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Contemporary Dance Practice in Beirut

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Contemporary Dance Practice in Beirut Leiden University RESEARCH MASTER MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES - In affiliation with the Center for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies, American University of Beirut CONTEMPORARY DANCE PRACTICE IN BEIRUT Practical Organization, Social & Political Context, and Dance Performances Research Master’s Thesis by Willemijn Rijper S1308254 Junior member Netherlands Interuniversity School for Islamic Studies Supervisor: Dr. Tsolin Nalbantian Second reader: Dr. Hans Theunissen - August 2015 Acknowledgements This thesis could not have been written without the generous accounts my interviewees agreed to share with me. I am infinitely thankful for your openheartedness, trust, interest and time. I wish you all my very best! I am greatly indebted to Dr. Tsolin Nalbantian for her continuous support during the preparation for the fieldwork, the fieldwork period, and the writing process. Your constructive feedback challenged me to think and write critically. I am grateful to have benefited from your valuable advice. I would like to thank Dr. Hans Theunissen for his interest and effort in reviewing my thesis as the second reader. Your insightful comments enabled me to considerably improve my work. Many thanks to Dr. Julie McBrien for encouraging me to undertake this project. Our conversations inspired me to stay close to the anthropological discipline. Thanks to the now closed The Netherlands Institute in Beirut for providing me with practical information about Beirut and the dance scene. Your presence in Lebanon and your expertise are greatly missed. Thanks to Natasja van ‘t Westende, director of Dancing on the Edge, for her interest in my research. Your festival has been an inspiration for the research, and our interview has been of great help in designing the research project. Thanks to the Lutfia Rabbani Foundation, the Fundatie van de Vrijvrouwe van Renswoude te ‘s Gravenhage, and Leiden University for their generous funding to carry out this research. Without your support, the realization of this project would have been impossible. I am grateful to my parents, sister, brother, family and friends for supporting me during this journey. Ria, thank you for making it possible. Rufus, thank you for everything. I am solely accountable for the content of this thesis. I take on full responsibility for any errors and misinterpretations. Readers of this thesis are kindly invited to share their views with me. Table of contents Introduction Motivation, relevance, and state of the art 1 Chapter One The organization of contemporary dance practice in Beirut 16 Chapter Two Contemporary dance practice in its social context 36 Chapter Three Practicing contemporary dance in the context of Beirut 47 Chapter Four Contemporary dance practice in Beirut: performances 60 Conclusion Practicing contemporary dance in Beirut 84 Bibliography 91 Appendix Fieldwork report (print version only) The online version of this thesis is slightly different from the original version presented to the supervisor and second reader. This is due to privacy considerations. Alterations have been made in consultation with the dancers. Changes mainly concern quotes regarding personal experiences and performances, as well as the interpretation of these quotes. Introduction Motivation, relevance, and state of the art Inspiration for the research I have fostered a passion for dance ever since I attended my first ballet class at the age of eight. When I realized as an adolescent that a career in dance was not my path, I decided that dance would be the focus of my university studies. Many papers I wrote during my bachelor’s in Cultural Anthropology were about dance. In 2009 I witnessed two dance performances at the festival Dancing on the Edge in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. This festival provides a platform for contemporary art from the Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) region, and encourages artistic exchange. Dancing on the Edge gives preference to art works that “address societally relevant issues in an artistically interesting way”.1 According to the program book, both performances I attended indeed engaged with social and political questions. The performance Äataba (“the threshold”) by Taoufiq Izzediou with Compagnie Anania from Morocco explored the contradictions between society’s expectations and individuals’ behavior, revealing a legal but concealed sensual nightclub atmosphere.2 The Palestinian-Dutch-Jordanian co- production Waiting Forbidden (Feri de Geus, Noortje Bijvoets with Dancing on the Edge, Al Balad Theatre, El Funoun, Grand Theatre, Le Grand Cru) addressed the Palestinian struggle with dislocation and oppression.3 Being relatively uneducated in the social and political circumstances in the MENA- region, I only partly grasped the socio-political references transmitted through the performances’ dance content, props, and emotions. It was only after further research into the subject that I could more accurately identify the messages the performances conveyed. Societal and academic relevance These performances aroused my interest in what I conceptualized as “societally engaged contemporary dance”. I aimed to write my bachelor’s thesis about this subject, but academic references were so few that these could not serve a thesis solely based on literature. In summer 2012 I was accepted for the research master Middle Eastern Studies with a research proposal aimed at anthropologically investigating socio-political engagement of contemporary dancers in Lebanon. During my master studies I continued writing about the political dimensions of dance and art in general, and explored the case of the online puppet theatre show Top Goon by the Massasit Matti 1 “Second call for entries DOTE festival 2015,” Dancing on the Edge, last modified November 2014, http://dancingontheedge.nl/news/second-call-for-entries-dote-festival-2015/. 2 “Äataba,” Dancing on the Edge, accessed August 3, 2015, http://dancingontheedge.nl/project/aataba. 3 “Waiting Forbidden,” Dancing on the Edge, accessed August 3, 2015, http://dancingontheedge.nl/project/waiting-forbidden. 1 artists collective from Syria.4 When I initially designed the fieldwork project, I thus departed from my interest in exploring the employment of dance by its practitioners as social critique. I came across literature in which this criticizing function was discussed for a variety of artistic disciplines, ranging from music to theater to visual arts. We have learned from earlier case studies how artistic statements have played a significant role in voicing dissatisfaction with social and political situations. Adams, who has examined the employment of art by the prodemocracy movement in Pinochet’s Chile, argues that this artistic feature of protest has often been overlooked.5 A book by Reed addresses the usage of music, poetry, paintings and other mediums in the African American civil rights movements during the 1950s and 60s. Reed also directs attention to the role of new media in more contemporary revolutionary movements like the persisting lobbies for labor and women’s rights.6 Further, Peffer has written about art and the end of apartheid in his homonymous book.7 Kong has dealt with music as a means of cultural opposition against state policies and socio-cultural norms in Singapore.8 With regard to theater, Hamdan examines the new wave of protest theater plays that Syria witnessed in the last decade.9 However, little attention has been directed towards dance as a medium to address problems in society. Prickett produced two articles about the emergence of the critical modern dance genre during the 1920s in America; first in response to the stock market crash which caused suffering amongst the working classes, and later in reaction to World War II and fascism. Prickett’s work highlights the strong connection of modern dance with social criticism.10 In addition, an edited volume by Jackson and Saphiro-Phim deals with choreographies that challenge human rights’ abuses, and protest movements in which dance plays a significant role. This volume, entitled Dance, Human Rights, and Social Justice: Dignity in Motion,11 explores the link between dance and humanitarian and social justice concerns. The articles collected cover a wide variety of interrelated subjects connected to this 4 “Top Goon Reloaded - Episode 5,” YouTube video, 4:23, July 26, 2015, posted by “Masassit Matti,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoS1Kqlqw80. 5 Jacqueline Adams, “Art in Social Movements: Shantytown Women’s Protest in Pinochet’s Chile.” Sociological Forum 17, no.1 (2002): 21-56, doi: 10.1023/A:1014589422758. 6 T.V. Reed, The Art of Protest. Culture and activism from the civil rights movement to the streets of Seattle (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005). 7John Peffer, Art and the End of Apartheid. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009), accessed August 3, 2015, http://bit.ly/1IBGXQd. 8 Lily Kong, “Music and Cultural Politics: Ideology and Resistance in Singapore,” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series 20, no.4 (1995): 447-459, doi: 10.2307/622975. 9 Masud Hamdan. Poetics, Politics and Protest in Arab Theatre. The Bitter Cup and the Holy Rain. (Sussex: Sussex Academic Press, 2006). 10 Stacey Prickett, “From Workers’ Dance to New Dance,” Dance Research: The Journal of the Society for Dance Research 7, no. 1 (1989): 47-64, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1290578; Stacey Prickett, “Dance and the Workers’ Struggle,” Dance Research: The Journal of the Society for Dance Research 8, no. 1 (1990): 47-61, accessed August 3, 2015, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1290789.
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