The writing residency led by Gérard ASTOR offered an immersive artistic experience in Kef, at the intersection of creation, transmission, and dramaturgical research.
Building on an already evolving creative universe—particularly through the character of Aziz, a young Tunisian in the making—this residency did not begin from a blank page. Instead, it extended an ongoing work and opened it into a dialogue with participants.
Through the exploration of a fragment from Shakuntala(s), students, artists, and teachers were invited to experiment with an open form of dramaturgy, in which characters, times, and spaces intersect and circulate, and the chorus plays a central role as a collective space of expression.
The residency unfolded across three complementary dimensions:
- dramatic writing,
- practical stage work with local participants,
- shared reflection on contemporary theatrical forms.
It promoted a demanding and dynamic approach, in which work on the body, the voice, and the collective became a means of understanding the world.
At the core of the process lay a strong ambition: to reinvent the content of theatre by reconnecting it with social and human realities, within a perspective of “the socialization of art.” By integrating lived experiences, local contexts, and individual narratives into the creative process, the residency transformed theatre into a living space for dialogue, engagement, and collective imagination.
El Kef,
2026, March 23-28
