Lia Rodrigues

If, up until now, the performances of the South African artist have consisted of exposing himself onstage or in public spaces, in his latest piece Steven Cohen plays host to audiences from within the confines of an intimate, private space, the boudoir. The latter, a chapel or refuge, becomes a place in which he gathers up his memories of his past - as well as those of the last century, gruesome though they may be.

Featuring different works by the LIMINAL, Forensic Oceanography and Border Forensics collectives, the multimedia installation From Sea to Sky approaches intersectional immobility and frontier-based violence at sea. The objective is to highlight the way in which the Mediterranean maritime space has been transformed into a militarized border zone.

Zifzafa, is an arabic word to describe a wind that shakes and rattles all in its path. Here, it becomes the title of a performance of artist and researcher Lawrence Abu Hamdan, that enmeshes sonic composition, video game engines and spoken word, to immerse us in the heart of a movement to resist green colonialism in the occupied Syrian Golan heights. 

How do we go about presenting the adaptation of a famous film to the Lebanese authorities in charge of censorship? We come to realize that it is about a film which recounts the improbable encounter between two very dissimilar individuals both of whom are experiencing social alienation in fascist Italy in 1938. The adaptation is set in Beirut in 2007, shortly after an Israeli attack on Lebanon.

A year after the premier of IRIS at the Butte-aux-Cailles swimming pool, commissioned by the Festival d'Automne, in which he explored the Italian polyphonic repertoire, Alessandro Sciarroni brings us U. (un canto). This music-based performance piece evokes the profoundly mysterious relationship between human beings and nature.

Inspired by the work of Marcel Pagnol, this show explores the theme of escape. Some of the actors had their first experience of theatre at the Maison centrale d'Arles prison. Marius provides audiences with a unique opportunity to discover a little-known but crucial dimension of Joël Pommerat's art.

In 1947, the trial of German playwright Bertolt Brecht took place in the United States in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), responsible for combating communist activism. It was here that Brecht wrote a declaration which he was forbidden to read out. The minutes of the trial, as well as this declaration, constitute one of the axes of this exuberant show.