Arbeitskreis Kirche und Theater

News and updates from The Freedom Theatre, Jenin refugee camp.

freedom.theatre.december.2018

Greetings from Jenin Refugee Camp! After a busy autumn with shows in Europe, Cairo and Tunisia,  we want to share an update on the activities over the last months and tell you more about our future plans.

A LOOK BACK AT THE LAST FEW MONTHS...

We are delighted to inform you that our play Return to Palestine won the award for Best Theatre Performance at the first ever Palestine National Theatre Festival! It was an honor for us to present our work to our fellow colleagues and watch their amazing work. We dedicate this award to our beloved Juliano’s soul, and to all people who contribute to TFT in every way, including our friends all around the world and most importantly, to Jenin refugee camp.

In September, The Freedom Theatre was invited to represent Palestine at the 25th Cairo International Theatre Festival for Contemporary & Experimental Theatre. This is the first time The Freedom Theatre performed in Egypt and we hope this is the start of a new relationship with our Arab neighbours.

We would like to extend our thanks to all our Friends and supporters in Ireland, Sweden, France and Luxembourg! Return to Palestine travelled to Europe at the end of October for a month long tour and performed to hundreds of people in several cities across 4 countries. It was an incredibly exciting and beautiful (+ tiring!) journey and we look forward to our next visit!

September saw the launch of The Freedom Theatre’s Professional Theatre School. After a year and half hiatus, we opened registrations for the next cohort of aspiring actors to join our theatre programme. Through its productions, the Theatre School plays a crucial role in increasing access to culture for the Palestinian population, in raising the standards of performing arts in the area and encouraging more people to participate in cultural activities. We held auditions in October and Nabeel is currently finalising the curriculum for their education and training to start in January 2019.

Aaaannndddd last but not least, ​Return to Palestine h​as been invited to open the Carthage Festival in Tunis in December. This will be our first visit to Africa and we hope it will be one of many more to come!

HOSTING PERFORMANCES & COLLABORATIONS

The Freedom Theatre were excited to collaborate on a joint production of a skate play in Palestine with Eyes Up Here Productions LLC from the US. This unprecedented theatrical experience was aimed at socially engaging youth in public skateparks worldwide. The team performed eight shows in Jayyous, Palestine on a playful and innovative platform for community-based creative exploration for the local youth, many of whom took part in this first of it’s kind production in Palestine.

It is tremendously fulfilling to observe the outcomes of our joint project with Interpeace in Palestine, Mustakbalna, which aims to promote the implementation of the UN Security Council resolution 1325. Since May 2018, we have been working with 120 Palestinian women, between the ages of 15 and 25 from Jenin, Ya’bad, Nablus, Tulkarem, Tubas and Hebron in the West Bank with the aspiration of womens empowerment. So far, we’ve held several workshops and projects in all our working areas and our activities, both theoretically and practically, demonstrate a know-how to acknowledge and utilize the agency of women in social participation. The project not only provides a space which allows learning artistic skills but also encourages creative thinking that would benefit the participants in overcoming challenges and resolving any conflict that ensues.

Along with events and local performances, we hosted Hiphop Geez in Jenin and took part in the Nazra Palestine Short Film Festival. We also had a game-changing experience as we hosted brilliant young girls from Gaza - a first for The Freedom Theatre. We were honored to host a` string of short and emotionally charged plays which were performed by the three winning groups of a playwriting competition organised by The Hands Up Project. The groups were from UNRWA schools in Gaza and spent a few days in the West Bank, ending the short tour in Jenin. Full details of their visit can be found on our ​website​. Last week, we also had the pleasure of hosting renowned Palestinian comedian Alaa Adu Diab in Jenin who performed to a sold out audience; his razor edge wit and hilarious political commentary made this a night to remember - it seems that the task of making people laugh in Jenin is not easy however he managed to do it very well since our stage was full of non-stop laughter for the hours performance!

We are also delighted to see the fantastic performances of  Return to Palestine and And Here I Am at the Palestinian Performing Arts Showcase 2018 in November. PPAN held an incredible showcase and we are thankful to both national and international participants for making such an amazing, rich, and vivid showcase possible.

WHAT'S NEXT?

Photography workshops with both children and young adults will continue throughout 2019 as well as continuing the Interpeace project which will include photography and drama exhibitions/ presentations across the West Bank, in the new year.

The curriculum for the new cohort of students is almost ready and the training for the Theatre School will begin in Jan 2019. More details of the full programme and list of trainers coming soon.

A new TFT production, based on a famous book in the Arab work by Muhammed al-Maghut will premiere at the Anniversary event in April 2019. We are in the final stages of pre-production and script writing - we hope to hold auditions at the end of Jan.

And last but by no means least, we are also looking at re-introducing the Freedom Bus Ride at the end of Summer 2019.