{"id":48965,"date":"2015-04-10T16:11:17","date_gmt":"2015-04-10T13:11:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thefreedomtheatre.org\/?p=48965"},"modified":"2015-04-10T16:11:17","modified_gmt":"2015-04-10T13:11:17","slug":"the-siege-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thefreedomtheatre.org\/ar\/2015\/04\/the-siege-tour\/","title":{"rendered":"The Siege – West Bank and UK tour April-June 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nApril 2002.\u00a0Spring in Bethlehem. A group of armed men seek\u00a0sanctuary in one of the world\u2019s holiest sites as the Israeli army closes in with helicopters, tanks and snipers. Along with the fighters are some 200 priests, nuns and civilians. The siege\u00a0lasts for 39 days, paralysing the center of Bethlehem and keeping tens of thousands under\u00a0curfew. Inside the Church of Nativity the besieged are hungry and weakening. The smell of unwashed bodies and broken lavatories is mixed with the stench from the suppurating wounds of the injured. Two dead bodies are decomposing in a cave\u00a0below the church. While the world is watching, the fighters are faced with the question of whether to struggle to the end or to\u00a0surrender.\u00a0No matter what they choose, they will have to leave their families and their homeland behind forever.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The Freedom Theatre proudly\u00a0presents a brand new production, The Siege<\/em><\/a>, based on the 2002 events in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, that played out parallell to the invasion of Jenin Refugee Camp and made headlines worldwide.\u00a0The directors traced the fighters who are now exiled across Europe and collected their untold accounts\u00a0of an event that with time has taken on almost mythical proportions.<\/p>\n

The Siege\u00a0<\/em>premiered on April 4, a day of profound meaning for The Freedom Theatre. Read more here.<\/a>\u00a0After a series of performances in Jenin Refugee Camp and in other locations in the West Bank (find full schedule here<\/a>)\u00a0it will embark on The Freedom Theatre’s first-ever tour of the UK. Read more<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The<\/em> Siege\u00a0<\/em>will be the biggest touring production ever performed in the UK by a Palestinian theatre company. By touring The Freedom Theatre’s work to the UK for the first time, we aim to introduce emerging Palestinian artists and to raise awareness about the Cultural Resistance that is the core of The Freedom Theatre’s work.<\/p>\n

The tour is organised by The Friends of The Freedom Theatre UK<\/a>, a network of over 300 people in Britain who are engaged in the theatre\u2019s activities.<\/p>\n

Read more about The Siege<\/em> and\u00a0support the UK tour!<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Siege<\/em>\u00a0is directed by Palestinian theatre director Nabil Al-Raee and British theatre director Zoe Lafferty, who previously collaborated on Sho Kman?, <\/em>a critically acclaimed production that opened in Jenin and went on to tour to Germany, Switzerland and Austria. \u00a0The piece is\u00a0developed and devised by The Freedom Theatre actors, a unique ensemble who use culture as a form of resistance and who have lived under occupation their whole lives.<\/p>\n

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April 2002.\u00a0Spring in Bethlehem. A group of armed men seek\u00a0sanctuary in one of the world\u2019s holiest sites as the Israeli army closes in with helicopters, tanks and snipers. Along with the fighters are some 200 priests, nuns and civilians. The siege\u00a0lasts for 39 days, paralysing the center of Bethlehem and keeping tens of thousands under\u00a0curfew. […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50182,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-theatre-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefreedomtheatre.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefreedomtheatre.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefreedomtheatre.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefreedomtheatre.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefreedomtheatre.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thefreedomtheatre.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefreedomtheatre.org\/ar\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefreedomtheatre.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefreedomtheatre.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefreedomtheatre.org\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}