Rabih Mroué
28.09.2006 |
Rabih Mroué (born 1967 in Beirut) is an actor, director, and playwright. In 1990 he began creating his own plays, performances, and videos. Continuously searching for new and contemporary relations among all the different elements and languages of the theatre art forms, Mroué questions the definitions of theatre and the relationship between space and form of the performance and, consequently, questions how the performer relates with the audience. His works deal with issues that have been swept under the table in the current political climate of Lebanon. He draws much-needed attention to the broader political and economic contexts by means of a semi-documentary theatre….
From theatre practice to politics, and from the problem of representations to his private life, his search for ‘truth’ begins via documents, photos, and found objects, fabricating other documents, other ‘truths’: it is as if the work becomes a dissection table for the dubious processes of Lebanon's war society. With the accumulation of materials, a surrealistic saga unfolds, teasing out the proposition that ‘between the truth and a lie, there is but a hair’. His piece Looking for a Missing Employee is an investigative performance in which the artist becomes a ‘detective’ interested in using actual documents to understand how rumours, public accusations, national political conflicts, and scandals act on the public sphere as shaped by print media. Mroué incorporates radical criticism, particularly in his video imagery.
Without losing his peculiar sense of humour, Mroué's Biokhraphia (in collaboration with Lina Saneh) shrewdly provides a space to consider the invention of biography, with all its dreams, failings, and idiosyncrasies, within the frame of the beginning of a history. In 2004 Mroué wrote Who's Afraid of Representation, a merging of parallel histories of Western performance art and contemporary socio-political events in Beirut
Among Mroué’s works:
2006: “Make me stop smoking”, Oberhausen International Festival – Germany
2006: “look at the light moving between the buildings”, Siemens Arts Program – Munich
2006: “leap into the void” an installation work, Gallery Sfeir-Selmer – Beirut
2004: “Life is short but the day is too long”, Les Subsistence – Lyon.
2004: “Who’s afraid of representation”, Hebbel Theater – Berlin
2003: “Looking For A Missing Employee”, Ashkal Alwan – Beirut
2003: “BIR-ROOH BID-DAM”, Video work
2003: “LIMP BODIES”, Tanzquartier Wien, Denkmal project – Wien
2002: “BIOKHRAPHIA” with Lina Saneh, Ashkal Alwan Production
2001: “FACE A / FACE B”, Video work
2000: “RED DEAD ZONE” with Feyrouz Serhal, Ashkal Alwan Production – Beirut
2000: “THREE POSTERS” with Elias Khoury, Festival Ayloul Production – Beirut
1998 “COME IN SIR WE ARE WAITING FOR YOU OUTSIDE” with Tony Chakar
1997 “EXTENSION 19”, Festival Ayloul Production
1995 “LA PRISON DE SABLE”
1993: “THE LIFT”
1990: “L’ABAT-JOUR”
ass="spacer">Rabih Mroué (born 1967 in Beirut) is an actor, director, and playwright. In 1990 he began creating his own plays, performances, and videos. Continuously searching for new and contemporary relations among all the different elements and languages of the theatre art forms, Mroué questions the definitions of theatre and the relationship between space and form of the performance and, consequently, questions how the performer relates with the audience. His works deal with issues that have been swept under the table in the current political climate of Lebanon. He draws much-needed attention to the broader political and economic contexts by means of a semi-documentary theatre….
From theatre practice to politics, and from the problem of representations to his private life, his search for ‘truth’ begins via documents, photos, and found objects, fabricating other documents, other ‘truths’: it is as if the work becomes a dissection table for the dubious processes of Lebanon's war society. With the accumulation of materials, a surrealistic saga unfolds, teasing out the proposition that ‘between the truth and a lie, there is but a hair’. His piece Looking for a Missing Employee is an investigative performance in which the artist becomes a ‘detective’ interested in using actual documents to understand how rumours, public accusations, national political conflicts, and scandals act on the public sphere as shaped by print media. Mroué incorporates radical criticism, particularly in his video imagery.
Without losing his peculiar sense of humour, Mroué's Biokhraphia (in collaboration with Lina Saneh) shrewdly provides a space to consider the invention of biography, with all its dreams, failings, and idiosyncrasies, within the frame of the beginning of a history. In 2004 Mroué wrote Who's Afraid of Representation, a merging of parallel histories of Western performance art and contemporary socio-political events in Beirut
Among Mroué’s works:
2006: “Make me stop smoking”, Oberhausen International Festival – Germany
2006: “look at the light moving between the buildings”, Siemens Arts Program – Munich
2006: “leap into the void” an installation work, Gallery Sfeir-Selmer – Beirut
2004: “Life is short but the day is too long”, Les Subsistence – Lyon.
2004: “Who’s afraid of representation”, Hebbel Theater – Berlin
2003: “Looking For A Missing Employee”, Ashkal Alwan – Beirut
2003: “BIR-ROOH BID-DAM”, Video work
2003: “LIMP BODIES”, Tanzquartier Wien, Denkmal project – Wien
2002: “BIOKHRAPHIA” with Lina Saneh, Ashkal Alwan Production
2001: “FACE A / FACE B”, Video work
2000: “RED DEAD ZONE” with Feyrouz Serhal, Ashkal Alwan Production – Beirut
2000: “THREE POSTERS” with Elias Khoury, Festival Ayloul Production – Beirut
1998 “COME IN SIR WE ARE WAITING FOR YOU OUTSIDE” with Tony Chakar
1997 “EXTENSION 19”, Festival Ayloul Production
1995 “LA PRISON DE SABLE”
1993: “THE LIFT”
1990: “L’ABAT-JOUR”