Palestine in 11 snapshots
Hildegard De Vuyst – dramaturg and coordinator PASS
PASS is the name given to the Palestine project run by the KVS, les ballets C de la B and the A. M. Oattan Foundation. The abbreviation stands tor the Performing Arts Summer School, a series of workshops in Brussels and in the old village centre of Birzeit in the West Bank. But 'pass' also means an opening move, a passageway, a transition, entrance or approach. And all this is precisely what PASS has in mind for young performing artists in Palestine: giving them a good pass. Palestina in 11 snapshots outlines five years of work through a number of notable moments.
Birzeit, 27 August 2009
It's the last night of the workshop In Birzeit. In 4 weeks we have knocked together the play In the Park* with 9 young Palestinians and are showing it for the last time at 9.30 this evening. This is not a normal starting time, but that’s because it’s Ramadan. The performance is outdoors on two small areas of tiled floor in the garden behind the main building. Atallah, the local technician, has brought in enough cables, loudspeakers and moving lights for an average Belgian summer festival. The mosque is nearby, so we have to fit in between periods of prayer, otherwise our sound system will be in competition with each other.
Khaled Ellayan comes to watch a second time. He wears several different hats, but is above all the driving force behind the Ramallah Contemporary dance Festival, which, because of a lack of money at first found its programme largely dictated by embassies, but is now gradually acquiring a face of its own. We get an invitation to the next festival in April and May 2020. Khaled cooperates with festivals in Beirut and Amman and thinks we should go and perform there too.
We would like nothing better, but it’s impossible. One of the performers, Nibal, is from Isfiya, a Palestinian village near Haifa. She has an Israeli passport, and that won’t get her into Lebanon, not even as a Palestinian. It would be perfect if we could perform in Jerusalem. That would be no problem for Nibal, but then it would be impossible for all the others, as inhabitants of the West Bank. Their green identity cards mean they could only enter Jerusalem wit Israeli permission. Getting permission is like a lottery, since there are no obvious conditions to be fulfilled. Youn men have little change; the idea behind this is that they might blow themselves up. But it is not impossible. And so we learn to say ‘inshallah’ – ‘God willing’.
Ramallah, 5 November 2004
I am 41 today and I am standing on stage at the Ramallah Cultural Palace, the Palestinian equivalent of the Red Hall in deSingel. The Japanese erected this building on one of the hills around Ramallah, and in acknowledgement of this, the road leading to it was renamed Tokyo Street. But there is no money for a programme. So 1000 dollars rental has to be paid for the hall, even by local organisations.
We bring a turbulent week of workshops to a close. The director Alain Platel (les ballets C de la B) asked me to come along together with several other loyal supporters.
It is my first visit to Palestina and I can hardly grasp what is going on. All I have seen of the occupation is Oalandia Checkpoint and part of the Wall, and apart from this my mind has mainly been occup1ed with artistic struggles: the tension between the dancers of El Funoun and the actors of Ashtar Theatre and Theatre Day Productions; the opposition to the ‘performance’ by Belgian Ben Benaouisse in which he blows a flute to the tune of David Bowie’s Let’s Dance while dressed in a red dress and high heels; the opposition against the two young girls who have mingled with the dancers in the dance studio. I note that during the workshop the doors are left wide open but that they close again by one as the prospect of confrontation with an audience comes closer.
For a long time I thought that the resistance to Ben in drag and to the sensual gir1s had something to do with disturbing image of women. But that isn't the case. There is a strict division between public and private in Palestinian society, but there is no puritanical doctrine. So what's the matter? Ben and the young girls, and the actors too, completely undermine El Funoun's claim to professionalism. They have reached the stage where they have to command social recognition of their 'skills' and they achieve this by doing something that others are unable to do. Technique, training and discipline are at the forefront, even though the basis as to be found in the dabke, the Palestinian folkdance. Like the Pied Piper of Hamelin, Ben with his flute summons the audience to come and dance: Let's dance! Altogether on the stage of the Ramallah Cultural Palace! But he had not reckoned with the Palestinian 'arts police'.
Jerusalem, 21 August 2009
I visit the small Red Crescent hospital in East Jerusalem at the foot of the Mount of Olives. In the maternity ward hangs a list of names; all Arabic flourishes except for one. Yesterday saw the birth of Nour, son of Jessika De Vlieghere and Shadl Zmorrod, and my godson. 1 got to know Jessika in Ramallah in the summer garden at the Sangrias café in May 2005. A year tater she had set up the Palestinian Circus with Shadi and performances started in summer 2006, almost at the same time as the first PASS workshop. The Circus is a marvellous place. It as not burdened by the weight of tradition, but is a blend of theatre, dance, acrobatics and everything in between, a safe haven for Physical expression by both men and women in a popular form with a low threshold. And now he had arrived – the son of the Circus.He has just spend a night with his mother in this small hospital where four brand-new mothers all lie in a row with curtains between them. No care is provided at night, no helping hand tor the first dirty nappies and the first breast-feeding session. It was Jessika's express choice to give birth in a Palestinian hospital and not in a Jewish one, which is entirely in the Western mould. I suddenly realise that in this place every decision, even the most basic things like bringing a child into the world is a political decision with far-reaching consequences that go to the very depths of your whole being.
Jerusalem/Ramallah, 3 December 2005
I am not the only Belgian who has enro1led at the Jerusalem Hotel for a guided tour along the Wall. Tom Peeters from De Tijd is waiting for Abu Hassan too. 1 can understand that the Israeli authorities would like to silence him. In this conflict everything revolves around image and the struggle in and for the media. But Abu Hassan lets you see things with your own eyes. I see that this so-called security wall does not run between Jews and Palestinians, but divides two groups of Palestinians. I see that Palestinian houses are being demolished and new Jewish colonies are being established in what is called East Jerusalem, the Arab part of the city that was unlawfully annexed after the Six-Day War. Everywhere I go I see the same hard logic of the fait accompli: occupy as mush land as possible with the fewest possible Palestinians on it. Tom Peters has an appointment In Ramallah in the afternoon, with Fatin Farhat of the Sakakini Cultural-Centre, an organisation that focuses mainly on the visual arts, but also provides a home tor the poet Mahmoud Darwish. I go with him uninvited. Farhat is relieved that I didn’t arrive with some sort of ‘ peace scenario’, the sort od project where someone abroad thinks up a form of cooperation, between Palestinians and Israelis and puts a lot of funds behind. The picture she outlines of the limited dance and theatre scene gives little reason for cheer: tough competition, old feuds, political differences, accusations of collaboration with Israel and the struggle tor foreign sponsors. Everyone is trying to set up the first Palestinian theatre school or dance school in their own back garden. As long as it's the first. As if the occupation weren't bad enough.
Jalazon Camp, 30 May 2005
I didn’t know there were Palestinian refugee camps on the West Bank. In my mind they were associated wit Jordan and Lebanon. But before I knew what was happening, a friend had arranged a visit to Jalazon Camp not fat from Ramallah, don't know what I had expected, but certainly not this: a concrete maze of small streets and alleys where every storey has yet one more storey stacked on top of it, resulting in a population density that makes you gasp tor breath. I am welcomed like a queen and go on a tour of all the United Nations' UNWRA facilities: the little school, the tiny clinic. A doctor agrees to speak to me. 1 ask what the most common complaints are The answer is like a slap in the face: domestic violence, frustration, unemployment and the lack of any prospects lead the men in the camp to hit out at those weaker than them, at those lower in the social ladder: women and children. Anyone who has no control over his own existence tries to exercise control over the lives of others …
Jalazon Camp has an uneasy relationship with the nearby village. There is lots of interaction, yet the inhabitants of the camp will not take part in the next local election. That would after all look as if they were abandoning their position as refugees and thus also their belief in a return - an idea that would be quite inadmissible.
Brussels, 11 November 2009
It is five years ago today that Arafat died in Paris. A message of a completely different order arrives in my mailbox, a short announcement of the best news from the West Bank in years. A new theatre company has been born; the Orient & Dance Theatre, news that comes with the greetings of its manager, Maher Shawamreh. Maher has followed every step in the progress of PASS, even though it meant shifting his working hours at thee electricity company to the most impossible times of day and night. For many years Maher was loyal to El Funoun, but has now taken the step of setting up his own company. This has always been the intention behind PASS: to stimulate artists to become the driving force behind their own creations and new structures. This new company does not yet have a website, but there is an e-mail address: mfo@orientdt.org
Salfit, 8 December 2005
I drive to Salfit with the Ashtar Theatre company, where they will be performing their play The Story of Mono ll. It is what I called 'legislative theatre', a division of the Theatre of the Oppressed. The Brazilian Augusto Boal has worked out a method for it by which theatre becomes a means of social transformation. The audience can take an active part by entering into particular scenes or situations and steering the story in a different direction. The theatre gradually fills up with an exclusively female audience plus their children. In half an hour the actors perform the story of a talented girl who is not allowed to continue her studies and is forced to marry. When she refuses her family kills her. The culprits get off with a negligible punishment.
The women are allowed not only to stop the story and play the parts of the oppressed characters, but can also submit suggestions tor changes in the law. After their tour of the West Bank, Ashtar will take all these proposals to the parliament. The debate is intense, but a group of Muslim women in headscarves gradually monopolises the conversation. The proposal made by several women to punish honour killings in the same way as other capital crimes does not gain a majority when it comes to a vote. However valiantly the actors (mostly Greek Orthodox Christians) struggle to keep the debate open. 1 can see the open and pluralist Palestinian society collapsing before my eyes.
Jenin, 21 December 2008
This i s my first journey to the northern part of the West Bank, to Jenin. I om going to visit the Zarours, a family that as already provided PASS with two participants.
Azza was only involved in the first workshop because she was then selected as a presenter for MBC3, the Arabic youth TV channel, which is broadcast in Dubai.
Her sister Zina was actually too young for the second workshop, barely 16, but was so highly motivated and mature that she was also invited to Brussels.
Azza arrived from Dubai the day before for a short holiday with her family. Zina is radiant as I sing her praises in her parents' presence, while she is briefly out of the shadow of her ravishing sister, though there is no notion of competition between the two sisters. Their little brother Rashid joins in the conversation in perfect English whenever he feels like it, whether asked to or not. Confidence, says their father. that's what it's all about. We give our children confidence, and make no distinction between boy and girl. He does admit that the people in the town regularly speak to him about this, but that he always tries to persuade them to do the same. Zina, for example, is also allowed to take courses at the Freedom Theatre, which has established itself at the heart of the Jenin Camp but is viewed with some suspicion by the community. The Freedom Theatre was founded by the Jewish woman Ama Mer, who married the Palestinian Khamis. Ama's son reopened the theatre after Isarael's devastating attack on Jenin Camp in 2002, but has to put up with a lot of opposition.
Jenin is not an easy place, and it's not only the Freedom Theatre that experience this. Al Kamandjâti, the widespread music enterprise that operates using instruments provided by the Belgian Music Fund, was soon a victim of the hatred of art and culture that characterizes the local fighters. The classrooms of the music school, where Rashid Zarour also has lessons, were set alight, instruments and all.
Brussels, 7 November 2009
Ahmad Tubassi comes walking trough the EU exit at Zaventem. Not bad for a stateless person from the refugee camp in Jenin. After the PASS sessions in Brussels last year, Tubassi preferred not to return to Palestine. He was given asylum in Norway, where he is currently taking a theatre course. The Norwegians may not let many asylum-seekers stay, but the procedures are quick (six weeks !) and then they actually take care of them too.
Between the ages of 17 and 21 Ahmad spent his time in Israeli prisons. When he was released he saw no more sense in the armed struggle. Was it perhaps because the Freedom Theatre had in the meantime opened right in front of his family home that his gaze had tuned in the direction of theatre? I remember the conversation with the coordinator of the Freedom Theatre as if it was yesterday. He didn't consider it a great loss that Tubassi was not continuing on into the first year at the First Theatre School in Palestina. He was only a clown. That first had to be demolished completely In order to put something else in its place. Demolish, build up again? After hearing that, Tubassi no longer had to explain to me why he didn’t want to return to Jenin. He wants to go back to Palestina, but only when armed with professional skills as a theatre-maker. As we drove from the airport to the theatre, we passed a tent encampment where Belgium was temporarily receiving its asylum seekers.
Ramallah, 22 June 2006
We, the members of a small KVS delegation, are sitting at the Zahrour Restaurant in the heart of Ramallah on a busy Thursday evening. On the courtyard the giant screen is ready for the next World Cup match. Just as the starters are being served, gunshots are heard close-by. Something leaves red and yellow trails above our heads. Did I see that right? Were they bullets? We are urged to go inside, where a table is laid for us. The news surges in waves. The street has been closed off by Israeli jeeps. A Palestinian ambulance is unable to get through. It was an under cover operation by the Israeli army. On a busy Thursday evening a special unit dressed as Palestinians entered the town in search of a one man. Th man opened fire and was shot in the leg. He was then finished off with a shot to the head just 50 metres from where we where eating. We see it on Al Jazeera.
The man shot down was Ayman Ratib, 25 years old, and is said to have been a member of the mukhabarat, the secret police, according to one view, and of the Al Aqsa brigades according to another. Being sought for what? Just killed without any form of trial. On a busy Thursday evening in the heart of Ramallah We can’t get any more food down. The lights in the restaurant are dimmed, the city immerses itself in shared mourning. How did Al Jazeera come to be there? Why I don’t fing any trace of Ayman Ratib’s death in the Western media afterwards, except the Los Angeles Times? If we receive completely different stories about everyday reality trough totally separate media, what else can we expect than to live in completely separate worlds?
Bianquini, 20 August 2009
We did it! After our day's work we managed to get to the Dead Sea in a little minibus full of West Bank residents. No checkpoints, no control, nothing. For many of them it was the first time they had seen the Dead Sea or plunged into it. It is already dark but still red hot. If you float on your back and let your ears sink under the surface, sounds are muffled and you are absorbed into the universe. If only dying could be like this … The West Bank people who can't swim overcome their initial anxiety and bob around in amazement. Timidity soon gives way to spiritedly covering themselves with mud. It is long after midnight when we leave the most wonderful place in the world.
* In the Park (2009) is a production of Ala’Abu Saa, Zina Zarour, Maher Shawamreh, Khalid Barghouthi, Farah Saleh, Nibal Maishy, Tareg Zboun, Salma Attya, Yazan Ewidat. Directed by Koen Augustijnen, Rosalba Torres and Hildegard De Vuyst. Technicians : Ataliah Tarazi et Arthur De Vuyst. Production : PASS (KVS, les ballets C de la B et A.M Qattan Foundation). With the support of Anna Lindh Foundation. Video highlights by Adrienne Altenhaus at www.kvs.be