<
 
 
 
 
×
>
You are viewing an archived web page, collected at the request of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) using Archive-It. This page was captured on 11:31:15 Mar 05, 2024, and is part of the UNESCO collection. The information on this web page may be out of date. See All versions of this archived page.
Loading media information hide

Al Bustan International Festival - Reconnect : That Breath We Held

When :

from Tuesday 22 February, 2022
20:00
to Tuesday 22 February, 2022
22:00

Type of event :

Concert

Where :

Beirut, Lebanon
Registration

Under its flagship initiative Li Beirut, and as part of its support to the recovery of the education sector in Lebanon, UNESCO is partnering with the Al-Bustan International Festival for its 2022 edition, and for a series of concerts and performances.

On 22 March, director and performer Alaa Minawi, pianist Vladimir Kurumilian piano and illustrator Ahmad Amer present "That Breath We Held...", a performance about the implications of the 4th of August Beirut Explosion; an unimaginable collective trauma.

For an explosion to happen, the air is first sucked into the source of the explosion and then released with total destruction. On the 4th of August 2020, the air in Beirut was sucked out. The city held its breath and till this moment many could not breathe out. The shock is beyond.The performance asks one question: “How can we breathe out again?”

The artists have asked the public to share their stories privately with them and will transform them into a music piece and an illustration. 

Free entrance, mandatory booking.

 

Li Beirut is an international flagship initiative launched from Beirut by the Director-General of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay, in the aftermath of the explosions, on August 27, 2020, to support the rehabilitation of schools, historic heritage buildings, museums, galleries and the creative industry, all of which suffered significant damage in the deadly explosions.

Since the Al Bustan Festival was founded in 1994, it has established in Lebanon a unique and unprecedented tradition of a music season in winter. The founders wished to revive the cultural life of a country reemerging after seventeen years of war. The Festival has indeed reached its objective, presenting each year more than thirty performances over a five-week period in February and March. With a predominance of chamber music, the Festival also includes opera, orchestral concerts, choral concerts, dance, marionettes and theatre. The Al Bustan Festival is a member of the European Festival Association (EFA) and the International Society for the Performing Arts (ISPA).