This creative workshop invites participants to digging deeper within their memories and dreams, to give birth to a “body archive” that is personal, but also connected to the collective and to the (urban) space we inhabit. Over three months, participants meet weekly for three-hour sessions. The sessions have four primary components: guided sensorial movements that activate our ability to be present and listen to our bodies, free writing, group discussions based on KW’s publications, and creation of a safe and intimate space to share what has come up during the sessions. The workshop also includes intentional meditative walks in different parts of Beirut, reminding that the natural and urban spaces carry the same stories of violence, fears
and dreams that our bodies hold and hide.
Following the weekly workshop sessions, the sessions then intensify as participants rehearse to turn the body archive texts they have produced into a performance. The performances are semi-public, inviting friends and
family of the participants. Thus, the experience of Shabahiyya becomes a more expansive communal experience that touches the lives of the people us.
The Shabahiyya workshop was organized in 2024 and 2025.
The team behind the work:
Conceptualized, facilitated, and implemented by: Ahlam Dirani, Talah Hassan, and Mona Bibi. In the 2024 cycle, Mayssan Charaedine was invited to co-facilitate. The workshop was implemented in collaboration with musicians: Hadi Deaibess (2024) and Omar Itani (2025), and under the production management of Nassim El Bana (2025). The first performance was staged at Bait Aam in collaboration with BAHH cooperative (2024) and the second performance was at Amalgam (2025).