• Thu 12 10 2017 / 8 pm •
Rima Kamel Rabih Mroué

with RABIH MROUÉ

In Rima Kamel, Rabih Mroué traces the early career of Lebanese singer Rima Khcheich who first became famous as Rima Kamel, a child star of Arabic classical music. Mroué sends Khcheich on a journey into the past to show how closely personal biography is intertwined with a complex, often tragic history. Laying out an archive of objects, songs, and VHS recordings, Khcheich remembers how she became “the voice of the nation” at a time of civil war, how her background as a refugee from the south of the country was used as political propaganda, but also how her songs were criticized for being more Egyptian than Lebanese, part of a larger construction of pan-Arabic identity and ultimately not national enough. Rima Kamel tells the story of Rima Khcheich’s personal and artistic coming of age and her emancipation from the constructs of a patriarchal society caught between modernity and tradition. The performance is followed by a discussion between Rabih Mroué, RIMA KHCHEICH, and DANIJEL ĆUBELIĆ.

Venue: studiobühneköln, Universitätsstraße 16a, 50937 Cologne
15 € / 7 € reduced
Arabic with English and German supertitles
Post-performance discussion in English

Production: Münchner Kammerspiele; coproduced by Ashkal Alwan Beirut, HAU Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin), Künstlerhaus Mousonturm Frankfurt a.M.