Category: HAPPENING NOW

OPEN CALL

1. Subject of the Call 

Beirut Choreography Encounters (BCE) is a festival, organized by Beirut Physical Lab, dedicated to shed light on emerging Arab artists by offering a platform to showcase their work in front of a wide audience, the space is also open for international artists to engage with the local artistic scene. The festival aims to offer opportunities for visibility, exchange, and artistic growth, it is designed as a meeting point for artists from various backgrounds to explore, engage in important dialogues, receive mentorship, and celebrate local culture. 

With this call, the Festival announces an invitation to emerging artists, local, regional, and international, that want to share their work-in-progress, or performance in front of an Audience on October 31, November 1, and 2. 

Deadline for the call: October 1, 2025. 

Notification of artists: October 8, 2025. 

2. Eligibility Criteria 

• Emerging artists in performing arts. Anyone is welcome to apply, local, regional or international artists.
  
• Artists with completed performances, site-specific/public space projects, or works-in-progress.
  
• Centered around contemporary, visual, and/or physical theater in style

3. Application 

Participants can only apply through this form:  https://forms.gle/UbrXKujizCWvHZd19

• Artistic, performance, and administrative information 
  
• Video link to full performance, rehearsal or research materials for the works-in-progress.
  
• Duration: 10 to 15 min for work-in-progress – up to 30min for a performance. 

4. Festival Program

• Performances in a Black Box (theatre setting)
  
• Site-Specific Performances in public spaces
  
• Mentorship Program for artists with works-in-progress, offering feedback and guidance from experienced mentors
  
• Workshops in Contemporary Dance, Physical Theatre, and Performing Arts
  
• Cultural Day on 2 November 2025, with discussions, workshops, and activities focused on local culture and traditions, including opportunities to engage with Lebanese Dabke and other community-based dances

5. Festival Can Provide

• Accommodation in Beirut during the festival days
  
• Performance venue (black box or public space, depending on selection)
  
• Mentorship support for selected works-in-progress
  
• Technical support according to the capacity of the space
  
• Opportunities to participate in workshops and cultural exchange activities
  
• Local visibility and engagement with the Beirut dance community
  

Please note: The festival is not able to cover international travel costs.

6. Schedule and Location of the Show
   
   The selected shows will take place in Masrah Al Madina in the spaces made available by the Festival on 31st of October – 1, 2 November. The possibility of performing in unconventional and outdoor locations is also an option.

• Sylvia Gribaudi’s works are characterized by light-heartedness, irony, and freedom. The workshop offers an exploration of the poetic dimension that Sylvia Gribaudi explores, emphasizing the vivacity and presence of the body. Participants will engage in a journey where humor and play are integrated into bodily expression and gesture. The workshop will delve into the concept of the vital body, encouraging participants to embrace the value of imperfection and mistakes as avenues for creative expression.

Key Themes:

• Revitalizing physicality through self-irony and dance dynamics

• Exploring how dance influences body perception within a playful environment

• Morning Classes: Open to the public from 10 AM to 11:15 AM
• Full Workshop: Dancers will be selected to participate in this comprehensive training program, enhancing their professional and technical performance skills. The workshop will run from 10 AM to 3 PM, starting from the 8th to the 12th of July.
• Public Showing: Participants will present the outcomes of the dance intensive through a public performance on July 13th, with the specific timing to be announced later. Participants who will participate in the showing can be absent for up to one day.
• Dates: 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th & 13th (Public showing) of July. Time: 10AM – 3PM (everyday except for tuesday the 9th/ 10am -12pm & 13th)

• To register please apply through the link below
• https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdGuZjW-rKXKmM7P5k24OQBE5FUj256Vb5Lwm_Rx1PgRU_MfA/viewform

Graces by Silvia Gribaudi 
A Humorous Contemporary Dance Performance 

• Tuesday 9th, 9:00PM
• Al Madina Theater

• The Italian Cultural Institute & Beirut Physical Lab in Collaboration with Zebra Production presents an award-winning humorous contemporary dance performance: “Graces”

• Graces is a project inspired by The Three Graces, a sculpture created by Antonio Canova between 1812 and 1817. The work draws from mythology: Zeus’ three daughters – Euphrosyne, Aglaea, and Thalia – radiate splendor, joy and prosperity. Three male figures – Siro Guglielmi, Matteo Marchesi, and Andrea Rampazzo – take the stage in a space and time suspended between the human and the abstract: a place where male and female meet without roles and dance to the rhythm of nature itself. They perform together with the author Silvia Gribaudi, who likes to define herself as ‘author of the body’ because her poetics elevates imperfections to an art form with a direct, cruel, and empathetic comic style without any boundaries among dance, theater, and performing arts.

• Over the past ten years, Silvia Gribaudi has been questioning gender stereotypes, female and male identities, and the concept of virtuosity in dance and daily life, expanding beyond clichés and appearances.
• “With generous humor and radical empathy, the Italian choreographer Silvia Gribaudi elevates notions of human imperfections into an art form beyond clichés and appearances. Drawn from the sculpture The Three Graces (Antonio Canova 1812-1817) – representing Zeus’ daughters Euphrosyne, Aglaea, and Thalia – the three male performers together with Silvia search for new meanings of the word ‘grace’. With dance and text, but most of all with warmth and lightness, the performance reveals a core of our humanity.”