Remal lab is an interdisciplinary arts lab initiated in January 2024 by the

Jordan-based independent performing arts platform – Studio 8, in collaboration with Prince

Claus Fund, MMAG foundation, Nave, and Drosos Foundation.

Remal lab will take place in Amman and in Wadi Rum from 29th of October to 20th of

November, 2024. With its devotion to dialogue and exchange from the Majority World

countries, the lab would like to bring together international artists and cultural practitioners

and their Arab peers to create a co-create experience focusing on exchange, collaboration and

learning from the different voices, continents and narratives represented that link spaces and

People.

The experience will start in the autumn of Jordan, in a contemporary art center situated in the

historic neighborhood of Jabal Amman and overlooking downtown, then wander into the magic

desert, a valley cut into the sandstone and granite rock in southern Jordan, known also as the

Valley of the Moon. In what we considered an artistic laboratory in the desert, we invite the

participating artists and cultural practitioners to experiment with movement, sound, light, body

and voice, art and science, ecological awareness and more-than-human-relationships.

At the end of the lab, the participants are encouraged to design an outdoor-exhibition /

mini-festival, treating the desert like an artistic collaborator, harnessing its forces to

co-produce an experience for audiences. The participants will have the opportunity to present

some of their experiences in Amman, and in different parts of the world, either virtually or in

person.

Curator & Creative Director – Hadi Nahleh

Hadi’s artistic practice investigates movement compositions, their relationship to the human

body, to knowledge and how performing arts can connect communities to a reclaiming or

re-imagining of lost epistemology.

Abd Al Hadi Abunahleh is currently the Artistic Director of Jordan-based platform Studio 8, and

the Artistic Director of an independent biannual festival – International Dance Encounter

Amman (IDEA). Hadi’s creations, co-creations and collaboration have been presented

nationally and internationally at venues such as: Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts (Jordan),

National Center For Culture & Arts (Jordan), AUC Falaki Theater and Gallery (Egypt), Asia

Culture Center (Korea), Royal College of Music (UK), Bunker Theater (UK), Ringve Music

Museum (Norway) and Institute for Musicology (Hungary) – Hadi is a 2019 production awardee

by Culture Resource (Al-Mawred Al-Thaqafy) in performing arts.

Curator & Programer – Xiaoman Ren

Ren is a visual artist who studied Graphic Design in Central Saint Martin’s College of Arts and

Design, UK. Her passion is to constantly try out new techniques that are related to performing

arts, theatre and dance in all its divisions including puppet-making, on stage art installations,

kinetic art, experimental music and unconventional theatrical costumes as well as producing

and directing short films.

Currently working as the creative manager of Jordan-based platform Studio 8, and the

producer and the co-curator of an independent biannual festival – International Dance

Encounter Amman (IDEA), Ren employs diverse strategies to produce immersive and

interactive environments exploring place, identity and performing arts practices.

Studio 8

A Jordanian non-for-profit performing arts Company.

It was founded in 2014 by a group of young artists aiming to shape and humanize dance art through innovation, experiment, development, exchange, education, and research.

For the past 9 years, Studio 8 has collaborated with more than 600 people of 43 nationalities in creating 10 original dance productions, giving more than 60 performances, and organizing more than 160 classes and workshops. Studio 8 has also made dance videos, facilitated art incubations, artistic residencies, dance inspired exhibitions, dance discussions, community art walks and street art fairs.

MMAG Foundation

Founded in 2017, The MMAG Foundation strives to contribute to the future of art practice and pedagogy by drawing on historical encounters and contemporary issues alike. Through art, it works to facilitate opportunities to shape responsive approaches to learning, knowledge-making and modes of dialogue.

The foundation provides a space for artistic research, production and critical discourse through its exhibition program, educational projects and residency spaces.

Nave

NAVE is a creation and residency center whose mission is to support, collaborate and nurture processes of creation and investigation of the Live Arts –dance, performance, music, theater and all of its imaginable crosses- opening dialogue with other disciplines.

Key partners: MMAG Foundation, Nave

Key collaborators: Prince Claus Fund, Drosos Foundation