FROM OUR ARTISTIC DIRECTOR : MOROCCAN CIRCUS COMES TO BELL SQUARE

This week, Bell Square takes part in Shubbak, London’s festival of contemporary Arab culture. Shubbak, which means ‘window’ in Arabic, celebrates the diversity of new and established Arab artists at venues across London. 

This year, the festival asked itself, ‘Why do we do art?’ Their answer is that in this post-Covid world, art can help us engage with seismic issues such as the climate emergency, misogyny, racism and other topics that are of global concern. 

The underlying theme of all the shows at Bell Square is ‘stories that affect us all’ – and what the Shubbak festival offers us is the chance to look at these stories through an Arab lens.

Taroo

This year, the Shubbak festival brings us Taroo, a show telling stories from the streets. The show combines circus, acrobatics, magic and urban street dance. Through stunts and comedy, it celebrates the bin workers and refuse collectors, often from immigrant backgrounds, who were on the frontline, on streets all over the world, during Covid.

The show also includes what is generally called ‘object manipulation’ at theatre and circus school. This involves controlling and manipulating objects with skill and precision – things like hula hopping, juggling and plate spinning. Taroo, though, involves the manipulation of one object: a wheelie bin, or ‘taroo’ as it’s called in colloquial Moroccan! 

Said Mouhssine & Company Zid

Taroo is performed and created by Said Mouhssine, a Moroccan circus artist, free runner, actor and stunt man. He set up his company, Company Zid, in 2020. In the Moroccan Arabic language, darija, ‘zid’ means ‘move’.

Said grew up in Casablanca on Morocco’s western Atlantic coast. He began with acrobatics on the beach as do many young people there. When he was shown videos of parkour, he initially gave it a go in his room, largely out of boredom. The sport fascinated him, though, and he quickly progressed to free-running the streets of Casablanca. After three years at Morocco’s national circus school, he and some friends set up the country’s first Moroccan Association for Parkour in 2007. 

His show, Taroo, is now touring regularly but this special London version has been developed in partnership with the Babylon Migrants Project who run creative activities with young people from refugee, asylum seeking and migrant backgrounds. The activities aim to boost young people’s confidence and sense of belonging. Working with the artist Said Mouhssine over the last few weeks, the group has created a rather special role for itself in the show.

Come and see Taroo on Saturday 1 July at Bell Square! There are 2 performances : the first is at 1.00 pm, and then it is performed again at 4.00 pm.  As always, it’s free, no need to book, and everybody’s welcome.

Look forward to seeing you there!