Yara Boustany

A site-specific performative installation questioning the peculiarly destructive role of humanity in the relentless dance of evolution. Beirut embodies the mother-city, meeting her last breath - devoured, transfigured, and remolded; a city that nurtures its children through a cycle of destruction and rebirth. Three bare bodies consume its essence, absorbing and digesting its remnants in a transformative dance and enchanted ritual, revealing beauty in the horrific.

The performance is inspired by “The Lover of Jinn,” a painting by the Egyptian artist Abdel Hadi Al Gazzar. In interweaving reality and fantasy, “The Valley of Sleep” becomes a performative spell. The jinns steal into the valleys of sleep, wander the landscapes of dreams and then, with a sharp blow, they cast their spell.