Will McGrath is a volunteer from Kildare. He helps with our international project You Mix It project. Will is rehearsing the part of Claudius in Hamlet. This blog post was written by Will and reflects upon his time spent in Ramallah, Palestine as part of the 'Artivism' project which we took part in last summer. The project, which ran from the 1st to the 11th of July 2022 was about sharing theatre methodologies and practices through Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed.
Also included is a Photo Essay of the Artivism project. You can read more about the Artivism project on our Past Projects Archive.
July 2022 was an important time in my experience with Crooked House. From
Joining after Christmas 2021, I was still very much learning the ins and outs of
this beautiful establishment. In July we took part in an Erasmus+ funded project
bringing together young people from Ashtar Theatre, Palestine with our own
young people. It took place in Ramallah.
We departed Ireland on the 1st of July en route to accept the invitation from
Ashtar Theatre in Ramallah, Palestine. As bright eyed as I was going out there,
my eyes were really opened when I arrived. We were greeted by Iman, our host
in Ramallah, and after getting settled into our lodgings, A Christian-run
Vocational School, and having some food, we settled into our first night. The next
day we would get to know the other delegations from Sweden, Romania and the
UK. We awoke on our first day and were given a brief tour of Ramallah, the
highlight of which was Yasser Arafat’s Mausoleum. Amongst the things we saw
there were his grave, his famous Keffiyeh and his Nobel Peace Prize. Dinner that
night, for me personally, was another highlight: the chefs in the kitchen made four
types of hummus, which were displayed as the Palestinian flag!
Every day we had workshops and discussion groups where we explored ideas to
do with freedom. We learned from each other an immense amount, especially
about the different conditions experienced by young people in all of our
countries.
We got a tour of Ashtar Theatre and saw a production by Rasseel Theatre from
the Palestinian city of Nablus. We then went to a beautiful outdoor venue, behind
the Municipality Theatre to watch a show called The Elephant by the Freedom
Theatre from Jenin Refugee Camp (based in the northern part of the West Bank.)
This was one of my favourite performances. The show was about a dictator's
problematic elephant! The eruptions of laughter from the hundreds of people
lining the streets watching was music to my ears! We then rounded the day off
by watching our UK representatives, Mandala Theatre, do a show called
Rhinoceros in the beautiful Ramallah Municipality Theatre. This was lovely to
watch, as our colleagues from all different backgrounds in the UK, had the largest
delegation brought to Ramallah. The show was in English too, which served as a
welcome break to those that didn’t speak Arabic!
10.00am the next morning (Tuesday) we went to the Sakini Cultural Center for a
conference on Freedom of Expression. This was very informative, and
interesting. We had guest speakers, including our dearly loved Peter Hussey
(Ireland), Ioana Paum (Romania) Aisha Zia (UK), Iman Aoun (Palestine) amongst
others, speaking on a wide range of topics based around freedom of expression
and youth theatre. Topics included Policies (Law, Intellectual Property), Art and
Media (Methods and Approaches), Social Issues (Gender, Minority, Racism) and,
of course, Politics (Censorship, Occupation). We went to watch A Fate of a
Cockroach performed by the extremely talented Saraya Theatre from Jafa,
staged in Ashtar Theatre, a beautiful place on top of a hill in Ramallah that can
lend the spectator a breath-taking view for miles upon miles over the ancient
and historic landscape. The lights of Tel Aviv can even be seen in the distance in
the evening. We retired that night early, we were still acclimatising to the heat at
that stage, and had a full schedule to maintain at the halfway point.
We went and explored Ramallah the next morning, I went on a beautiful tour of
the Old City and tried a delicacy known to the fortunate as Kunefe. With my taste
buds still alight with yumminess, we went back to the Municipality to watch a
one man piece devised in lockdown by one of our hosts, Emile Saba, called 2077:
Who Wants to Survive. It was a brilliant piece.
In Crooked House we prepared a piece about freedom that we brought there. We
had been working on a piece devised from a poem called The Colonel by
Caroline Forche and Macbeth, we called it Adúntas. We performed to the crowd
in Ashtar Theatre and it was a fantastic success. We also saw a documentary
Sending Art to Gaza by the Romanian/British/Pakistani delegation. Meetoo, a
sweet, powerful and potent piece by our Swedish counterparts Teater Agrell.
Rounding off the day we went to the heart of Ramallah, Kasaba Theatre to see
Dead Body on the Sidewalk by Al-Mehbash Theatre.
The next day, we divided into new groups and had different workshops on
movement, dance and my personal favourite, Puppetry. We had the brilliant
Smoking Apples giving a masterclass on this ageless expression of theatre,
everything from creating the puppet, how to bring it to life, and even
constructing it. We had a tour the next day of Jerusalem, meeting at the gates of
Damascus, we were shown around the various worship sites by the British
Council Representatives, and brought to a wonderful café where we had
lunchtime tea on a rooftop that could see the whole of Jerusalem in a panoramic
view! It was also an amazing sound, hearing the bells of Jerusalem at the chime of
6pm. I was touched by the sheer talent, sweetness and heart of the people of
Palestine… would I go back there? Absolutely: Yellah Yellah!
William McGrath