbidden stories of love referred to in this performance. Many are untold stories from the Arab legacy, such as that of Bin Daoud and his lover Bin Jamea, who lived in socially and religiously intense contexts. Others come from our contemporary societies, shaped by social norms and political or religious structures. We examine together how all these complexities have affected the path of these relationships and their intimacy. Consequently, we hope to understand the place of the body — and its role — in and through these stories, narrated from Arab memory.

Born in Beirut, choreographer and dancer Ali Chahrour invents a gesture, freed from Western codes and models, which acts as a reflection of his culture and the political, social, and religious context in which he has evolved. In a previous series of shows, part of his trilogy Death - Fatmeh (2014), Leila’s Death (2015) and May he Rise and smell the fragrance (2017), he evoked funeral liturgies, blending tradition with sharp modernity. He then embarked on a second series of performances devoted to Love, beginning with Night (2019), followed by Told by my Mother (2021), The Love Behind My Eyes — which won the ZKB Patronage Prize at the 2022 Zurich Theater Spektakel — and concluding with Iza Hawa (2023). Combining lyrical poetry, raw emotion, and tangled bodies, Ali Chahrour’s corpus of work weaves a vivid tapestry of human connection. His performances have been presented at the Avignon Festival in 2016, 2018 and 2022 and at numerous festivals worldwide. He is currently developing a new trilogy centred on the theme of fear.

Instagram: @alichahrour1
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shahroorali
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@alichahrour8950/videos

Organised by: Deputy Ministry of Culture (Department of Contemporary Culture) and Rialto Theatre.
Tickets: €8 (€30 for all performances)
Free entrance to students, soldiers, pensioners, PWD cardholders and dance professionals.