Launching of contemporary live art creation: Evasion

Live Room has been operating in the performing arts world for over five years, during which time it has created the best mixed shows for young audiences in the region such as Live Room shows or BlaBla + interactive events. From the start, we have put theater at the heart of our creations and carried out several experimental projects of contemporary productions.

After the opening of our LABO studios, Live Room manages contemporary and urban theater and dance programs and produces several shows per year. In 2021, we launched two projects : 14 KM  created by Generation Z and produced by Live Room and Evasion, a 100% creation of Live Room which won the open call of Institut Français for financement of live art creations.

Evasion is a live art show mixing theater, urban dance and digital projections. The piece will be performed by 5 artists/dancers. It will uses projection to complete certain characters and to convey the urban scene experienced by our heroes. The play will last 45-60 minutes and will be adapted to be exhibited in Café theaters and specialized ones. The play deals with the subject of freedom among young people and the oppression exerted first by their families and then by society against ideas and behaviors deemed “without any future” and “intrusive culture”. In this creation, we want to seek the causes of this oppression and censorship, the means with which it is exercised and the possible solutions to face it but also to raise awareness of the enormous shortfall that society loses to. through its acts of prohibiting young girls from participating in culture. Evasion is writed and directed by Omar Mok’s with the help of Mehdi Nabil for special effects and Salhi youssef for dance chreographies.

Evasion tells the story of Houda, a young girl from Tangier who loves Hip-Hop culture and especially urban dance. She exercises it whenever she can in the street with her friends but also as part of a collective with which they organize urban art events. She is so passionate about dance and this culture which is gradually becoming her daily life (language, clothes, haircut, etc.). Her conservative parents refuse this orientation and push her each time to stop it under different pretexts. Finally, they impose themselves and decide that she will never participate in the collective’s activities again and forbid her to perform in the show that was to take place in the most important festival organized by her friends. She decides with them to change her destiny. They made a plan to escape from the house, then find a job first and then a place to live where she can live in freedom. Eventually this separation played for her favor and succeeded in establishing better trust with her family. And after a year she was accepted to an European university to continue her studies.

 

The contemporary dance creation « 14km » is launched

Live Room association is happy to present you the contemporary dance project “14km” which is a production of Live Room jointly with Institut Français of Tangier for the benefit of the association Generation Z. This production joins the efforts of Live Room Project to support local artists and contemporary productions.

14km is a creation of the tangerian choreographer and GenerationZ artistic director Mehdi Dahkan (A.K.A. Xidori) and the French choreographer Marie Bruel, dealing with the subject of L7rig or imigration which started this last October and which has just finished his first research residency in Meknes.

So what is the impact of this stretch line of 14km that seperate the port of Tangier to the port of Tarifa ? How do young people see it and percept it in each continent ? What are their expectations about the other side ? What does the word leave means to them ?

Threw dances and other contemporary technics, 14km will try to discover and translate this universe and will continue its creation process to be presented to the public from July 2022..

Live Room want finally to congratulate the whole team including our two participants in the LABO dance program Karima Elaidouni and Fatima Joudari as well as our two old friends and supporters Ismail Bouh and Reda Abassi for being selected for this project and for the amazing response they give at the first research residency.

Live is Life !

This project is supported by Drosos Foundation.

 

BlaBla + Episode 04: Sex education .. Is it time?

 

The 4th edition of the BlaBla + series took place at the LABO studios on the evening of Saturday, November 20. The BlaBla+ set was full with 70 people who attended and who were able to help answer the question: sex education .. is it time? with an attendance rate of 58% women and 42% men. Our special guest for this episode was the Moroccan comic book artist Zainab Fasiki.

Between seriousness and humor, testimonials and web monitoring, opinions of attenders and experts, BlaBla+ knew as usual how to answer the question asked while engaging the public, both digital and physical, to interact with the subject. At the end of the episode the majority concluded that YES, the time has come to deal with the subject of sex education and that this episode should be followed with another one dealing with the same subject by asking a new question: for who ? and which way?

See you in two months for a new episode of BlaBla+

Thank you for everyone who attended. Thanks to everyone else who shared their opinions with us through our media channels. See you soon 😊

We leave you with this little photo report of the evening.

Live Room Halloween Show 2021

Halloween, comes from the old English “All Hallow Even”, which means “the eve of all the saints” is the evening before, which is none other than All Saints’ Day, a Christian holiday during which we celebrate all saints. Over the years, “Hallow’s Eve” has turned into “Halloween”. This a festival that was invented by the Celts over 2,000 years ago! According to tradition, the night of October 31 belonged to the dead, who disguised themselves as monsters to come and visit the living. It also symbolizes openness to the “other world” that of spirits. Today, this holiday has become globally popular, it is even a holiday as important as Christmas! Halloween is therefore linked to the world of the dead and the spirits. Still, this is not a dark party! During this evening, everyone disguises themselves, young and old alike, we decorate our house and we enjoy a meal generally based on pumpkin which is THE symbol of this holiday… We play at scare each other… for laughs.

Halloween is therefore also invited to LABO studios on Saturday, October 30, for yet another edition of the Live Room Show event, a most demonic evening dedicated to night owls in search of thrills, theater and dance entertainment with rock and electronic music all presented under the theme: Choice, death or suffering?

Among the guests are vampires, psychopaths, undead, witches, sadistic cannibals and your pals!! As if that weren’t enough, it will take place in a laboratory, which is none other than the basement of an old hotel, which is said to be haunted. It promises.

The program of a Live Room Show is always the same as its basic concept where the theater group and the dance team open the evening and engage the participants in the choice of the theme: death or suffering. Then, the Live Room team welcomes the participants and raises their energy for a dark atmosphere. An open mic session then opens for the two best performances selected to finally give way to the Rock concert and the cyber show which will set the track on fire and will undoubtedly take possession of the public, and maybe some little surprises in seen 😉

And because it’s Halloween, we don’t forget that costumes are MANDATORY, and the scariest ones will be rewarded. You know what you have to do now … pray for your life.

By Meriem El Bouanani.

Creation of an Asian culture club at the Live Room

During the evening of Saturday, September 18, more than 70 young people and children gathered at the LABO of Live Room Project for a special event. They were gathered there to form what would be the Live Room Asian Culture Club. By the way, this was not the first rally that we held of this kind. A first event was indeed organized at LABO studios last June to announce to our users interested in this culture our intention to create a club for Korean-Japanese culture within the Live Room and during which we explained to the participants our passion for this culture and our desire to organize related events since the early years of the Live Room Project, but we refrained from doing so because another similar collective existed in Tangier (Association Dragon Tanger) and we didn’t want to compete with it but rather support them. Now that this collective has stopped practicing, we feel an obligation to continue to create a place for those passionate about asian culture. Also, we explained to them our vision for the club, the type of organization we are looking for and the great challenge we have: bringing together in the same club lovers of Japanese culture (rather traditional, manga, cosplay, gaming) with lovers of South Korean culture (very modern, inspired by the West, based on pop dance and Drama).

In this second meeting, the Live Room team dressed up as Geisha to welcome the participants who all had fun taking a quiz on the two cultures, and then voted in majority for the JAPOREA nomination for the club. After the quiz, Jasmine gave a presentation on the possible futur activities of the club and finally we gave place to the micro karaoke to the participants to finally finish with a session of K-pop random dance. At the end of the event, the participants most motivated to organize and manage the club registered their names to be called later to a closed meeting of the club scheduled for Wednesday 06 October.

Follow us on our social networks to learn about the evolution of this club and to follow its future events.

 

By Badr Mouhtadi

 

INSCRIPTIONS FOR LABO PROGRAMS ARE NOW OPENED

The Live Room association continues with its social and cultural work with the support of the Drosos Foundation to start season II of the LABO center by launching six programs for the development of creative capacities in young people and children for the following disciplines:

DRAWING & HANDCRAFT:

A program for youths under 16 years old. The participants develop their creative skills to interpret art and to improve their visual expression especially in drawing and handcraft. It’s a place where they can meet other children of their age, make beautiful things, speak english, face new challenges and have fun. The duration of this program is 90h/year where the group is asked to understand and create the art he/she loves.

WRITING & ACTING:

A program for youths under 16 years old. The participants develop their creative skills through writings, small plays, improvisation and scenic art. It’s a place where they can spread energy, meet other children of their age, create scripts and learn how to perform it in front of a camera or live audience, develop their communication skills, gain self-confidence and have a lot of fun. The duration of this program is 90h/year where the group is asked to do many challenges with the others participants from other labs and to present micro plays each two months and a final play by the end of the season.

VIDEO MAKING & VR:

A program for youths under 16 years old. The participants develop their creative skills by following a program of video production. They learn basic filming and editing technics including 360° photography to create many short videos and cuts. It’s a place where they can benefit from an equipped studio and a gaming area, different type of cameras, where they can project their projects in cinema, use lighting technics, perform in front of a camera, and have a lot of fun. The duration of this program is 90h/year where the group is asked to do many challenges with the others participants from other labs, feed the Live Room Project with video commercials, and to present a final work by the end of the season.

GRAFFITI:

A program for youth under 25 years old. The participants develop their creative skills by getting involved in the urban movement that Live Room Project has been working on for the past five years. They will be coached to discover graffiti techniques, street art (characters, mixed media), stencils and collage. It’s a place where they can meet other youths who share their passion and go outdoors to make some street art, where they will be “guided” into underground life. The duration of this program is 90h/year where the group is asked to do many challenges, produce different kind of art and to realize a collective mural during the Urban Art Week Festival which took place in Tangier every July of the years.

THEATER:

A program for youths under 16 years old.
The participants is coached to develop their creative skills through acts, plays, improvisation technics, scenic art and independent training. It’s a place where they can spread energy, meet other young people from the city, participate in scripts creation and learn how to perform it in front of a live audience, work in group, develop their communication skills, gain self-confidence and have a lot of fun. The duration of this program is 90h/year where the group is asked to do many small plays and challenges with the others participants from other labs and to present a final play by the end of the season.

DANCE:

A program for youth under 25 years old.
This program offers trainings in break dance, pop dance, hip-hop dance, afro dance, the whole oriented to contemporary dance. It’s a place where they can spread energy, have a big studio room for their practice, meet other young people from the city, participate in dance challenges and cyphers, create choreography and learn how to perform it in front of a live audience, work in group, develop their communication skills, gain social attitude and have a lot of fun. The duration of this program is 90-100h/year where the group is asked to do many challenges with the others participants from other labs and to present a Final collective urban-contemporary dance show at the end of the season.

Registrations for the 2021-2022 season are launched on September 20, 2020 and will last until October 20, when applicants will be submitted for selection to keep the final 8 to 12 participants of each workshop.

For this season, we have set the following conditions for registration:

• Live in Tangier
• Payment of 400DH per season or 150DH for the annual membership fee of the association + 250 DH for workshop fees.
• Fit into the schedule to commit to completing 100 hours per season at the rate of two sessions per week.

NEZAR’S ARTISTIC RESIDENCY IS NEAR TO BE CLOSED

After his second showcase in July and the release of his clip “Gha Nti” on August 1st, Moroccan rapper Nezar marks his residency release with his EP “PARADOX”.

Nezar, whose real name is Nizar Ezzouhri, an emerging phenomenon of rap living in Larache, is about to conquer the charts with the release of his first EP, which will feature 5 songs.

NEZAR, A WINNING VALUE

Passionate about rap from a young age, the 20-years-old artist has always known how to make his voice heard through his freestyles in front of his family, friends or on social media, and more recently through his two drills uploaded on youtube and viewed by tens of thousands of users, which allowed the rapper from Azilal to prove his talent and expand his audience.

Ambitious and full of energy, he did not hesitate to seize every opportunity to make himself known even more of the Moroccan scene, in particular through his participation in 2020 in the #DDD challenge of Don Bigg as well as in the #NoClashChallenge of the Urban Art Week Festival, which he both won.

NEZAR THE RESIDENT ARTIST

Wishing to move up a gear, he signed a residency contract with the Live Room Project in Tangier last March to develop his first EP where supported by the producer Orce8 and LABO Studios team, Nezar has spent the last 4 months experimenting, writing, creating, forging his identity, getting to know his audience and perfecting his technics. The expertise gained was also demonstrated during his showcase in the URBAN ART WEEK FESTIVAL, in which he was able to ignite the stage and win the acclaim of the public with his imposing presence and his original and captivating style.

With his residency coming to an end, Nezar, this promising rapper, will release his long-awaited EP for Moroccan audiences on 18/09/2021 which will be available on all streaming platforms. Stay tuned.

 

By Neyl Boujemaaoui

Dumb Spirits artistic residency in LABO come to its end!

I remember our first meeting at LABO center in January 2020. They were confused, shy, and a little scared. They were so unfamiliar with the course of action in LABO. However, you could’ve told that the members were willing with an enthusiasm to understand the modes of behavior to work among Live Room’s team in order to achieve their goals.

Initially, the band started by making covers of different famous songs (Rock, RnB and Pop) on Instagram during quarantine to while away the time, that’s how I noticed them.

At the time this group of musicians was struggling to find a place for practice, as a result they decided to contact me and after they’ve submitted their application, we selected them for our music artistic residency for local groups.

 

Dumb Spirits is the future great post-punk band!

Indeed, the residency began in February 2021 and ended in august with a very satisfactory rating from our part not only for having achieved the objectives set for this residency, namely the creation and recording of their very first original single called “Focused”, the creation of a 40-minute mixtape of popular covers as well as four Live performances (physical and digital), but also their attitude and motivation shown during the period of residency and their capacity to manage the project, taken decision and crisis management. So little by little the group had forged a new personality, stronger, more efficient (recruitment of a new bass player and integration of a keyboard player) and closer to the identity that their name bears: Dumb Spirits.

Finally, we were all dazzled by their last performance at the Urban Art Week festival where they set the stage on fire and blew up the 150 people who attended the concert. Congratulations again to Dumb Spirits for their amazing work. Big thanks to the entire Live Room team who managed this project and especially to Omar Chakor for its supervision. And don’t forget to stay tuned to our social media (IG: @liveroomproject) or Dumb Spirits one (IG: @dumb_spirits) to follow the continuity of this collaboration.

 

By Omar Mok’s, Artistic Director.

The unmissable crossroads of Street Art in Morocco made its return with the fifth edition of the Urban Art Week Festival of Tangier which saw the participation of a hundred artists from all disciplines of urban art and which took place during the week of July 05 to 11 in the LABO center for indoor activities and in the neighboring district for the murals.

Over 1300 visitors

The Urban Art Week festival has gathered around its program more than 1300 young people from all over the region and elsewhere to attend the graffiti collective exhibition, Live painting, to see cosplayers, follow dance battles and raps / beatbox challenges or to experience moments of joy at the music concerts. The Urban Art Week Fest knew once again how to create the good vibe and to make a bridge between the street art movement youth and old generation.

Also, the street art wall project has been a real success at the organizational, artistic and social level by bringing together 18 artists of different styles including 11 professional artists from Belgium, France and other Moroccan cities and 7 young artists representing the Laureates of the Graffiti program of the LABO le center all under the supervision of the artistic direction of Live Room to produce a series of murals under the theme of “High hopes”. Locals greatly appreciated the action that turned their old walls into a center of public interest and helped make the area cleaner.

Finally, we would like to thank with all our hearts all those who contributed directly or indirectly to the success of this edition, our dear visitors, the participating artists, the Live Room team and the festival partners whom we would like to mention by name: Drosos foundation, the Wilaya of Tangier, the French institute, American Language center, Amendis, Tendys, HitRadio, Radio 2M, Aswat Magharibia and 2M. It is thanks to you that this action has grown so much. Thank you again and see you next year

Photo reportage :

Murals: https://www.instagram.com/p/CRUd0ndj7Q7/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Day 2: https://www.instagram.com/p/CRALdntDXXz/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Day 3: https://www.instagram.com/p/CRCs-oJDhUW/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Day 6: https://www.instagram.com/p/CRKdfhnjZq2/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Day 7: https://www.instagram.com/p/CRMAuhRjYXY/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link