Palestine and laGeste

Since October 7, 2023, an average of 111 Palestinians have died per day. The number of the injured, mutilated, and imprisoned is many times that figure. Meanwhile, Lebanon has also become the scene of armed conflict, and Israel is doing everything it can to drag the United States into expanding the war to Iran. Every sentence about this conflict betrays viewpoints; everything that is said reveals as much about what is not being said. This is, of course, also true for us. We do not use the standard adjective ‘terrorist’ for Hamas. When even the United Nations refugee agency (UNWRA) threatens to be labelled ‘terrorist’ by Israel, then this word has lost all value.

We have never made a secret of the fact that we support BDS: the call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against the state of Israel. This doesn't date from 7 October 2023. les ballets C de la B endorsed the boycott against Israel from the very beginning of this call by Palestinian civil society to the rest of the world, somewhere in 2005. For more information about this call, we refer to the website bdsmovement.net.
For laGeste, it is more than just a legacy of our predecessors. Both artistic directors, Alain Platel of les ballets C de la B and Hildegard De Vuyst of laGeste, have been shaping productions and collaborating with Palestinian artists for many years. It has never prevented them from also working with individual Israeli and/or Jewish artists. BDS makes this possible. BDS targets only the state of Israel and its institutions.

This conflict predates the Hamas attack. Anyone who wants to understand more should read The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi. In a nutshell, you can’t get a more concise explanation of the background to October 7. Our knowledge doesn’t come from books — though the work of Israeli historian Ilan Pappé, the Common Archive project by Israeli filmmaker Eyal Sivan, or the Atlas of the Conflict by Israeli architect Malkit Shoshan do help to provide a framework.
Our knowledge comes from fieldwork. Alain Platel (from 2000 to 2008) and Hildegard De Vuyst (from 2004 to the present) went back and forth to the Occupied Territories many times to meet and to collaborate with young artists. This work took various forms: short- or long-term workshops, exchanges, auditions, (co)productions, tours, and a festival like Under Construction (with the support of the Flemish Community — those were the days?). The Palestinian A.M. Qattan Foundation was a loyal partner in this for a long time.

From their confrontation with the reality on the ground, Platel and De Vuyst could not do anything other than support BDS. It’s what all Palestinian partners asked for, whether institutions or individuals. This sometimes comes with a price. In Germany, everything is being mobilized to label criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism and thus to make it illegal. This would mean that we could no longer tour in Germany.
We are willing to pay that price because it is the only way we can distance ourselves from complicity in this genocide. Given that our governments are unable to take adequate measures, such as suspending the association agreement with Europe, Israel continues, without consequence, its bombings, refuses to allow food or medical aid, kills journalists, expels UN blue helmets, bans UNRWA, etc.
As citizens, we are complicit unless we apply the measures we can apply as individuals or institutions: not buying Israeli products, not touring in Israel, no longer treating the country as a ‘normal’ state, excluding it from UEFA, from the Eurovision Song Contest, etc. In short, applying the full range of strategies that once brought apartheid South Africa to its knees.

We are convinced that Israel will eventually have to answer to international institutions such as the International Criminal Court (ICC) or the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Even if the entire international world order were to collapse, future generations will still present the bill. The question will be: what did you do to prevent that genocide? That is why we cannot remain silent.

Meanwhile, we just keep doing what we’re good at: setting up exciting projects, including with Palestinian artists. We are currently preparing a new version of Badke (2013) under the title Badke(remix). This version is in the hands of Amir Sabra and Ata Khatab. Ata was crucial during the original creation. He embodied, single-handedly, the memory of Palestinian folk dance as it was (re)constructed during the struggle of the 1970s. Ata had to leave the tour early due to a torn meniscus. Amir is part of the second generation of Badke dancers; the production had a long life. He describes Badke as a ‘machine-that-produces-dancers’. A career as a dancer became a possible perspective for Palestinian dancers. Moreover, the production brought together Palestinians from very different ways of living : from the refugee camps, from Jerusalem, from Israel, from the West Bank. In these disruptive times, Badke(remix) is, for both of them, a matter of survival.

As a complement: two texts from the past:
 Alain Platel on his workshop in 2007.
 Hildegard De Vuyst on her experiences between 2004 and 2009: Palestine in 11 snapshots.