ArtEvolution Advisors

Hashem Adnan is a director, writer, actor and organizer based in Beirut. He acquired his BA in acting and directing from the Lebanese University in 2006. He practices performance as a space of re-creation of reality and is interested in art practices at their potential collective, cooperative, and individual structures and methods. In 2022, Hashem initiated and cofounded BAHH, a non-official cooperative for theatre and performance practitioners in Lebanon. From 2009 to 2018, working with Zoukak Theater Company, he has taken part in staging over 15 performances, alternating roles between performer, writer and director. His works and collaborations with Zoukak include: The Marechal of Abadiyeh (2009), Perform-autopsy (2013) and Heavens (2014), among others. His solo works take the form of site-specific performances like Erase This Face Off You (2008), The Voicer (2017) and It’s a Public Invitation (2022) that use the public space to experiment engaging forms of performance. His other works as director or dramaturge include Colette Never Showed Up (2018), Oh to End (2019), The Black Hole (2019) and Hayat (2022).
 

Born in Beirut in 1989, Ali Chahrour studied theatre and dance in his native city and various schools in Europe. Far from western models, the dancer and choreographer have created a language inspired by Arab myths and by the political, social, and religious context of his country. Through it, he explores the deep relationships between the body and movement, between tradition and modernity. “Told by my mother” was presented at the Festival d'Avignon in 2016 and 2018 and many other worldwide festivals, The second part of a new trilogy about love, which began with Layl-Night in 2019. His performances were presented at the Festival d'Avignon in 2016 and 2018 and many other festivals around the globe.

Raffi Feghali is a theater maker, peacebuilder, and trainer based in Amsterdam and Beirut and working all over the world. As a theater maker, he draws on the meeting point of improvisational theater and storytelling in order to inspire his performing, writing, directing/devising, radio dramas, sound design, and music making. He is a member of the Lincoln Theater Center Directors Lab 2018.
In peacebuilding, he uses listening exercises, the “Do No Harm” framework, and systems thinking in order to facilitate conflict analyses with communities and eventually strategize interventions accordingly. When he’s on the field, Raffi uses arts and especially theater as an approach and tool for peacebuilding. In that context, he’s an avid practitioner of Theatre of the Oppressed, Playback Theater, Masar Theater, and expressive arts conflict transformation and peacebuilding methods and techniques in dialogues and workshops.

Actress, author, and cultural activist, Hanane Hajj Ali is a prominent figure of the Lebanese cultural scene. Her latest performance, JOGGING, was awarded the "Vertebra Prize for Best Actor" at the Fringe / Edinburgh International Festival and is on tour in prestigious theaters and festivals including Avignon in 2022. In parallel, Hanane Hajj Ali teaches in the theatrical studies department of IESAV at Saint Joseph University, Beirut. She is also a founder and member of the board of several cultural institutions such as "Culture Resource" (Al Mawred Athaqafi), "Action For Hope" and "Ettijahate".  As an artivist, she campaigns against the Censorship imposed by the political and religious powers in Lebanon and claims the rights to freedom of expression, public spaces, democratization and the decentralization of culture.  In 2015, she was elected a member of the UNESCO pool of experts for the 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.

Lina Khoury (M.F.A) is a director, playwright, producer, acting coach, artistic consultant and Educator of Theatre, Film and Television. Khoury’s main work and passion is theatre. She chooses to work on controversial topics that reflect society’s mal functions as she sees it, daring to question inherited beliefs and norms with wit and style. Khoury’s most famous theatrical plays are “Haki Niswan”, “Sar Lezem Nehki”, “Majnoon Yehki”, “Limaza”, and “Haki Rjel”. Khoury also has a wide range of background in working on selected projects in television and film, from directing, writing, acting, coaching, presenting to producing. She also participates as a juror in theatre festivals and short film competitions. In academia, Khoury has been giving courses and master classes in Theatre, Television and Film in several major universities in Lebanon; and is currently an Assistant Professor in the Performing Arts program at LAU, the Lebanese American University.