Alia Hamdan: "The body is here, off screen"

After three months of preparations and rehearsals with the performance artist Silvija Dogan, the Alia Hamdan's performances will be held at Alkantara festival in Lisbon in November and at Kaaitheater Brussels in April 2025.

The presentation by Alija Hamdan, with the participation of Silvija Dogan, will be held at Pogon premises at Mislavova street 18.

What happens when time freezes?

The performance in the center of this process is an attempt to stay with the fixated present of one violent event in Beirut’s recent history and to inject time in it. The Beirut port explosion on August 4th 2020 was a global event, affecting all Beirut in one instant, in contrast to previous episodes of violence, like the series of car bombs and the 2006 war, which as localised events, abided by the sectarian grid of space. The event came to explicit a shift in Lebanese politics, toward a state of corrupted peace, a politics of total collapse and entropic degradation. However immense the event was, it did not cut time in half –there was no political change, no resignations, no reparations, no justice. As a result, disjointed speeds of being coexist in the place –the families of the victims wait in limbo for a justice that doesn’t come; those who survived the event went to the streets with brooms to clean and move on. The performance is an attempt to stay with the fixated present of the event and to inject time in it.All the elements of the piece – visuals, audio and performative, aim to converge to a state of a still trance, the state of those who live in close proximity with the disaster.

This performance is an attempt to depict the frozen temporality generated by this event and made all the more acute by the recent Israeli attacks in Lebanon. 

Alia Hamdan was born in Beirut/Lebanon, where she still resides. Hamdan obtained two Master’s degrees in philosophy (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) and urban studies (Université Paris-Nanterre) in 2006. Her academic achievements were complemented by her studies in dance, including the Exerce program at the Choreographic Center of Montpellier/France. From 2006 to 2012, she worked as an urban researcher in Beirut, while continuing her activities in the field of performing arts. From 2013 to 2021, she taught courses in art and performance theory at the Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts (ALBA) and the Université Saint-Joseph (USJ) in Beirut. Her conceptual and artistic interests seek to provoke encounters between choreographic thought, cinema and esthetical political theory. Her most recent projects include In the background, 2022, a sound piece for the Sursock Museum, Beirut; Politics of dance and Choreography, 2021, a lecture-talk at the MUCEM, Marseille/France and An Essay in ‘Chorography‘, 2018, a lecture-talk at Ashkal Alwan, Beirut. Hamdam also appeared in Retrospective by Xavier le Roy at the Beirut Art Center in 2015. In 2021, she was the recipient of an award from the Foundation for Arts Initiatives (FfAI, New York/US) and in 2022, she completed a three-month residency at the Camargo Foundation (Cassis/France).

Silvija Dogan is a performance artist in the field of movement, voice, performance, visual art and photography. Dogan acquired her professional education throughout Europe, participating in many international programs and workshops, as well as in the MA program of Nonverbal Theater at the Academy of Arts and Culture in Osijek. She developed her acting and dancing experience through working with many choreographers and directors. Dogan artistically and creatively explores the connection between the body and the voice through the author's plays Valna blizina (2019), Memory in Meters (2021), Memory in Pictures (2022) and Memory in Translation (2023).