Two or The Dragon & Hala Omran / The Failaka Sessions

Hala Omran, Abdel Kobeissy & Ali Hout

Residency
January-February 2024

Inspired by the folktales, traditional musics and mythologies of Failaka Island, Two or The Dragon & Hala Omran will carry out a music residency from January 30th to February 8th, 2024, for the writing and composition of music for an album. Following the FIKAR residency, they will present their new work during several performances during ‘Perform Sharjah’ (Sharjah Art Foundation).

Meet the Residents

  • Franco-Syrian Actress and singer. She graduated in 1994 from the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts in Damascus and continued her training in Europe with masters such as Eugenio Barba, Ariane Mnouchkine, and Matthias Langhoff.

    Performing in Arabic, English and French she worked as actress and singer with various stage and film directors, choreographers and musicians including Pascal Rambert, Marcel Bozonnet, David Bobee, Nullo Facchini, Jean Christophe Sais, Mehdi Dehbi, Olivier Lettelier, Ali Chahrour, Omar Elerian, Sulayman Al Bassam, Yousry Nasrallah, Nidal Al Dibs, Ossama Mohammad, Moneim Adwan, Abed Kobeissy, Ali Hout, Sharif Sehnaoui..

    She produced French translations for a number of Arabic poems and contemporary theater plays many of them were published in France.

    Awarded Best Actress three times: at the Journées Theatrales de Carthage 2021, at The Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre 2021, both for her performance in IMedia by Sulayman Al Bassam, and in 2023 for her performance in Mute by Sulayman Al Bassam at the Journées Theatrales de Carthage.

    She was also Nominated for the Gilder/Coigner International Theatre Award in 2023.

  • Ali Hout (1985 Beirut) is a professional percussion player since 2008.

    A member of numerous musical groups - specialised in Arabic, Levantine and near Eastern renaissance and classical contemporary music - such as Ahl Al-Hawa, Asil Ensemble and Sharqi Ensemble. He also collaborated with many western contemporary musical groups.

    He has a BA in acting and directing from the Lebanese University.

    In 2014 his Lebanese Electro-acoustic noise duo “Two or The Dragon” was founded to approach Beirut’s urban soundscapes in live concerts besides composing scores and performing with contemporary dance, theatre productions and films.

  • Based in Beirut, Abed Kobeissy has been producing music for solo projects and collaborations, to music composition for film, theatre, and dance. Having taken the Levantine buzuq as his main instrument, his music holds a local identity while being unapologetically rooted in the confusion of the present. It relies on local urban soundscapes as a source for its aesthetic and emotionality, tackling subjects often related to family, and home.

    He received various commissions for music composition, such as The Berlin Biennale & The Berlin International Film Festival, UNESCO’s Haneen Commission, CTM Music Festival Berlin, Irtijal/Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival’s commission, and others. He's also written commissioned research in music and musicology, and served as a juror on Ittijahat’s 2020 Academic Grants Program AJYAL. Recently, he released his single "A Simple Song About Weather and Murder", co-composed with Lebanese musician Sary Moussa, commissioned by the HCMF & Irtijal. In 2023, also with Sary Moussa, he co-composed a 20 minute piece of Eastern Orthodox Christmas liturgy, cantillated by Laurence Sammour the head of the choir of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, Palestine. Initially commissioned by Radio Al-Hara, the work was broadcasted on Christmas Eve over 14 international radio stations.

    In 2016 he co-founded the electro-acoustic duo Two or The Dragon with Lebanese percussionist Ali Hout, and released 2 albums; “Prelude For The Triumphant Man” (2017), and "Dance Grooves For The Weary" (2021). He also co-founded the Lebanese-German beat-noise quartet Stellar Banger alongside Ali Hout, Joss Turnbull, and Pablo Giw, and released the album "Data Is" (2021).

    Kobeissy holds a degree of Masters in Advanced Studies on semiotics of music in Arabic cinema, and has taught as a lecturer at the Lebanese American University.

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'Failaka, Hourglass Island' - Manon Kole & Lucas Perrogon