ANDREA FAGARAZZI HAS BEEN INVITED BY MAQAMAT THEATRE DANCE TO LEAD A CHOREOGRAPHIC RESIDENCY AT THE MT DANCE SPACE IN BEIRUT
CHOREOGRAPHER RESIDENCY
with the local dancers Alia Hamdan, Pierre Geagea
in Beirut, Lebanon I from 3rd till 11th November 2007
MT Danse Space is a new project that is being developed by Maqamat Theatre Dance (Lebanon), in partnership with l'Animal a l'Esquena (Spain), Carovana (Italy), and House for the Danse Foundation (Stichting Huis voor de Dans, Holland). It is a new Danse Space established in Beirut that aims to encouraging mutual knowledge and exchange among artists. It aims at increasing collaboration among Euro-Mediterranean artists, exchanging knowledge, and communicating different philosophical, sociological, and cultural concepts within an artistic framework. It came out of a need to set up a firm ground for the establishment of an interactive contemporary dance scene in Lebanon and the region, to open a new horizon for local and regional artists, and to allow cooperation, mobility and cultural interaction.
It is a laboratory that aims at developping the dancers and the performers abilities through creating artistic residencies, encouraging young artists to develop and create challenging dance productions, and providing a rehearsal space for collaborative creations, research and interaction.
Maqamat Theatre Dance is a Lebanese contemporary dance company which was founded in 2002 in Beirut. The company has been able in a very short period of time to emerge as a functional organization in the creation and development of contemporary dance in Lebanon.
The company and in response to a non-existent contemporary dance scene in Beirut, has found itself playing a double role of creator and organizer. Besides the creative work, the company has founded and organized an international dance platform: Beirut International Dance Festival, created an annual training project (Project Zero) for emerging choreographers and performers, and organized many workshops. The company’s objective is to create and establish a contemporary dance scene in Lebanon and the region, and to encourage artists from different disciplines to experiment and interact with each other for the purpose of creating new and challenging productions.
Their aim is to motivate young artists and create new perceptions of dance. They firmly believe that the work they create and the events that they organize have a strong impact on the development of dance culturally, socially and artistically in Beirut. Maqamat is a project that addresses itself as more than just a company but as a new space for performers, directors, musicians, and choreographers to interact and create.
