The ‘Allo, Beirut?’ exhibition opened at Beit Beirut Sodeco on September 15, 2022 in a carnival-like ambiance, showcasing a wide range of performances and offering free street food, with over 1200 people in attendance. This collaboration between artists, journalists, researchers, collectors, designers and creative teams who all came together to express their love/hate relationship to this city, was supported by the AUB Neighborhood Initiative. 

Photos by Bernard Khalil

Sabine Choucair, the founder of Clown Me In and a team member of ‘Allo, Beirut?’, created a street performance to promote the exhibition by giving people a taste of what Caves du Roy nightclub used to be. The performance included musicians and performers Samah Boulmona, Stephanie Sotiry, Christy El Khoury, Ziad Saibeh, Amer Fayad, Riwa Houssami and Sabine Choucair . The performance roamed the streets of Beirut in a specially designed pick-up truck by Carla Kamel resembling the Caves du Roy. The performers and musicians wore elaborate costumes designed by Bechara Atallah and Ramy Saad as Prosper in his purple suit, his wife Medea, dressed in a triple decker cake that she actually wore for their 25th anniversary, and other characters from Les Caves du Roy. Those street performances took place 10 days prior to the inauguration of ‘Allo, Beirut?’ exhibition at Beit Beirut with final performance taking place in front of the exhibition space.
Check out a video here, showcasing one of the street performances: 

People loved the performances. Many danced and sang with the group and  expressed to have missed seeing Beirut alive this way. Some sent messages later saying they were very sad when the truck left and they had to go back to the miserable and ugly reality of Beirut today. During the inauguration, it was great to see people whom the group had invited and who do not usually go to cultural events. They actually came with their kids who were so happy to see the performance one more time in front of Beit Beirut, and to later visit the exhibition and attend the other performances.

After a total of 10 shows and 2,450 copies of the 1950’s-style promotional newspaper distributed to people on the street all across Beirut, we were happy to have left a small smile on the faces of those who encountered and brought a little light and joy to their day.

Photos by Ahmad, Rayan, Adnan, Eliane and Hisham