Stories I Want to Tell

This project was created as part of the Virtual Collaborative Program for Emerging Artists, co-organized by Postscript Magazine and Exit 11 Performing Arts Company. It is a three-week virtual residency pairing emerging artists in an interdisciplinary setting.

How do you bring about a sense of belonging in a world where change is the only constant? 

Stories I Want to Tell is the result of this line of millennial angst-tinged inquiry. As theater-makers, we began working on this audio-immersive piece at a time when our craft felt abandoned to us. Being together in space - a fundamental aspect of theatre as we think of it - suddenly became impossible and dangerous. This, combined with the notorious difficulty producing theatre independently in the Gulf region, led to an existential crisis for us two fresh theater graduates. Who are we when we’re not making theater?

Well, when we’re not making theater, we sure spend a lot of time justifying to people - who never asked us in the first place - why we should be making theater and telling stories about a time that was, is, will be, and can be. A way of keeping memories intact and creating new ones. A mode of storytelling through which we reflect ourselves and the world around us.

Given all that has vanished amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, we wanted to use the experience of an audio-immersive sound walk to bend time in that theatrical manner. To reflect on our own personal journeys and refract our self-owned millennial angst through a completely unfamiliar medium. From the piece:

To be a theater maker is to be a time bender
We conjure clashing dust
We conjure long gone shops
We conjure skies inside malls
clocks into offices
migrations in a hot drink

We conjure things that are not there
Like those past images of stars in the night sky
And we make immortal memories of them

This piece started as a science fiction narrative, one where the listener would perhaps toss away a hard drive in the deserts of Abu Dhabi to mark some sort of cleanse from technological attachment. As the months went by, we started looking more inward and experimenting with poetic form - something new to the both of us. What you hear today is the ultimate expression of this 9-month collaboration-exploration-reckless abandon: poetry, free software sound editing and design, voice notes recorded in yet-to-be occupied apartments, field recordings of malls and baqalas, laughs and breaths shared due to the mere thought of KFC spicy fries. 

So jump into this experiment with us, and explore the notion of belonging in a world that feels like it’s moving too fast for anyone to catch up to it. Find the strangeness in spaces that might feel familiar, especially to people who grew up in the Gulf region - places that feel like symbols of change. The baqala, the mall, the artisanal coffee shop. Understand the very spaces and times you live in through a new lens. 

What stories do you want to tell?  We’ll leave that up to you. 

Listen to Part 1 - The Baqala below. For the full sound series, click here

Ahmed Ashour is a Bahraini-Egyptian theater maker, writer, and thinker, and an associate producer on the Kerning Cultures Network. Ashour is a recipient of the prestigious and highly-selective Crown Prince of Bahrain International Scholarship. His work focuses on creating space for members of the global majority community, especially Arab- and/or Muslim-identifying people, to navigate and intervene in the disciplinary/surveillance state. He received his BA in Theatre Arts and Performance Studies from Brown University in Providence, RI, USA. 

Carlos Alejandro Páez González is a theater maker and game designer from Venezuela, based in Abu Dhabi, UAE. As an artist, Paéz Gonzalez works through different mediums, including performance, design, writing, sound, game design, and code. His work focuses on applying game design concepts to create participatory theater that is engaging and empowering. He aims to invite audiences to have meaningful and expressive non-verbal conversations in the context of a live performance. Paéz Gonzalez has a Theater degree from NYU Abu Dhabi and is currently pursuing a Masters in Education at University of the People.

Voice Artists: Carlos Alejandro Páez González, Nada Al Mosa

Special Thanks: Katie Ferreol, Bhrigu Bhatra, Reema Kaiali, Luca Figari, Ethan David Lee, Tzy Jiun Tan, Kevin Ke, and the 2021 Exit 11 VICE Cohort.