...is it's photogenic.

Some photos from my workshop!

...is you can't be afraid to see shit in the street.

It all started between Haifa and Jenin.

I can’t be sure, as my vantage point wasn’t fantastic--I crouched a few meters away from the group, trying for an artistic low-angle shot of the activity with my video camera. Ben was in the thick of it, standing in our Scarf Map of Palestine alongside the students.

“I’m curious,” he says. “Where in Palestine are you from?”

It’s our second day with this new group. We spent yesterday creating fluid sculptures and short improvised stories, and today we’re hoping to give some context to the Playback Theatre project as a whole.

Together, the students created a map of Palestine on the floor using materials from the rehearsal room. Scarves are stretched out to form the borders and walls. Drums and whistles mark cities.

Now the guys huddle around their respective cities of origin--one on Haifa, the other four in Jenin. Ben asks them where their parents were born, and their great-grandparents, and where they’d like to live. They relocate on the map (or relative to it) according to their answers.

I love this activity, and I think Ben facilitates it brilliantly. I watched him offer it for the first time last week, and was happy to see him use it again. I grabbed the video camera to document.

But something’s different today. The boys shuffle and mumble in Arabic, speaking all at once and seeming disconnected from the activity. Several times Ben asks them to listen as their classmate speaks.

“Please,” he says. They become quiet. “It gets very boring to keep repeating, listen, listen. As a teacher, I feel bored doing it.” Ben affects a wilting flower on the word bored, and some folks laugh.

But the instant we return to the activity, everyone is talking at once, laughing amongst one another to the near complete disregard of Ben and the scarf map beneath them.

“Alright,” Ben calls over the din. He walks away from Floor-Haifa to retrieve the ball from last week’s process. “Whoever holds the ball can speak, one at a time.” The room becomes still, and I sense a shift. I click the camera off.

~ ~ ~

“I wonder,” Ben says as I approach the group. “I wonder how many of you think you might one day give a theatre workshop. Raise your hand if you think you might be the teacher in a theatre school or in the community someday.”

Almost everyone raises their hand.

“What would you do if you were leading an exercise, and the students all started talking at once?”

And, as if on cue, they all respond at once.

“Here,” he says. “This is the place of the teacher.” He makes a sturdy, grounded stance somewhere north of Jenin. “Do any of you have an idea? What would you do?”

He tosses the ball to one of the students, who replaces Ben at the head of the map. He speaks rapidly in Arabic, pantomiming a broad backhand sweep with one hand. The guys all laugh.

“He says that he would slap him,” says Re’wa.

“So, you would slap the students who talk.” Ben clarifies. Yes, he would. More laughter.

“Okay. What else? Any other ideas?”

Saber takes the ball and speaks in his characteristic broad way, nodding and drawing circles in the air. After a minute in Arabic, he translates for himself.

“I would let the student do what he wanted. If the student does not want to do something, then as a teacher I would move to do something more.”

I feel a little sheepish, and take it personally. They didn’t want to play our games, we’re boring.

But Ben’s beyond it. “Alright, but what if the students keep talking, even after you’ve changed the activity a dozen times, they just don’t like anything you’re doing. What would you do then?”

Saber thinks about it. “I don’t know,” he says. “If a student doesn’t enjoy it, then why are we doing it?”

A good question, I think.

Another student begins to speak.

“Ah, the ball, please.” Saber lobs the ball to Mutaz.

“Here is my question,” he says. “What is the purpose of all this? We have foreigners coming, many foreigners to do the same exercise all of the time and I want to learn Playback Theatre. What is the purpose of this?”

Another student grabs the ball.

“Why so long, also? We have one half-hour break from early early until four, all the time we are doing Playback Theatre--why? I go to school for 12 years, every day waking up early to go to school and come back and it’s shit, I don’t want to feel like this at the Freedom Theatre.”

Ben requests the ball and speaks.

“I’m hearing that, for some of you, this reminds you of going to school and you don’t like that memory.” Ben grabs a woodblock from the panoply of objects at his feet, walks a few meters away, and places it on the floor.

“Everyone who is reminded of school by this activity, and doesn’t like it, please stand over here.”

Mutaz considers, then crosses to join him. I reflect on my feeling of boredom from earlier in the morning, my frustration with learning the new forms of Playback, and decide to join Mutaz in the spirit of honesty.

My internal monologue becomes nasty. Asshole, it says. Who are you to criticize Ben’s work? What the crap would you do instead? I look at my feet.

Undaunted as ever, Ben continues. “Okay, so not many of you, alright.” Anas requests the ball.

“Have we frustrated you? We like the class, really, and I hope we haven’t frustrated you.”

Ben tangos. “Thank you, Anas, for your thought, but I’d like to understand what we can do to make this situation more enjoyable for everyone. Because I respect you all as adults.”

“Of course, of course,” says Saber. He reaches for the ball. “Can I say something?” The class becomes quiet.

“Ben, I want to say, we come back from Germany weeks ago, where we are performing everyday, everyday, and go out at night and party and having fun, and now we’re in Jenin and there’s shit on the street and the people in the camp with no hope, and it’s shit, yes. I feel it is shit.”

Something stirs in me as Saber speaks. I feel the last few months have been similar for me in a personal way; I feel I’ve come home, into my body, and seen a lot of psychological shit in the streets.

“And now you’re in Jenin, and doing activities all day and you want to perform, that’s how you’re feeling?”

“Yes,” says Saber. There’s fire in his eyes. “Yes that’s how I’m feeling.”

His classmates agree. They’ve just returned from a month-long tour of Europe, where they performed and spoke about Palestine. They are loathe to be back, and bursting with stories about their trip at every moment--over their cigarettes, during the workshop, at lunch.

“Thank you for sharing,” says Ben. “This is helping me understand what we can do.”

The guys want a cigarette break, so we take one. As they file out into the courtyard, I look over the forgotten Map of Palestine on the floor. Popular education, I think. Not particularly conducive to activity agendas.

~ ~ ~

After everyone leaves the room, Ben asks me what I think about the conversation.

“It makes sense to me,” he says. “Of course they’re feeling frustrated with the activities; we haven’t really given them any context for it, any idea of what a Playback performance might look like.”

When we return, Ben asks them if they think today’s discussion has been productive. Saber doesn’t.

“I want to learn about Playback theatre,” he says. “Not talk.”

“Well, this process right now,” says Ben. “You’re learning about Playback--how to listen to a community.”

Saber throws two hands up in front of himself,  alright, alright. “It is new for me, so okay. I believe you.”

Ben continues to explain the projected schedule for the project--how they will have a few months to rehearse, how a typical performance might be conducted, which communities they could potentially visit to perform for. They nod, beginning to see the structure, relieved to have reason for the voice and movement exercises.

“I have a last question,” asks Ben. “About the conversation we’ve just had. If we had just come in, Christine and I, and buldozed through you guys, ‘no, these are the exercises and we’re gonna do it whether you want to or not,’ how would you have felt?”

Mutaz takes the ball. “Like bullshit, this is bullshit.”

“Like this is bullshit,” Ben echoes.

“I would have left,” says Mutaz.

“Thank you all for being honest, it’s helped me figure out how we can continue working together.”

“No, thank you, thank you,” Ala' says. “This is a conversation very needed.”

“Returning to the map,” says Ben. We glide back to the scarves. “Where do you think there are stories that need to be heard?”

Most of the boys huddle up on Jenin. A few stand in Gaza. One at a time, they share their feelings on what kind of stories should be performed at a Playback show.

“For women, in my villiage, many times are killed because of who they love. Or with rumors. This is the wrong way to use religion, I think. It’s the wrong way.”

“So, women’s stories,” says Ben. “Who else?”

In general, the boys seem most concerned with women’s rights. One of them mentions the desire to share their stories, after having traveled to Europe. “People don’t understand what we do here, at the theatre. They should know, in the camp. They don’t trust us, or know what we are doing is good.”

One of the guys mentions problems about homophobia.

“How many of you think it’s difficult being gay in Palestine?” Ben asks. Without snickering or mocking one another, each boy raises his hand. A silent, mature consensus on an incredibly potent taboo. I feel moved.

“Thank you for today,” Ben says at the close of the activity. The guys echo his thanks. We discuss minutia--housekeeping details about next week’s schedule--before closing.

I begin to collect Palestine from the floor as everyone leaves. I ball up scarves and put each instrument back into the music bag. Somewhere in the south, near Gaza, is my video camera. I pocket it, smiling to think that I captured everything but the most important moments of the day. Ben and I snap off the lights, and close the door behind us as we leave.

...is the kids are so sweet.

Every Friday, kids (more than 100 of them) swarm to the theatre to watch a movie projected onto the big screen in the main theater space. They begin to arrive almost an hour in advance. You can hear Micaela, a movement instructor at the theatre, ask them in Arabic, "Who wants to be an artist?" and they all reply "Me! Me! Me!" Some of the graduated students entertain them with a paper puppet...

...and make it dance!

:)

...is it calls to you.

The view from my window. You can hear the call to prayer in the background from the mosque.

...is it sends in the clowns.

Kamal

“Ya le, ya le!”

Kamal makes a windmill circle with his arm towards the door. Let’s go!

“Alright, ya le.” It’s about a quarter past five. The final Playback Theatre workshop ended fifteen minutes ago, and Kamal has invited Ben and I to eat with his fmaily at their home in the camp.

We say our goodbyes to the folks still working after-hours at the theatre, and follow Kamal into the street.

Kamal is the oldest student in our class--23. Today he’s wearing heavy black shoes, combat-style olive pants and a snug black sweater.

From the main road, he leads us off into the refugee camp. The streets are narrow here--some more passageways than streets--and they wind between tall white buildings. We pass men in lawn chairs, gathered in the light of an open door, smoking cigarettes. Children gape as we pass. “What is your name?” they call in starched, awkward English.

Kamal guides us through the labrynth to his home.

We remove our shoes at the door. “Bil arabi,” asks Ben, “dheki, ‘house’?”

“House?” Kamal throws two arms over his head into the shape of a pointed roof for clarification.

“Beit!”

“Beit!” We repeat. I throw my arms into a roof in solidarity.

“Yes! Beit.” Kamal opens to door to his beit and we follow him in.

~ ~ ~

The front room is a small, mostly unfurnished square. There’s a single flourescent light against one wall and a few framed photos on the other. The perimeter is lined with long cushions in leiu of sofas or chairs.

Across the room from Ben and I, leaning against a door frame and staring at the floor, is Kamal’s father. He is balding, blind and brain damaged. He looks up in our direction as we enter.

Kamal’s father lost his eyesight and ability to speak after receiving a brutal blow to the back of his head from an Israeli soldier. He was then imprisoned for 3 months, and emerged irrevocably damaged.

Kamal speaks to him, introducing first Ben, then me. We shake his hand in turn. Throughout the night he hovers, wraithlike, silent, shuffling barefoot between the cushion and the door frame as his family eats and entertains us.

After our introduction, Kamal gestures for us to sit.

“Please!” He extends an arm, grins, and bows deeply. His limited English is augmented by incredible charm and aptitude for pantomime. Ben and I sit. He disappears into an anteroom.

We are barely seated before the room is filled with Kamal’s siblings. His youngest sister stares at me through big brown eyes.

“Shoo ismik?” I ask her. What is your name? She is maybe six years old.

“Eeli!”

The front door becomes clogged with Kamal’s brothers and friends from the theatre.

Marhaba, marhaba, hello’s all around.

Then Kamal’s mother emerges in a long dress and hijab. I stand to greet her.

All warmth and smiles, she shakes our hands and welcomes us to her home.

“Eeli!” She says. Some Arabic instructions follow, dinner-related I assume. Eeli and her siblings disperse through different doors--some out to errands in the city, some into the kitchen. Kamal’s mother busies herself peeling potatoes, seated on the floor across from the television. The program features traditionally dressed Palestinian women dancing in lines to lively music. When the phone rings, she improvises a hands-free method by propping it against her ear inside the hijab and chatting amiably as she continues with the potatoes.

The night unfolds, colored with unexpected delight. Kamal shares photos and videos with us from their family desktop computer in the back room. He explains them alternately with intense sherrades and Google translate.

There’s a bustle from the living room. Kamal’s mother calls. It’s time to eat.

~ ~ ~

Everyone sits in a circle, picnic-style, around the food. There is soup, falafel, garnishes of pickled veggies and radishes, fried potatoes and of course, hummus. Kamal’s mother passes me a stack of warm pita.

“Cooli!” Eat! We eat.

Throughout dinner, the game of sherades continues as we teach each other how to say tomato, olive oil, water. Kamal’s father has crouched down and inched towards the blanket, where he now sits, rocking gently, tearing off bits of pita and eating them. Pop music floats in from another room--Arabic pop, mixed with Rhianna and Enrique Iglesias.

Kamal’s mother asks us if Kamal is a good actor.

“Hm... ana ma baerif...” I don’t know... Kamal strikes a crestfallen pose.

“Le, le, no, inte bhkeir, you’re good.” I say. “Funny.” They don’t know the word.

Kamal gestures to himself. “Me.” He begins a dumb show, opening his fingers to jazz hands, tracing a wide smile across his face.

“Happy?” Ben ventures.

No. The show continues. He looks to has family for help. Then: inspiration. He grabs his box of cigarettes and tears a round piece of the lid off. It’s red. He moulds it with his hands and puts it over his nose.

“Ah, clown!” Ben and I say together.

“Clown! Yes! Me--clown.”

It’s true. Kamal has a gift for giving joy to those around him. “If you spoke Arabic,” the translator told me earlier in the day. “He would make you laugh all the time.” His quick wit leaves his classmates in stitches when we play improvisation games.

The rest of the night I float from the back room to the front, my mind busy snapping images of all the beauty around me. I lent Eeli my notebook and she covered it with drawings of playground equipment. Kamal’s brother taught Ben the beginnings of a traditional Palestinian dance, and the three of them bounced into the living room together, arms interlocked, feet tapping in wide, sweeping strokes.

~ ~ ~

At the end of the night, Kamal walks us back through the camp to the theater.

“Stay!” said his brother. “You can sleep here.” We decline but thank him for the generous offer. I finish what’s left of my second cup of black Arabic coffee, leaving the muddy pile of grounds in the bottom, and follow Kamal into the night.

At a junction in passageways, Kamal stops.

“Here,” he says. “Apache...”

“Helicopter,” says Ben.

“Yes! My friend...”

We realize what he’s saying in a clap of surprise.

“Right here, your friend died?” Ben asks.

“Yes! Here.”

We regard the patch of earth. I look up into the sky, and imagine a low-flying helicopter, it’s blades stirring up cacophonous wind. Terror as I dart for cover. The sound of gunfire. I imagine how many times Kamal walks through this street, past innumerable sites of violence, everyday as he goes to and from the theater.

We continue on in silence.

When we get to the theater, Kamal bows deeply, here you are.

“Shukran ekhtier,” thank you very much, I say.

“Afowan.” You’re welcome. He smiles through mischievous amber eyes. “Goodnight.” He puts two hands in his pockets and walks away.

Ben and I don’t speak for a stretch. When we get to the stairs, he says, “What a beautiful night. What a blessing.”

“Yes.”

We climb the stairs up to our guesthouse and our beds. I dream about death, and Palestine, and realizing things, until the mosque wakes me with a jolt at four. I sit up in bed, head still thick with dreams, listening, listening.

...is you're welcome to it.

Ben and I arrived in Jenin about three hours ago. We breezed through the checkpoint at Jalame. The Israeli official glanced at our passports, verified our names, and let us through. As Ben wheeled his bag past the queue and into the camp, someone called to us.

"Welcome to Palestine."

...is it crosses borders.

Hey y'all!

Crossing through the checkpoint today for Jenin. Ben and I have packed a bag of kitchen stuff--utensils, pots and pans, oatmeal and tea. The guest house we'll be staying in is above the Freedom Theater. "It's spare," Ben told me.

Our schedule looks full and exciting. On Friday, we're slated to give our first five-day workshop. Ben will be introducing everyone to Playback Theater. I'm pumped!

We're leaving for the bus in about ten minutes. :)

Love!

--

Also: here's an editted-down version of the video we made for another group we worked with in Belfast. These kids were older teens--about 13-15--who had been excluded or expelled from traditional school for a variety of reasons. They were self-conscious at first, but after three weeks, they really opened up and I had a great time playing and learning with them.