El kamar bi zaher

Chanel Cheiban
El kamar bi zaher

Double bill
With Mara Dupas

January 16 to 19, 2025

Teaser

A most poetic creation, El kamar bi zaher brilliantly fuses Middle Eastern gestures with contemporary dance. At once intimate and universal, Chanel Cheiban‘s solo unfolds with elegance and passion in a universe of new, sacred feminine territories.

A metaphor for her inner space, El kamar bi zaher means “The blossoming moon” in Arabic, a rite of passage, a metamorphosis from seed to blossom. Staging her ancestry with lamps, rugs and cushions, the performer frees herself from the diktats of the orientalized female body, but also from stereotypes about Arab women. A hybrid, multidisciplinary work, Cheiban is accompanied by multi-instrumentalist Nadine Altounji and Oisin Hannigan, and singer Najla Jaffel, who perform the great classics of Arab music. At the crossroads of traditional and contemporary influences, the choreographer performer’s creations are rooted in Lebanese folklore, Indian dance, Middle Eastern dance and floor work. El kamar bi zaher by Chanel Cheiban… A work that liberates us from traditions and intergenerational traumas, a reinvented gesture, a singular movement that transcends individual and collective wounds.

El kamar bi zaher  or
the Revolution Within

El kamar bi zaher is mainly based on an improvised structure, but also on the principle of tarab. In Arabic, tarab “designates an emotion of great magnitude, an ecstasy, a communion of the senses between the spectator and the performer, which allows the soul to be exhaled in the whirlwind of music and dance and to be carried to the firmament of artistic ecstasy.” Tarab encompasses all classical Egyptian songs, and has its roots in the days of the legendary Umm Kulthum, renowned for her “ability to stop a war.”

Chanel Cheiban or
the Reinvented Gestures

Lebanese-born choreographer and performer Chanel Cheiban have been honing her world dance skills for several years. Cheiban has three creations in her young repertoire: El kamar bi zaher (2021–2024), PLAYGROUND (co-created with Maude Laurin-Beaulieu, 2022) and WHOLENESS (Entièreté) (2020). Since 2019, she has been dancing for Veils of Bollywood, a company founded by Rameez Karim. She appears in several productions presented at the Festival du Monde Arabe, Festival Orientalys, Festival Quartiers Danses and broadcast on Prime Canada TV.

Date and Time

Thursday, Jan 16 , 7 p.m. to Sunday, Jan 19 , 4 p.m.

Event Registration

To register for this event please visit the following URL: https://tangentedanse.ca/evenement/chanel-cheiban-mara-dupas/ →

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