Experimental Theatre Project | 2011-14

“In 2009 I heard Theatre du Soleil was holding a special atelier so I dropped
everything and went. I was transfixed by what I learned there and came back to the UAE possessed by the idea of starting an experimental theatre group here and I met awesome people who took on the challenge of creating that together. We had no budget, so we did away with costumes, set pieces, even a stage, practicing instead in the industrial zone, thanks to The Fridge, a great arts venue, using projection instead of sets and bits of cloth instead of props.” – Sol Abiad, Founder – STAR TOO

STAR TOO  is Dubai’s first experimental performance art collective founded in 2010 by theatre director Sol Abiad along with a group of dancers, theatre practitioners, visual artists and IT specialists.

Productions, greatly inspired by the works of Brook, Mnouchkine, Lepage,
Warner, and Wilson, are all original creations devised by members of the
collective, with a physical, minimalistic and multi-disciplinary approach to
theatre-making.

Commissioned artists at Dubai Culture & Arts Authority Sikka Art Fair in 2013, the STAR TOO collective has signed 8 original creations including Where is Home (2010), What Art Thou Wearing (2011), Is it Real (2012), Are you There (2013) and Why Cross (2014).

“Drawn to alternative narrative structures and laboratory-style theatre creation, I became part of the collective in 2011. Following a laissez-faire approach, each season we co-created productions. They were essentially our attempt to answer questions that were socially relevant to us. Through the imaginative use of customized sticks called Artisticks, plain cloth named Its, and a “parachute” that serves as a shape-shifter, we transformed the environment and told stories in an intimate setting, often times hosting the audience inside a giant cloth box we called The Majlis.”