Featured Artists
Sleman Aldib ·
Sleman Aldib (director) is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Arab Canadian Theatre, Kawalease ACT. An accomplished actor, writer, performer, and director, he also serves as a board member of The Calgary Arab Arts & Cultural Society.
He is a recipient of the Canadian Arab Institute’s “30 Under 30” Initiative Award. Sleman’s creative portfolio includes four original productions: Jasmine, Snatched from the Back, Fight or Flight, and The Opposite. His production, The Opposite, is a thought-provoking piece that explores the hypothetical scenario of Canadians experiencing war and seeking refuge.
Beyond theatre, Sleman’s passion for storytelling extends to photography, where he captures moments that often speak louder than words. This passion has led him to become a professional photographer, dedicated to unfolding the untold through his lens.
Mark Hopkins ·
Mark Hopkins (tour manager) is the Co-Artistic Director of Swallow-a-Bicycle Theatre, which generates productive discomfort through art-making, and an Associate with Human Venture Leadership, which seeks to build our collective capacities to reduce ignorance, error, waste, suffering and injustice. Mark volunteers on the board of Kawalease ACT (Arab Canadian Theatre) and founded We Should Know Each Other, a community-bridging initiative. He’s proud to have been recently published in an anthology, Reimagining Fire: The Future of Energy.
Some of Mark’s honours and awards include the Creative Placemaking Award (2016 Mayor’s Lunch for Arts Champions), the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, Best Screenplay (2014 Alberta Media Production Industry Awards), Avenue Magazine’s Top 40 Under 40 and the Calgary Herald’s 20 Compelling Calgarians.
Swallow-a-Bicycle Theatre ·
Swallow-a-Bicycle Theatre creates productive discomfort through art. We make art that leaves an impact, through processes that are nourishing, equitable, and community-engaged.
Kawalease ACT ·
Kawalease ACT (Arab Canadian Theatre) assembles, spotlights, and nourishes Arab artists in Calgary, by helping them access resources, networking and artistic opportunities. It was established in 2015, shortly after Artistic Director Sleman Aldib’s arrival in Canada.
The Opposite
The Opposite, created by Sleman Aldib, is a participatory, immersive performance experience that emulates a portion of the refugee experience.
At the height of the Syrian Civil War, Canada resettled more than 44,000 Syrian refugees. But what if the situation was reversed? What if Canada became a warzone, and we were all forced to flee our homes? In this provocative experience, Kawalease ACT (Arab Canadian Theatre) invites audiences to feel what it means to be a refugee, what it means to leave your country and start anew.
The Opposite is an interactive environment, mimicking a refugee arrival centre, but with a twist: the performance imagines that civil war has broken out in Canada, and Canadians are forced to flee to Syria. Audience members enter the space with a minimal explanation of the scenario and are handed a checklist – written in Arabic – of the different stations they need to visit: a medical exam, photo ID, Arabic language lessons and more. At each station, the worker addresses them in Arabic, with only one translator available to support the 50+ audience members.
The experience is deliberately disorienting, to imitate the refugee experience. This goes on for up to 30 minutes, at which point Sleman enters the space and delivers a monologue – in English – about being forced to flee violence. Then each of the performers, also in English, share a brief story of what they were doing in Syria before the war, how they ended up in Canada, and what they’re doing now.
The Opposite is between 60-90 minutes long (depending on audience size). The touring team has three members (director, stage manager, tour manager), and 7-8 performers are recruited locally.