An intimate, vulnerable and close solo performance in concert format

The Body Symphonic is an intimate and close solo performance in concert format. Together with virtuoso percussionist Joss Turnbull, choreographer Charlie Khalil Prince blurs the line between dance and musical performance. Through movement, live music, recorded voices and field sounds, the stage is transformed into a space of resistance where the body becomes a living archive: fragile, political and in constant becoming.

Based on the overlapping crises in Lebanon, the revolution in 2019, the explosion in Beirut’s port in 2020, the economic collapse and the ongoing assault on southern Lebanon, the work unfolds as an excavation of a personal and collective memory.

Inspired by both contemporary and folk dances, Prince allows traditions to crack open and reshape into new mythologies. Like a meditation on the body’s place in the struggle against occupation, the gaze is directed both backwards, inwards and forwards as a strategy for resistance, perseverance and liberation.

The Body Symphonic is both an intimate and political performance, which allows us to conjure up new ideas about the future.

Manifesto

The body is a site of being.
It is matter that is shaped, deformed , that ascends and emerges.
It is a site of revolution, of oppression.
Of representation and mis-representation. Of wholeness and fragmentation.

It is the surface where ideas and action meet.
It is the container of manifestos, of traumas,
of unanswered questions and fragile answers.
The body has never crystallized.
It is always becoming.
Over and over again

About Charlie Khalil Prince

Charlie Khalil Prince (b. 1991) is a Lebanese dancer, choreographer and musician whose artistic work moves at the intersection of the political and the poetic, with the body as the central bearer of meaning. His transdisciplinary choreographic works and installations have been presented at prominent international festivals and venues such as FTA – Festival TransAmériques, ImPulsTanz, Dansmakers Amsterdam, Les Rencontres chorégraphiques internationales de Seine-Saint-Denis, Vancouver International Dance Festival, Beirut International Platform of Dance, SPRING Festival and Oktoberdans. He was also one of the selected artists in Aerowaves25, with his solo work the body symphonic.

As a performer, he has collaborated with artists and companies such as Benoît Lachambre, Compagnie Alias, Andrea Peña & Artists, La Biennale di Venezia (conducted by Marie Chouinard) and Omar Rajeh – Maqamat. His solo work Cosmic A* and its further development the body symphonic have been praised for their explosive energy and artistic precision. Prince is a trained musician at McGill University in Montréal and received the 2018 Boghossian Foundation Prize for Dance and Performance.

About Joss Turnbull

Joss Turnbull is a percussionist and sound artist with the Iranian hand drum tombak as the starting point for his artistic work. His practice ranges from minimalist, finely tuned explorations of a single instrument to raw and intense soundscapes where acoustic playing meets electronics.

As a member of Mustafa Said’s Ensemble Asil, he moves between traditional music from the Middle East and experimental, improvisational expression, creating syntheses of rhythm, sound and texture. Turnbull released his debut album Isturnbull in 2013, which attracted a lot of attention and was followed by several awards, including the Kathrin-Preis for young jazz improvisers. He tours internationally and regularly collaborates with choreographers and performance artists, including Omar Rajeh in the internationally acclaimed work #minaret.