shapelight
creative ceremony
about.
What is shapelight?
shapelight is a participatory experience of creative ceremony, cultivating a sacred connection to spirit and ancestors, earth and each other.
We bring together an intimate group of participants, for creative and mystical encounters that explore the intangible parts of ourselves and our world. Nurturing creative intuition, participants build ephemeral and intimate installations with and of each other, using body, sacred objects, light and sound. We engage our stories, bodies, lineages and landscapes to generate an imaginative & ceremonial experience - where everyone is both a performer and a witness.
Our process includes:
transformative ceremony.
creative play. nature rituals.
collective storytelling.
sacred geometry.
meditation. expansive theatre.
embodied installation.
media.
Bushwick 2021: Young Women's Leadership School
Red Hook 2021: Falconworks Theatre & Red Hook Art Project
Omaha 2020: Creighton University
Beirut 2019: American University of Beirut
Brooklyn 2018: Target Margin Theater
photo credits:
Gaia Squarci /Creighton Photography / Noelle Ghoussaini
Basma Baydoun /
TMT 2018 Institute Fellows
our team.
Noelle Ghoussaini
Artistic Director
Noelle is a theatre-maker, ritual artist and cultural organizer. She creates expansive and genre-defying theatre and ritual experiences to: re-imagine liberation & decolonization, nurture transformation and foster spaces of creativity and sacred connection for all beings.
You-Shin Chen
Graphic / Installation Designer
You-Shin Chen is a New York based Taiwanese designer who is committed to diversity and humanity. Trained as a theatre designer, she centers the human experience in the process of creating a three dimensional space. www.youshinchen.com
testimonials.
"Through shapelight I discovered new ways to be vulnerable. I watched us transform our space and the way we connected to the world around us."
-Jill, Theatre Student
contact.
We offer:
1-4 week residencies or singular experiences
If you would like to connect, are looking for more information or want to book a shapelight experience, please email us at:
join our mailing list:
(for updates and events)
artist's note.
A note from the
Artistic Director
Shapelight started from an impulse. A knowing. How could my embodied feminine, Lebanese-American, time-traveling, community-focused, boundary-pushing and expansive inner spirit world existence be translated into a performative experience with and for community?
I was tired of creating theatre for proscenium stages. Of separating audience and performer. I was tired of being told I was too poetic. That my stories weren’t linear enough. That I needed to box myself into forms of expression that didn’t suit the experience of my body and heart. I wanted to explore and re-imagine the boundaries of theatre through creative ceremony and ritual: honoring spirit and sacred gathering.
In 2018, I spent my year long fellowship at Target Margin Theatre exploring sacred geometry, light installation, exploratory meditation, ritual and performing for ancestral & nature spirits - in collaboration with a team of incredible artists. I realigned with creative forms that resonated deep in my body, spirit and heart. These experiments, these community rituals, this playfulness and explorations were the birth of shapelight.
Shapelight has now traveled, and been explored with students, designers, directors, performers and teachers in the US and the Middle East.
And our team expands. You-shin and I have been working together for many years - and she is one of the most collaborative, visionary and intuitive designers I have ever worked with. We have shared values of community, the transformative power of theatre and social justice.We are two women, working together to build creative experiences rooted equity, healing and freedom.
Our team continues to explore the original impulses of this project: how do we honor our spirit, ancestors, earth and each other through ritual, performance and creative ceremony. Yet, shapelight is ever evolving. We are excited to invite you to join us in the journey - as YOU are at the center of how it unfolds.
Special thanks to the teachers, collaborators, ancestors and spirit guides, all of whom have been instrumental in making shapelight possible.
shapelight was first explored with the support of the 2018 Target Margin Theater Institute.