Tania El Khoury تانيا الخوري

2011-05-03T20:32:00.000-07:00

Tania El Khoury thinks that being a solo artist is very lonely so she will refer to herself as "we."

We create immersive and challenging performances in which the audience is an active collaborator. We see art as a political and relational practice so our audience is often an intimate group. We perform in real sites ranging from the great hall at the British Museum to an old church in Beirut once used as a military base during the Lebanese civil war. We don't like neutral spaces, we don't like being neutral. We prefer real people's feedback to art critics but just in case it's important for you, we recently won the Total Theatre Award for Innovation and the Arches Brick Award. Here are some quotes from reviews:

"She makes you think about the nature of relationships and the reality of our role-playing, the thin line between art and the everyday." The Herald

"Loaded with provocative political implications." **** Donald Hutera

Tania El Khoury is a co-founder of Dictaphone Group, a live art company focusing on urban research in Lebanon and Amhurst Republic in London 'where no one is illegal.' She is also a Forest Fringe core artist.

Cultural Exchange Rate

2011-05-01T16:23:00.000-07:00

This piece is about my father and his desperate attempt to help me financially despite not being able to. It’s also about immigration, cultural exchange, exchange rate and corruption.

The audience is asked to give away a British pound in exchange for a Lebanese Lira.

The exchange is not merely monetary. It really will become a souvenir.

The pounds that are collected from this piece will be sent to my father in Lebanon as his own “souvenir” from London and as payment for his first piece of live art.

Dear Dad,

I took your advice about exchanging the Lebanese Liras that you gave me for British pounds. I didn't have to trick people and pretend it was a simple souvenir swap. I turned your idea into a live art piece. I am sending you the pounds as a payment for this idea. You can think of it as your first artwork. The attached signatures are from the people who now own your Lebanese Liras.

I hope we can collaborate again,

Love,

Tania

2011-04-11T15:51:00.001-07:00

. About. Performances
Maybe if you choreograph me... Leave to Remain
Jarideh
Bit Teleferique
Fuzzy No Place Called Home
La Danaide de Rodin
. Video
. Collaborations
. Workshops
. Blog
. Contact

2010-11-26T18:07:00.000-08:00

I create immersive performances in sites ranging from the great hall at the British Museum to an old church in Beirut once used as a military base during the civil war. I am interested in relational art, confessional theatre, intimate and physical encounters, the political and the autobiographical as well as post traumatic bodies. I have been recently making one on one performances in which the audience member is an active collaborator.

I am the co-founder of Dictaphone Group, a live art company based on urban research in Lebanon and Amhurst Republic in London "where no one is illegal."

Leave to Remain

2010-10-10T04:13:00.000-07:00

This is an immigrant’s tale. It’s inspired by a series of tests that an immigrant experiences starting the moment he or she arrives at a British airport. It begins with a health check, followed by a police registration that all must undergo, and finally a citizenship test before one is finally granted ‘Leave to Remain.’

Performed by Tania El Khoury and Matthew Cassel at Soho Theatre part of Scratch Interact December 2010 and at Amhurst Republic, Stoke Newington Dec 10.

The audience goes through a series of tests such as the Britishness test after they experience the alienation of border control.

Jarideh

2010-06-30T15:31:00.000-07:00

"Deeply unsettling, ridiculously exciting and right on the cutting edge of the Fringe." The Times

Voted by The Times as one of the 10 unmissable shows at Edinburgh Fringe Festival

A secret encounter and a highly suspicious one-on-one performance by Tania El Khoury in which the performer and the audience member are partners in crime. It is inspired by crime films, the Metropolitan Police’s terrorism awareness and operations made in the past by ‘attractive’ women militants in the Lebanese resistance.

"One-on-one theatre is growing in popularity all the time and this is the real deal. It stays with you for a long time afterwards." Ben Hoyle, The Times.

"Intimately challenging... Jarideh places you at the heart of a social issue, providing an emotional vocabulary to understand the different elements that comprise an Arab identity." Exeunt Magazine

"I felt the people began to view me differently, I was behaving like a potential terrorist." Theater Aan Zee

و" في «جريدة» تدفع الخوري باللعب على المتناقضات نحو حدود جديدة، لا تكتفي بتفكيك الصورة النمطية عن الآخر بل تدفع المتفرج إلى سجالٍ ذي صلة، عن المقاومة والإرهاب، وعن الحق المشروع والعنف." محمد العطار، الحياة

Previous shows
One on One Festival 2010, Battersea Arts Centre, London

Forest Fringe, Edinburgh Festival 2010

Shunt, London 2010

Y&YW Festival, Arnolfini, Bristol 2010

Liverpool Arabic Arts Festival, Bluecoat, 2011

LIFT (Shubbak festival), ICA, 2011

Photos by James Glossop and Laura Montag.

Bit Teleferique- A chronology of ugliness

2010-06-12T01:30:00.000-07:00

Bit Telefrique is a live art site specific performance based on an urban research on Jounieh city. Tania El Khoury takes the audience on a tour in one of the teleferique cable cars. It’s an immersive experience based on the audience’s interaction with each other and the space.Includes a ride on the teleferique and a short walk in the mountain. For 3 audience members only.

ز
"هذا العرض المبدع تمثيلاً ونصاً وإخراجاً وتنظيماً، خصوصاً لناحية البحث التاريخي والأنتروبولوجي لمنطقة جونية حيث ترعرعت الخوري، قلّما يشاهد مثله اللبنانيون"ن

رنا نجار-الحياة

A Dictaphone Group production

Written and Performed by Tania El Khoury
Urban Research by Abir Saksouk
Production manager: Petra Serhal
Art Design Petra Abou Sleiman
Sound Design Ramzi Mady
Poster by Houssam Abdel Khalek
Photos by Matthew Cassel
Funded by YATF (Young Arab Theatre Fund)

Collaborations

2010-01-29T11:20:00.000-08:00

'Living in the woods' video by Carolina Costa

'Seahorse Soup' took place in one of the arches at the Shunt Vaults Lounge, under London Bridge station. It was a collaboration between Nissa Nishikawa, Gudmundur Thorvaldson and Tania El Khoury as well as the live musician Eva Brandt. (part of Surge 0.2 Festival) photos by Ludovic Des Cognets

'Rot, a dinner invitation' with Gudmundur Thorvaldsson and Robert Redmer

'Romcom' by Rotozaza shown at Stoke Newington International Airport

Workshops

2010-01-29T10:57:00.000-08:00

In March - May 2011 Tania El Khoury will be collaborating with the Inivators in response to Rabih Mroue's exhibition, I the Undersigned.

Possible Damage commissioned by Iniva gallery.

Pop Up Your Ears- is a workshop by Tania El Khoury, Renata Gaspar and Ioana Paun part of the DIY programme commissioned by Live Art Development Agency (LADA). It took place in Wunderbar, Newcastle in August 2010 and is due to participate in the Prague Quadrennial in 2011.

A 3-day intensive workshop where we will play, rewind and hear with delay sounds from Newcastle and cities far away.

'Arab Artists in Schools' project commissioned by the British Museum.
It consisted of a workshop with a group of young people leading to a performance at the museum as well as dance workshops in different schools in London.

Abjad Hawaz is an interactive piece by Dictaphone Group that happened in Hamra Street, Beirut, commissioned by the Arabic Language Festival 2010. Performers and Audience members used the Arabic calligraphy to draw movements in the air that will allowed to communicate with each others across the street.

Photos

2010-01-20T05:12:00.000-08:00

Fuzzy

2010-01-01T06:41:00.000-08:00

Tania El Khoury invites the audience to join her in an intimate encounter, where they will assume the role of therapist as she tries to untangle her current relationship.

Comprising only a single audience member and a single performer. Couples are also welcome to come in together. At several occasions, it was also performed to a small group of audience up to 5 people.

'Fuzzy' was originally devised for Forest Fringe, Edinburgh Festival 2009 and has also toured in London at the Southwark Playhouse and the Shunt Vaults (2010) and with the Forest Fringe Microfestivals in London Battersea Art Centre and The Arches Glasgow in April 2010.

Reviews:

“Teasing the boundaries of the audience/performer relationship, Tania El Khoury provides an intimate, sultry and sexy performance” Rating: 4/5 Thomas Peel, ThreeWeeks.

“Gem-like experience (…) about a cross-cultural relationship gone sour. ” Donald Hutera, The Times. (4 Stars for the whole festival evening)

“Intense and touching experience. Personal and anonymous at the same time.” Audience member/Therapist.

“What Fuzzy does, with deceptive affability, is make you think about the nature of relationships –between partners and between performer and audience – and the reality of our role-playing, the thin line between art and the everyday” **** Mary Brennan, The Herald.

“If you missed it at Edinburgh last year, take part in the conversational piece Fuzzy with the Lebanese artist Tania El Khoury, and test out your skills as a relationship guidance counsellor.” Emma Love, The Independent.

Photos from Shunt performances by Ludovic Des Cognets

No Place Called Home

2009-12-27T02:55:00.000-08:00

Performed at The Foundry, London and part of Encounters with Gridiron's Ben Harrison at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh Festival 2008

A woman lives in an underground toilet after the destruction of her home during 'the last war'.

Photos of random people's most homely spaces sent from all over the world are stuck on her wall.

She reveals to the audience a passionate love affair with a sniper who often fantasizes about shooting her.

Installation by Souheil Sleiman.

Contact

2009-10-27T03:24:00.000-07:00

.
Tania El Khoury
Performance Artist

E: taniakhoury [at] gmail.com

twitter.com/taniaelk

Video

2009-04-07T03:04:00.000-07:00

Visual Newsflash was written and directed by Tania El Khoury and shot and edited by Nino Kayal in Beirut 2005.
It was made at the time I was leaving the city to move to London. This short film came from an obsession with the city's colourful and haunting windows.

Living in the woods is a video by Carolina Costa performed by Tania El Khoury

Maybe if you choreograph me, you will feel better

2009-02-07T14:41:00.000-08:00

Winner of the Total Theatre Award for Innovation, 2011
Winner of the Arches Brick Award, 2011

“Tania El Khoury is a gifted young Lebanese performance artist based in the UK. This tantalising solo gives one man at a time the power to decide what she’ll do and how she will do it. Led to a ‘secret’ yet public location we speak to her via headset a series of instructions, which she then obeys. With its built-in unpredictability this special piece is loaded with provocative political implications and just a trace of lost romance.”

**** Donald Hutera, The List

Tania El Khoury’s multi-award winning “Maybe if you choreograph me you will feel better” is a relationship between one male audience member and one female performer. The audience member stares out a second story window and hears a female voice. She tells him to look out into the street. Somewhere, among the dozens of passersbys, he will find a woman who will obey his every move.

Using wireless headphones, Tania creates a deceptively simple piece about gender dynamics, voyeurism and cinema.

Sound and Music by Laura Whitticase.

**** “A thought-provoking half-hour which has deep political resonances, and says much about who may or may not hold the balance of power.” The Herald

Commissioned and developed at BAC

More about the show

My blog

Review in the Edinburgh Festival List

The Guardian

PREVIOUS SHOWS
One on One Festival, Battersea Arts Centre, April 2011
Forest Fringe, Edinburgh Festival, August 2011

UPCOMING SHOWS
Transqwartier Wien, Vienna, December 2011
Culturgest, Lisbon, February 2012
The Arches, Glasgow, April 2012

Photos by Carolina Costa and Ibrahim Fakhri

Videos Projects with Carolina Costa

2009-01-23T06:14:00.000-08:00

La Danaide de Rodin

2007-06-27T05:46:00.000-07:00

'La Danaide de Rodin' is an installation-performance that was first created in an old church in Beirut which used to be a military base in the Lebanese civil war. It is inspired by the distressed relationship of the artists Rodin and Camille Claudel and it studies the impact of a certain pose on a model starting from Meyerhold's research on the actor's body. It was later re-adapted in a sculptor's studio in Hackney, London. These 2 shows were in collaboration with other artists including designers, painters and performers.