shapelight
ritual. installation. connection.
about.
events.
Let us explore our sacred relationship to water.
In this 2 hour virtual workshop, each participant will create a personal ritual connected to water, rooted in the questions: what is your body holding, releasing, or expanding into?
$25
(workshop includes meditation, storytelling, creative writing, installation, performance and ritual)
the element series will be held virtually each month, from February through June 2021
Each workshop is inspired by one of the 5 elements: water, earth, air, fire and space.
media.
Omaha 2020: Creighton University
Beirut 2019: Mediterranean Director's Lab
Brooklyn 2018: Target Margin Theater
photo credits:
Creighton Photography / Noelle Ghoussaini
Basma Baydoun / Noelle Ghoussaini
TMT 2018 Institute Fellows
our team.
testimonials.
Noelle Ghoussaini
Artistic Director
Noelle Ghoussaini creates expansive and genre-defying theatrical experiences exploring the politics and spirit of liberation. She is dedicated to equity, connection and creativity for all beings.
Jenny Tibbels
Creative Producer
Jenny Tibbels is a live arts producer and theatre director dedicated to developing experimental work and facilitating intercultural exchange. She teaches at St. John’s University and is a member of Lincoln Center Directors Lab.
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
"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 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. Jenny and I met in 2016 - working on a production coming from Palestine to the US. We reconnected in 2019: we are new friends and collaborators, based on shared values of community, the transformative power of theatre and social justice. 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 are three 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, our ancestors 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.