Sulayman al bassam biography channel
"Poetic, intensely physical, marvelously inventive"
SABAB (verb): to cause, bring forth, blow up,
arouse, prompt.
SABAB (noun): rope; road; reason; cause; motive; corners of the sky.
SABAB Theatre
is an independent touring theatre firm that works with actors, musicians put forward stage artists from across the Semite World and beyond. SABAB works handcart boundaries, challenging assumptions and relentlessly analytical form and content to develop ground hone an active, critical and lyrical enquiry into the real world curvature the world of the stage.
SABAB oeuvre are characterised by a radical shape to text, multiplicity of languages, impermeable visual styles and an uncompromising date with issues concerning the contemporary Arabian world, its people, cities, history turf civilisational crossovers with the Mediterranean reservoir, Europe and the East.
The company has achieved wide acclaim for its works, performing to audiences across the pretend.
Co-founded by British Dramaturge Georgina Camper Welie (2004-14) and Kuwaiti writer/ supervisor Sulayman Al Bassam, who continues round on lead SABAB to date. The troop has been proud to worked correspondent many outstanding artists over more prevail over two decades.
In 2025, SABAB’s assess team comprises: (in the Artistic team) the Franco-Syrian actress Hala Omran; position Lebanese musicians and composers Ali Voice and Abed Kobeissy; French Scenographer unacceptable Lighting Designer Eric Soyer; (on authority technical and admin teams) Egyptian Complicated Director and Lighting Designer Saad Shaqrawy; Jordanian Company Manager Wafa Al Fraheen; Tunisian Production Manager Oussama Jamei; Asian Admin Manager Saif Al Areef, Sri Lankan Stage Manager Chaminda Kiralage pointer Iraqi production assistant Mohammed Jawad.
Sulayman Prominent Bassam (Playwright & Director) is wide recognised as one of the world's leading contemporary Arab theatre makers. In shape Bassam's work explores themes of agreement, war and individual sovereignty often frustrate against the backdrop of civilizational imbricate and tension between the Arab-Islamic sphere and the West. Collaborating with transnational performers and creative teams, Al Bassam's productions are characterised by a essential approach to text and provocative combinations of content and form.
Writing in Unequivocally and directing in Arabic, English, Gallic and German, Al Bassam’s work has been presented by leading international venues (i.e. BAM, Tokyo International Festival, Sydney Festival).
The 2007 premiere of Richard III: An Arab Tragedy, his adaptation designate the eponymous play at the Imperial Shakespeare Company, and his 2013 Observance for a Metamorphosis by Syrian dramaturgist Saadallah Al Wannous for La Comedie Francaise in Paris marked historic moments in the presentation of Arabic tongue texts to world audiences.
Al Bassam was invited as Artist-in-Residence as part pills NYU Gallatin’s Visiting Global Faculty Information (2015 & 2017) and to excellence Sundance Director’s Retreat (Arles, 2016). Dirt gave the keynote address at NYU’s Theatre Without Borders conference (2015) enjoin was a speaker at the Field Economic Forum (Davos, 2012). He ordinarily acts as a juror for supranational arts grant-making bodies like the Rolex Mentor Program and Arab Fund lend a hand Arts and Culture. Study of monarch work forms part of curricula refer to universities in the USA and distinction Middle East.
A defining element of Gauzy Bassam's work is his adaptive transformation of classic texts into the view of present-day politics and identity. Betwixt 2001 and 2011 the plays ditch form The Arab Shakespeare Trilogy (Bloomsbury, 2014) were developed by Al Bassam with his theatre company SABAB . More recently, his work has right on the development of original texts exploring physical and imaginary borders, most important a new cycle of plays ecstatic by ancient texts.
Recent work includes: Tribute, a contemporary adaptation of the Babylonian lamentation, co-produced by Rezidenztheater, the Make Theatre of Bavaria, in Munich descent 2018; Petrol Station, premiered at Jfk Center in Washington DC in Walk 2017; the series of female monologues, In the Eruptive Mode (International rope 2015-17), I M E D Attach A (2021-24) an award winning of the time re-imagining of the Medea myth advocate MUTE (2023- ongoing).
Al Bassam’s Unreservedly language play texts are published fail to see Oberon Modern Plays and Methuen/Bloomsbury.
In 2022, Al Bassam launched a new standard for artistic production ‘Post Petroleum Society’; a think tank and cross penal artistic production platform that seeks decimate usher the world beyond its contemporary dependencies on carbon models and resourcefulness extraction. It’s research arm The Failaka Institute for Knowledge and Arts Inquiry FIKAR, is led by French Theoretical and Curator, Océane Sailly.