Ali Chahrour and the weeping olive trees, at the Bastille theater

“The olive trees weep”, this phrase from the song of Feyrouz rises. While on stage the fragile bodies, tender and violent at the same time, become entangled. The Love behind my eyesthe final part of a trilogy on the love passion of Ali Chahrour, was created during confinement in 2020. The play is being revived this week at the Théâtre de la Bastille in Paris. And the olive trees are still crying while the war takes over in Lebanon on an exhausted population with bruised bodies.

The piece draws its inspiration from an Arab legend. It is about the forbidden love of Mufti Mohammad ben Daoud in Baghdad in the 9th century for a young man, Ben Jomaa. It is said that the mufti died young, heartbroken at not having been able to continue his relationship prohibited by society.

Wonderful dancers, Chadi Aoun and Ali Chahrour take us from one composition to another. Photo Candy Welz

The ritual at the heart

Love and death are at the heart of Ali Chahrour’s play which, once again, places religious ritual at the heart of its creation. This time, it’s the song of Feyrouz Welcome who mourns the death of Christ and sings her love for him which resonates in the voice of Leila Chahrour. The choreographer’s cousin has accompanied him since the beginning of his trilogy on love passion. A figure of the traditional and loving pious woman, she watches the story of the two lovers played by Ali Chahrour and Chadi Aoun unfold.

The undulating movement starting from the hips, often reserved for women in Arab culture, is deployed with grace in Ali Chahrour’s dance. The movement is infinitely slow. The bodies touch each other delicately. Sacred gesture of love. Flesh sublimated at a time when flesh is crushed, moved, mishandled in a country at war. The soundtrack transports us to the thunders of a storm and torrential rain. Then the natural cataclysm begins with the roar of planes, explosions, bombs.

Leila Chahrour, figure of the traditional and loving pious woman, she watches the story of the two lovers played by Ali Chahrour and Chadi Aoun unfold. Photo Pol Seif

A dance like a painting

On stage, paintings are formed between darkness and light. The bodies are outlined in chiaroscuro as if from the paintings of Zurbaran or Velasquez. The human is transformed into an eight-limbed insect thanks to the fused bodies of the two performers. An image transporting us this time into the world of Hieronymus Bosch.

Ali Chahrour was nourished by the love poems of Mohammad ben Daoud and the erotic literature of the time, finding his choreographic inspiration there. But tragic love stories from today in Beirut or around the world also inspired the piece. Stories of lovers killed or punished for having loved each other.

Wonderful dancers, Chadi Aoun and Ali Chahrour take us from one composition to another. Spiritual feelings and carnal desires mixed together and love as a shield against violence.

“The love and care we give to those around us keeps us standing,” says Ali Chahrour. Very happy to present his play in Paris, he said, however, that he was flying back to Beirut the day after the last performance, admitting that he could not be away from home for long in these difficult times.

“The love behind my eyes”, from November 5 to 8, at the Théâtre de la Bastille in Paris.

Direction and choreography by Ali Chahrour.

With Leila Chahrour, Chadi Aoun, Ali Chahrour.

Music by Abed Kobeissy.

Lighting and scenography creation by Guillaume Tesson.