Alexandre dances through the ruins of Lebanon

In Lebanon, even the act of dancing can become a political gesture. In a recent RTBF piece, Alexandre, a Lebanese dancer resisting war through movement, says: “Le pire, ce ne sont pas les bombes, c’est l’indifférence,” a sentence that cuts straight through the numbness surrounding a country still absorbing violence, displacement and the slow erosion of daily life.

Read the original RTBF article here: Le pire, ce ne sont pas les bombes, c’est l’indifférence : Alexandre résiste avec sa danse à l’invasion du Liban.

Alexandre’s story matters because it places art exactly where it often becomes most urgent: inside a country being pushed to its limits. Lebanon is not only living through war and instability, but also through a deep social and economic collapse that has left artists trying to continue creating in a landscape of ruins, uncertainty and exhaustion.

View de video here : https://www.rtbf.be/auvio/embed/media?id=3465476

Art as survival

What makes Alexandre’s dance powerful is not only its beauty, but its refusal to disappear. In the RTBF report, he presents movement as resistance — a way to stay visible, to stay alive, and to answer destruction with presence rather than silence.

That is the condition many Lebanese artists are working under now. Whether through dance, visual art, music or performance, they are trying to build meaning in a country where infrastructure has been damaged, institutions weakened, and the emotional cost of survival is carried in every gesture.

A country in ruins

To speak about Lebanese artists today is also to speak about a country that has been repeatedly broken open by war, political paralysis and economic collapse. Beirut in particular remains marked by the 2020 port explosion and by the layers of damage that have accumulated since then, both material and psychological.

In that context, art is not a luxury. It becomes a form of witness, a way to preserve memory, and sometimes the only remaining space where grief, rage and dignity can still coexist. Alexandre’s dance belongs to that lineage: not escapism, but survival through expression.

Why this story resonates

Ket follows stories like Alexandre’s because they show what art can still do when politics fails and institutions collapse. His movement becomes a reminder that visibility itself can be a resistance strategy, especially in a region where indifference can be as destructive as violence.

And Lebanon’s artists keep proving that even from within collapse, culture does not stop. It mutates, persists and keeps naming what power would rather leave unspoken.

Useful link

RTBF article on Alexandre

KET Magazine is a community‑driven, non‑profit magazine run by volunteers based in Brussels. Get in touch to share your thoughts or tell us about your activities. You can also promote your events on our website or support our work with a donation. Contact us at Info@ket.brussels.