Interview with Director Ossama Halal About Establishing The Koon Theatre Lab in Beirut

The Koon Theatre Group took part in the Focus Lebanon; Projects in Progress platform, which was organised by the Zukak Theatre Group and held in Beirut, Lebanon from the 11^th to the 15^th of November 2016.

The participation is part of a new project by Koon Theatre Group called the Koon Theatre Lab, one of the projects supported by the pilot edition of the Create Syria 2016 programme, one of Ettijaht’s projects.

Regarding the participation and Koon Theatre Lab as a whole, the group’s founder, Syrian theatre director Ossama Halal, writes to Ettijahat from Beirut, where he has been living since 2013.

Twenty minutes of Story of a Mother

The Koon Theatre Group’s participation in the Focus Lebanon platform was showing 20 minutes of the group’s new theatre project. The project is expected to be ready for the stage in 2017. What they showed was a short first draft of a performance that is still in progress. Those 20 minutes were the result of initial exploration of the performance’s mood and the type of movement and theatre rhetoric for which we are looking.

Story of a Mother is based on a short story with the same title by the famous Danish writer, Hans Andersen. The performance examines questions of loss, causes of violence, and resisting a culture of death. We chose a folklore story, which helped us analyse it and discuss said topics within the Syrian context, while building the performance on a traditional tale.

The show will be written collectively, using improvisational techniques. It will be the first time Koon will work with puppets as a medium. This will be the second production by Koon in Lebanon, after Above Zero. There will be collaboration with artists from Syria, Lebanon, and Europe.

Koon Theatre Group from Damascus to Beirut

The Koon Theatre Group was founded in Damascus, Syria in 2002 and moved to Beirut in 2013. During this time, Koon produced several theatre performances, including The Story of Aladdin, Corpse on the Sidewalk, and Don Quixote.

Our first production in Lebanon was Above Zero, which was one of the most difficult pieces for the project to undergo, mostly due to challenges such as scarcity of art spaces and high rent prices for rehearsal venues.

However, the challenges we faced strengthened our commitment to keep working and develop new forms of performance which led us to focus on finding the right place in Beirut.

The birth of the Koon Theatre Lab in Beirut in 2016

The Koon Theatre Lab is a creative space for theatre, and is home to many artists all from different backgrounds and with different skills and nationalities. The Lab aims to expand the horizons of cultural and theatrical work, especially in places that lack cultural action and infrastructure. The Lab also works on enhancing traditions in order to create a different theatre that addresses pressing issues and uses unconventional visual language to deliver its messages.

The Koon Theatre Lab serves as a framework that responds to multiple artistic and social issues. It was born from observing and engaging in the artistic and cultural landscape in Lebanon over the last five years. As such, the Lab endeavours to open theatre work to non-academics. It also seeks to address the unsustainability of most shows and workshops that created interaction between professional artists and citizens (refugees) living in refugee camps in Lebanon.

Thus, we proposed to create the Theatre Lab, built on interaction between Koon and the social environment around us, enriching the experience psychologically, socially, and artistically.

We have become a group of professional artists from Syria, Lebanon, and France, aiming to create a non-profit organisation that would serve as an alternative creative space for independent artists in the region. We have professional and cultural management expertise, as well as a strong regional and global network, but we need support to build sound institutional, managerial, and legal structures.

Koon Team

Antoine Bouguier – Performer and trainer

Rawya al-Shab – Performer

Sarah al-Zain – Performer

Stephanie Kayal – Performer

Marie-Terez Ghusn – Performer

Karam Abu Ayash – Technical director

Reem Khattab – Manager

Ossama Halal – Director and trainer