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

D-2 for the fifth anniversary of the craziest festival in tangier, who’ll be held from the 5th til 11th July 2021, everyday starting from 3PM.

This year the stakes higher than ever : It will be the first time that the festival will be held in our local at the LABO center and will be mostly indoors.

In addition, it will also be a first to have a program that will last a whole week, with each day assigned to a different discipline of street art. 

We thought this would be ideal, on one hand given the limited space, and on the other hand so that our audience could have plenty of time to soak up their favorite artform, having been deprived of our festival’s past edition given the pandemic.

To give voice to all, we have multiplied the open-mics, scheduled competitive battles, diversified the activities with lots of workshops, and alongside that, artists full of energy and talents will be giving their live shows.

And of course, throughout the festival and just in front of our LABO center will be the pièce of resistance, the painting of the large mural of the Spanish hawma, which will bring together national and international artists and will revolve around the theme of the festival, “HIGH HOPES”.

Everything is more detailed in the program below:

We can’t wait to meet our tanjawi and national audience again, and we’re waiting for them with even more energy, positive vibes, and above all with the immense desire to give them the best time of their lives. 

Our staff are only waiting for the moment when they can start sowing smiles again within the attendees of our festival and see them flourish in the midst of so many colors. 

We are invested body and soul so that everything goes well and that the comfort of visitors is guaranteed.

Also, this festival is now possible thanks to our dear partners, Drosos, American Language Center of Tangier, L’Institut Français, Wilaya Of Tangier, Amendis and finally Tendy’s whom we thank dearly for all the support given.

In 3 words, this edition will be unforgettable, incredible, and unmissable, so see you there!

Live is Life!

End of season of LABO Programs 2020/2021

It’s with the greatest pride and enthusiasm that we are closing this 2020-2021 season with our 7 programs, namely : Writing and Slam Lab, AV VR Lab, Theater and Circus Arts, Youth Theater, Dance,  Handcrafts and Drawing,and finally Street Art.

On top of that, despite the pandemic, we’ve managed to organize covid-friendly meetings, talks, masterclasses and workshops that were all sold out very quickly and have witnessed a great success amongst the youth of Tangier.

Thanks to the huge determination of our participants and the entire team and supervisors of the Live Room, we’ve been able, in just 6 months, to achieve the learning goals that normally took us 9 months to complete.

Despite the difficulties encountered in some workshops, it was a real pleasure to see that our participants left our sessions with a broad smile, strong friendships, a sense of pride in their achievements and most importantly the impatience to arrive at the next session.

Many of our young artists have seen their talents revealed and sharpened throughout the classes, which was proved by their final shows, last Saturday.

This closing event featured the final play of the children group, the one of the older group, a part of the dance show of the dance group, the exhibition of paintings and realization of the art lab, the slam reading of the children of the writing lab, and much more. Parents were also there to witness their children’s works of art, and some of them discovered the insides of our LABO for the first time. It was the perfect occasion to thank them for all the trust they had put in us from the beginning and to show them that they were right to do so . 

In the meantime, our resident artists are preparing to launch their first EPs in early August after months of hard work in our studio.

We are proud and delighted to see that all our efforts, our dedication, our positive energy and our determination have paid off for this first season that our new LABO center has just experienced.

It is with the same attitude and even more hard work that we intend to approach the next season, which will have more programs, more opportunities and above all even more inspiration for the youth of Tangier.

We’ve been fueled by the smiles and satisfaction of all our beneficiaries and the biggest reward was to see them acknowledge how critical artistic expression is to our lives, and most importantly, that LIVE IS LIFE !

Live Room Project continues its accompaniment and support of young local and non-local artists and this time by organizing a series of artistic meetings/ master-classes during the month of May 2021 and in particular for musicians, technicians and visual artists.

This action comes in support of LABO programs for the development of creative skills among the young people and the residencies of musical artists of the Live Room Project. In total, 115 young and less young, beginner or professional artists were able to attend the three Artistic meetings, the main purpose of the workshops was to initiate them into the professional world and to emerge them in a suitable artistic process taking in consideration the development of artistic sector.

Introduction to music and sound techniques:

Masterclass lasting 4 hours organized on May 01 at the LABO center and led by the sound engineer and teacher at Studio M, Mohamed Atouf.

This training targeted control technicians (theater, stage or studio) and musicians who have or want to create their own home studios or who will sooner or later be brought back to work in a recording or mastering space. The workshop was attended by 30 participants who conveyed their satisfaction to us about the meeting and encouraged us to organize more similar events.

Art in relation to humans:

An interactive workshop with a practical part lasting 3 hours organized on May 8th at the LABO center and led by the young artist Nouh Fettah, a student of the INBA in Tetouan.

This training mainly targeted the participants of our Drawing and Handicrafts program and all other young visual artists who are amateurs or who are interested in making a career in this type of art. The workshop was attended by 48 participants who were very interactive with the content and who enriched the meeting with their brilliant questions and thoughts. They thanked us for this action and asked us to organize more workshops in the same direction.

Professionalization of the artist:

This 20-hour master class spread over three days from May 21 to 23, 2021 was organized at the LABO center in partnership with the French Institute of Tangier and led by Mounir Kabbaj, artistic consultant and expert in the music industry.

The masterclass was primarily aimed at our resident music artists who need to understand the world of the music industry, its different professions and the role of each career that could be developed in parallel. It was heavy, a little bit long, but very well attended by the 26 musicians who attended the whole training. It was also the perfect opportunity for us to meet new artists who came from the near region (Tangier, Tetouan, Larache) but also from other far cities (Meknes and Kalaat Magouna).

Special thanks for our team who made this happen.

LABO is supported by the Drosos foundation.