From August 10 to 31, Zico House hosts the Rooftops Connect Festival, created and organized by Laban Studio. This festival gathers theater, poetry as well as music or cinema.
Rooftops Connect is an annual festival organized by Laban Theater and hosted at Laban Studio, on the rooftop of Zico House in Beirut Hamra. The festival brings together emerging and established artists from different fields of performance. The festival is based on a partnership between Laban Studio and the artists, in which the artist performs their artwork while Laban secures the production’s logistical requirements (the exhibition venue, training venue, light, sound, technicians, etc…). The artist or troupe in return benefit from the proceeds of the ticket sales. Rooftops Connect Festival is a space to break the harsh production barriers for emerging and established artists through this partnership between the Artist and Theater, between the Movement and the Space.
Laban is a theater-based organisation, founded in 2009, that uses improvised theater and its various forms to create safe spaces for communities around Lebanon and the world to express, share and connect in the aim of creating meaningful, positive change.
Laban‘s Theater troupe consists of 24 members from various social, professional and national backgrounds, working in a collective to perform, grow and instill change in their communities and themselves, together.
The festival gathers the following artists :
Laban, Ziad El Ahmadieh and Choir, the Intuitive Filmlab (with Omnia Najem, Anas Zwahri, Hussam Jilaty, Ali Matar, Youssef Iskandar), Hiba Najem, Mirian Malaeb and his troop (Julien Chaaya, Wissam Bteddini, Lynn Bawad), Chadi Ahmadieh and Roland El Khoury, Ali Matar, Sanam Beirut, Gaelle Al Ayle, Min Al Shaab, Fadia Tannir, Farah Kaddour and Oussama Abdelfattaah, Amal Kaawash, Tajalli Sufi Band, Omnia Najm, Myriam Aziz, Laban Improv.