Stephanie Kayal

Whales have a profound significance for choreographer and dancer Stephanie Kayal. In her most recent performance, Galactic Crush 2: Into the Cold (2025), the sounds of these mythical creatures are woven into the soundscape designed by her long-time artistic partner Abed Kobeissy. While Kayal commutes between Beirut and Brussels, Kobeissy lives in Beirut. Together, they create imaginative work against the backdrop of the war and suffering in their homeland and the wider region, caused by Israeli aggression.

Kayal herself says the following about whales: “Whales have always fascinated me. This fascination only grew stronger during the genocide in Gaza and the war in Lebanon. I began watching videos of these marine animals more than ever; I shared them with Abed and he became addicted as well. We never spoke about why, back then. It was as if we had found a familiar face in the crowd and were irresistibly drawn to them.”

In her work, Kayal explores the boundary between fiction and reality. Her latest work incorporates elements such as superpowers, anti-heroes, and space travel; fictional motifs that Kayal juxtaposes with the hopelessness amidst the rubble in Lebanon. Using a low-tech aesthetic and absurd, dark humour, she finds ways to navigate this powerlessness and make the audience part of that experience. 

During her research residency at CAMPO, Kayal is exploring ideas for a new performance. The whales, which have long been part of her artistic trajectory, take centre stage this time. Through the strategy of a ‘mockumentary,’ Kayal, once again collaborating with her artistic partner Kobeissy, investigates how whales can serve as a metaphor for the ‘beauty of the exception.’ In a world dominated by all kinds of rules, laws, and asymmetrical power relations, beauty often emerges only by virtue of the exception. According to Kobeissy and Kayal, it is precisely this rarity that provokes cruelty and violence: violence is the rule, beauty the exception.

Again Kayal: "Whales have always struck me as solitary creatures. They are different in so many ways, like that one child in class who has no friends simply because he or she or they don’t look like the others – whether in terms of colour, size, or behaviour. Whales only have each other. This is exactly what the Palestinians and we in Lebanon, for example, feel: that we only have each other while facing extinction. Suddenly, we too have become an endangered species. I will never forget how politicians and journalists on Western talk shows reacted to the question: 'But what about the killing of civilians in Gaza?' Their response was: 'Can you just stop talking about the same thing? Stop nagging about the dead civilians in Gaza!' It felt as if we were being asked not to bother anyone as we die. To do it somewhere far away. Later I discovered that this is also what whales do.”

During their residency at CAMPO, Stephanie Kayal and Abed Kobeissy are currently researching several ideas that they are carrying over from their previous performance, Galactic Crush 2: Into the Cold (2025).