TBA:16 LECTURE

Theatre in the Alleys of Crisis

by Junaid Sarieddeen / Zoukak Theatre Company

Junaid Sarieddeen is co-founder of Beirut’s Zoukak Theatre Company, founded in 2006 to develop an engaged professional theatre practice with a commitment to creativity as a form of resistance. Junaid will position Zoukak as a case study to illuminate the broader landscape of art and politics in Lebanon, sharing the origins of the company as a platform for contemporary performance and vehicle for social change, in a country lacking adequate public and cultural policy and haunted by cycles of ceaseless crisis. He will discuss Zoukak's emphasis on creative process over outcomes, and the value of collectivity, collaborative methodologies, horizontal participation, and multiplicities of expression as unexpected approaches to theatre-making. In turn, he will share techniques of theatre in the psychosocial field, including work with populations affected by war, violence, and extreme displacement and marginalization in Lebanon and beyond. Sarieddeen is dramaturg for Ali Chahrour's Leila's Death, part of this year's TBA Festival.