STAMBA - The Eastern Western Syndrome Researching the social impact of clichés, STAMBA is a collaborative project with partners and performers from the Arab region and Europe, who via theatre and discussions offer a series of performances about the image that shapes societies. STAMBA is a theater art program between Egypt, France, Germany and Iraq, where clichés and stereotypes in Europe and MENA are analysed and discussed. Four theater plays are at the center stage, which were produced in each country and were premiered from October 31 to November 3, 2013 in Muntada Al Masrah in Baghdad, as part of the activities "Baghdad – Arab Capital of Culture 2013". Thereafter, the productions go on tour and are supposed to be staged in Berlin, Cairo, Georgetown and Marseille. The film is a documentation of STAMBA in Baghdad from October 31 to November 3, 2013. In his STAMBA performance, the Iraqi director Yahya Ibrahim studies the problems and crises of the Iraqi state over the past 60 years. French director Nathalie Garraud intersects Othello’s cliché of the "poor" who experience the harsh reality of daily life, the cliché of the artist and his struggle for individual expression, and the cliché of the foreigner, who has to adapt his new life from experiences of his old one. The German director Janet Stornowski criticises the propagation of from outside imposed and to be properly sighted ideologies. Using prevailing views from contemporary Egyptian society, choreographer Mohamed Shafik from Egypt argues that the whole human being is a cliché.
