In Syria, in 2011, the Arab Spring brought a wave of freedom that was swiftly repressed. Syria is her father’s country, but Corinne Jaber knows neither its language, nor its religion, unless you count cooking: the meals her father would make, the aromas of childhood that have never left her. She goes to Jordan and Lebanon, meets refugees where they have managed to find shelter. Devours The Shell, by the great Syrian poet Mustafa Khalifa, and Samar Yazbek’s A Woman in the Crossfire. Fuelled by this food, she has created a performance in which she prepares Kebbeh in her kitchen, her hands angrily pounding ingredients as she tells the story of the war from the inside, speaking for those without a voice. For her, this voyage is also a quest for identity, a personal encounter with the heritage that ties her to Syria and to an entire region of the world plagued by unending conflict. Today more than ever, this piece resonates as a cry of resistance and resilience.

Louise Sablon