Jogging

Theatre National Wallonie- Bruxelles [ENA] Jogging is a performance about stories of various Arab women which is being really virtuously performed by Hanane Haji Ali. This is really surprising how well this one-artist performance could engage spectators without leaving no one emotionless while creating images and characters on the scene. This is a deeply philosophical performance about feelings and strong emotions.

On the scene is Hanane herself, but she is also Medea and she is a woman in a modern village of Lebanon in both an ancient and contemporary versions, either killing her own children or sacrificing them to the altar of the wars that plague the Middle East. Hanane runs every day through the alleys of Beirut as she also runs on the stage and through life and history and she speaks about her self as "a woman, mother, actress, citizen".

Hanane is also a feminist and political activist who is telling the stories of Media from the position of a woman and her rights, chances and emotions. During the performance Hanane tells stories of four women: Hanane herself; the Medea of Ancient Greek myth and Euripides’s tragedy; and two contemporary Lebanese women, one who kills her children and herself, and another who sacrifices her children to the wars of the Middle East. The question which goes through out the performance is who would be Medea today, in the modern Beirut?

The story Jogging is also about women who are the most vulnerable in various risks situations. For example, it has the episode about the 2020 explosions in Beirut’s port which due in large part to the government’s carelessness, turned sections of Beirut to rubble. The 2020 Beirut port explosion was a devastating and catastrophic event which resulted from the detonation of approximately 2,750 tons of improperly stored ammonium nitrate, which had been stored in a warehouse at the port for several years. The immediate impact of the explosion was immense. The blast wave shattered windows, collapsed buildings, and caused extensive damage over a wide radius, affecting not only the port area but also neighboring districts.

The explosion was felt as far away as Cyprus, and it registered as a seismic event in the region. At least 218 people were killed, thousands were injured, and hundreds of thousands were left homeless. The explosion worsened an already dire economic and political crisis in Lebanon, exacerbating the suffering of a population grappling with unemployment, economic instability, and political unrest. The blast also led to widespread anger and protests, with the Lebanese people demanding accountability and an investigation into the circumstances that led to the storage of such a large quantity of hazardous materials in a densely populated area.