Ibn Battuta Travels – Wed 4 Jun

Ibn Battuta Travels is a co-production between Shubbak Festival and Seenaryo, in partnership with Grand Junction. Working in Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine and Syria, Seenaryo co-creates collaborative, powerful and imaginative theatre, putting participants at the heart of the creative process. Premiering at the 2025 Shubbak Festival, Ibn Battuta Travels will continue its journey across the Levant later in the year, using the power of storytelling to unite, resist and reimagine.

Seenaryo:

Participatory theatre and play can transform an individual’s sense of agency. They gain the power to shape their own narrative and expand what is possible, individually but also through collective action. Working in Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine and Syria, Seenaryo uses theatre and play to support people to heal, lead and learn. We co-create performances with under-served communities, train future leaders and transform classrooms through play.

Reaching 160,000 children, youth and women since 2015, Seenaryo won the Arts, Culture & Heritage prize at the 2023 UK Charity Awards, received a 2023 Innovation Award from TheirWorld and was one of Expo 2020 Dubai’s 120 Global Innovators.

Shubbak Festival:

Shubbak (meaning ‘window’ in Arabic) supports and celebrates the diversity of Arab and South West Asian & North African (SWANA) artists’ creativity and innovation through its professional, participatory and engagement programmes, national touring and biennial multi-artform festival. Working nationally and internationally, we commission, initiate and develop projects that encourage a wide range of creative approaches in an artist-centred, audience focused process.

Shubbak Festival is Europe’s largest biennial festival of contemporary Arab cultures, bringing new and unexpected voices alongside established artists to London every two years.

Artistic Director: Alia Alzougbi

Executive Director: Dima Mekdad

General Manager & Participation Producer: Sukriti Sharma