Pay close attention to this artist's name, because it comes up every time someone talks about the most interesting artists in Lebanon today. He does theatre, but for some time he has also been experimenting with video and performance, which he incorporates into the shows he produces. He is also a renowned visual artist and has exhibited at the documenta contemporary art exhibition in Kassel. This production opens with a real event that, little by little, becomes tainted by fiction as the production progresses. In 1987, as the Lebanese civil war showed signs of entering its final phase, Rabih Mroué's younger brother Yasser, who was just 17 years old, was shot in the head. The bullet passed through his brain without killing him, but it left him with residual damage which, for example, prevents him from identifying the relationship between two images viewed one after the other. Perhaps Yasser —whom you will see live on stage— has a memory that rides on a cloud and jumps from one place to another, as the production's title would suggest. Text, images, various recordings... All of this will serve to tell us a story that, while real to a certain extent, gradually morphs into an exercise in the construction of a biography: the author's real brother gives way to a theatrical character, in whose life political events and a country’s history are confounded with the intimacy of one of its citizens.
Since the 1990s, actor, playwright and visual artist Rabi Mroué has been producing his own theatre shows, which are often set in Lebanon, and question the position of the spectator, the role of the actor and the forms taken by stage performance. He is the co-creator of many works with fellow Lebanese artist Lina Saneh (Majdalanie), but he created this piece on his own in 2013, the year in premièred in the Netherlands. The première in the United States, in 2015, took place at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), in New York.
This presentation will be complemented by other activities related to the artists work, both at the Filmoteca de Catalunya and the MACBA - Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona.
A coproduction of Fonds Podiumkunsten, Prins Claus Fonds, Hivos & Stichting DOEN - (The Netherlands).
Performance: Rabih Mroué. Playwriting and direction: Rabih Mroué. English translation: Ziad Nawfal. With: Yasser Mroué. With the collaboration of: Sarmad Louis. Assistant director: Petra Serhal. Assistance: Janine Baroud. Special thanks to: Lina Saneh, Frie Leysen, Mroué's family (Souad, Ahmad, Ammar, Ziad, Maha, Mazen, Nabil and Fatima Bazzi), Ahlam Awada, Samar Maakaroun, Janine Broud, Karma and Nadi Louis.
