Ashtar Theatre and The Freedom Theatre are embarking on a joint journey to perform and hold workshops in Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan. The cooperation between the two theatres will combine the interactive and community theatre specialities of The Freedom Theatre and Ashtar Theatre into an action of solidarity to call for the unification of Palestinians and the right of the refugees to return to Palestine. The journey is made in connection to the annual commemoration of Al Nakba, the catastrophe in 1948 when more than 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homeland by Zionist forces.
Through interactive workshops and performances, accounts by Palestinian refugees will be shared and enacted by Palestinians from the occupied West Bank. Our aim with this journey is to create long-lasting networks among Palestinian populations fragmented by the deliberate policies of the Israeli occupation powers. For us, this is a symbolic act of the joint Palestinian cultural resistance when we unite across borders, across the fractioning within our society.
The Freedom Theatre will perform Return to Palestine, a street theatre play that centres around a Palestinian born in America, who goes to Palestine for the first time in his life and is confronted with a reality that is very different from what he expected. The play will be performed in public spaces and schools in refugee camps.
Ashtar Theatre will perform the Gaza Monologues, written by theatre students in Gaza in 2010 and 2014 after the Israeli aggressions on the Gaza Strip, as well as a theatrical reading of ‘The Syrian Monologues’ written by Syrian refugees in Jordan. The authors of the monologues and other Syrian refugees will attend the performance, held at the National Center for Culture and Art in Amman.
Dates and details:
May 26, ‘Gaza Monologues‘ by Ashtar Theatre performed in the National Center for Culture and Art, Amman, Jordan
May 26-28, Forum Theatre Workshop by Ashtar Theatre in Hetten refugee camp, Jordan
May 27, ‘Return to Palestine‘ by The Freedom Theatre and theatrical reading of ‘The Syrian Monologues’ by Ashtar Theatre in Hetten refugee camp, Jordan
May 28, ‘Return to Palestine‘ by The Freedom Theatre performed in Hetten refugee camp, Jordan
May 29, The Syrian Monologues by Ashtar Theatre and Return to Palestine by The Freedom Theatre performed in the National Center for Culture and Art, Amman, Jordan
May 29, ‘Return to Palestine‘ by The Freedom Theatre performed in Al Wehdat refugee camp, Jordan
