Adonis Diaries

Whispered tales from Lebanon? 

We are Sabine Choucair and Chantal Mailhac. We are two independent Lebanese artists, and this is our storytelling company “Whispered Tales“.

We are touring countries with a show conceived with a compilation of 10 stories collected from every corner in Lebanon; ordinary people’s extraordinary stories…Whispered Tales has been performed in different Lebanese villages, Jordan and Portugal…

Our project is to include touring the USA with some whispered tales from Lebanon!

The tales were whispered to us during a one-month road trip through the villages of Lebanon… Actually, it all started when we heard the mother of our friend telling us:

“Once upon a time, Wadih and me met by the beach, fell in love and decided to get married. It was the 13th of April 1975 !”
That’s the date the Lebanese civil war started … 
But they did not lose hope … and their amazing story began:
And despite all hitches and obstacles, they kept on trying, every month to get married…until…

Looking back at that story (that was just the beginning…), that same evening, it occurred to us how absurdly funny, yet dramatic it was, telling living stories.

Historical facts can always be found on the internet and in books.  But the people’s truth is the reality they have lived, experienced and remember, that’s what we wanted to hear…

And that evening, we felt we needed more stories!

We felt the need to know about real people’s stories, their personal, extraordinary stories. We wanted to understand our culture, to archive the memories, gather them in a collective memory and carry them around the world… 

So we went on a road trip across the villages and towns of Lebanon to meet people, collect stories that had happened over the last 50 years.

A month later, we had collected 150 stories, about love, hate, community, life and death. We chose 10 amazing ones to be the “Whispered Tales” of our show.
This August, we will be in New York to take part in the “Between the Seas” festival.
We also have invitations to perform in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco to tell everyone these amazing stories from Lebanon.

Performances are  in English.

We figured that this touring project will cost us $5,000. This money will cover our flights to and from the USA, and the production of our show “Whispered Tales” in the different cities we will visit. It will pay for accommodation, food, props, etc.

Contributions are the only way this project can keep evolving.
We hope you can be part of this unique experience by pledging the amount of money that you think right for our endeavor.

Dates and venues:

New York:  Between The Seas festival
@ The wild project, August 25th & 26th
(www.betweentheseas.org)
Chicago: Taxim restaurant; September 2nd
San Francisco: September 7th ( venue to be confirmed)
Atlanta: Alif Institute; September 14th & 15th @ 7pm (www.alifinstitute.org)  Boston: CAC; Saturday 21st.