According to French philosopher Alain Badiou, the world can be divided into \u201csocieties with theatre and others without.\u201d<\/a> He argues that theatre has \u201cgenerally elided from Islam,\u201d and qualifies his exception with the word \u201cgenerally\u201d to account for \u201cthe sacred dramas through which Iranian Shi\u2019ism conferred Presence upon its founding martyr.\u201d What Badiou ignores are oral storytellers offering dramatic interpretations of Islamic material who, according to Prof. Marvin Carlson in his book Theatre and Islam<\/em><\/a>, were recorded as early as 650, less than 20 years after the death of Prophet Muhammad. Whether you are on team Alain or team Marvin doesn\u2019t matter much today, as it is undeniable that theatre is alive and well in the multicultural, multifaith Arab world, where Islam originated.<\/p>\n This is evident if you attend Shubbak<\/a>, the UK’s largest biennial festival of contemporary Arab culture, bringing both international acts as well as UK homegrown talent. In addition to theatre, it features dance, visual arts, literature, music and film.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy do we do art?\u201d is the question Alia Alzougbi, co-artistic director of the festival along with Taghrid Choucair Vizoso, has been grappling with as the pair put the finishing touches to this year\u2019s program. For Alia the answer is engagement in a post-Covid world with seismic issues such as climate change, misogyny, racism, and other topics that are of global concern. What the festival offers British audiences is the chance to look afresh at these subjects through an Arab lens.<\/p>\n As a playwright, I have participated in past editions and will have a reading of a new play of mine in this year\u2019s festival. In this article I will be giving you a flavor of the theatre performances you can expect to see.<\/p>\n What the Dog said to the Harvest<\/em><\/a> is a fierce performance that fuses opera, dance, spoken word and film into a compelling show about climate justice.\u00a0Directed and composed by\u00a0Jasmin Kent Rodgman<\/a>, and written and co-directed by\u00a0lisa minerva luxx<\/a>, the work has been devised through rigorous research and the contribution of activists and grassroots networks across Syria, Lebanon and the UK.<\/p>\n Rodgman\u2019s haunting score and luxx\u2019s poetic oral essay traverse 400 years of history, examining the often overlooked colonial origins of climate change, reconnecting with indigenous knowledge and wisdom across the global south, and highlighting the responsibility humanity has to one another across borders.<\/p>\n Set within a documentary film and sound installation with stark yet striking choreography and howling musical movements that travel across the performance space, we are introduced to luxx’s visceral critique of Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes\u00a0whose writings underpin Western science and philosophy, moving into testimonies of those in the global south for whom climate change, caused in part by the imperialism of the West, is a current reality rather than a future prospect (and one that is now already on the West\u2019s doorsteps). The performance also cleverly and subtly draws parallels between the violence man has enacted on the planet and the violence white men have enacted on the global majority.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/What-the-Dog-Said-to-the-Harvest.jpg\")
<\/a>Act 1: The State of the World<\/h4>\n