Chafik Shimi (b. 1948)
Birthplace:
Morocco
Born:
February 23, 1948
After his secondary studies he left for Lebanon for two years. Returning from the Middle East, he began to do amateur theater and translated plays by Bertolt Brecht, an author whom he introduced to the Moroccan public with the collaboration of the Goethe Institute in Casablanca. He left for France where he decided to pursue studies in sociology, then economics. Two years later, he definitively changed direction and opted for the theatrical and cinematographic studies department of the University of Paris VIII. He then entered the National Conservatory of Dramatic Art (CNSAD) in Paris where he received acting training under the direction of Pierre Debauche, Marcel Bluwal, Antoine Vitez, Jean-Pierre Michaël and Michel Bouquet. At the same time, he attended the École du Louvre and took art history classes there for 4 years. Chafik Shimi develops during this period a whole work on the play of the storyteller and the actor. Chafik Shimi obtained his doctorate in 1989 on Moroccan theater identities1. He was called in 1989 by Mohamed Benaïssa, Minister of Culture at the time in Morocco, to direct the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts and Cultural Animation (ISADAC) in Rabat. He finds himself there in a teaching position among other teachers having no connection with the field of theatrical, cinematographic or audiovisual creation. Chafik Shimi then left ISADAC to teach theater in the department of French language and literature at Mohammed V University in Rabat. He founded the University Theater in Rabat. More than 200 students participate in this year-long experience. In 1990, Chafik Shimi returned to Paris to continue teaching theatre, performing and directing plays in France, the Netherlands and Tunisia. Chafik Shimi decided to set up a theater troupe in his own country and returned to Morocco in 1998. In December 1999, he created the theater company Lamalif. The Lamalif Theater is rooted in the theater of Bertolt Brecht, Peter Weiss, Karl Valentin and Sławomir Mrożek. Its animator, Chafik Shimi, has experienced the entire evolution of contemporary theater in Morocco and elsewhere, whether it is epic theater, agitation, indignation, criticism, political satire or documentary theater. . Chafik Shimi has developed his dramatic and scenic writing towards a theater of proximity, a theater that speaks to citizens without seeking to usurp the role of the politician.