We are looking for Gazan collaborators for a new performance project on the theme of place, the home and identity.  It will be a partnership between artists in Gaza and the UK and take the form of a performance that happens in both locations simultaneously.
The aim is to create a performance piece that surpasses the intervening borders by creating a third shared space through an innovative use of the internet, so celebrating a rare meeting in the artistic workplace and bringing the situation in Gaza to the attention of the world in a new and creative way.
The idea is to share the development of the work through an on-going exchange of material, to its culmination as a performance using video projection that can be described as the virtual, imaginative recreation of a house that has been destroyed.  This place in Gaza will be the location for a performance and visual reconstruction, not just of the building, but the actions and relationships that make it a home.
Through this reconstruction we will express the ways personal and cultural identity is rooted in the integrity of the dwelling place.  In the event of that place being destroyed, can it be revived, remembered and restored to allow a continuing life to those actions and wishes that constitute identity, even when on the ground there is nothing left but ruins? How can collaborators re-imagine a life they had, could have had, or want in a future? What would it be like to dream that publicly?
How should, or could, a collaboration with others in a very different physical situation enable a dialogue around personal and cultural survival?  The use of the internet and video in a visual, digital culture has a double-edged character for everyone: perhaps its best use is to collaborate across physical borders in order to build up a shared presence across locations, extending the range of expression possible when, in isolation, freedom of action is limited.
Who we are:

  • Julian Maynard Smith is the director of London-based company Station House Opera (1980) and has been working on Telematic theatre for ten years. www.stationhouseopera.com
  • Taghrid Choucair-Vizoso is a Lebanese-Spanish performer and theatre-maker based in London. She is currently developing new work in or about the Middle East; primarily Lebanon and Palestine.
  • Ahmed Masoud is a Gazan writer, director and academic based in London https://amasoud.wordpress.com/
  • Vivianna Chiotini is a Greek architect and scenographer based in London. She has worked in the UK, France and Greece. Contact: taghrid.c.v@gmail.com with a letter of interest and links to previous work.