Hope for an Open Window on the World
Jasemin is sitting in a worn armchair in a plain, tiled room next to the stage of the Al-Kasaba Theatre in Ramallah. She is 22 and just began her first year at the Drama Academy Ramallah a few weeks ago. Together with two other women and nine men. Classes haven't begun yet, but everyone has already arrived.
The drama students have a loud discussion, laugh, sing. Twelve exhilarated young people full of energy and raring to go. "This Drama Academy is a real adventure for all of us", says Jasemin. If happiness were something tangible, one could reach out and touch it right here: Jasemin's face glows when she speaks.
Jasemin lives in Beit Hanina, a city district in East Jerusalem. She has to take the bus to Ramallah every day. That means waiting at the checkpoint twice a day. "Entering always goes fast", she says. "It's getting out that takes a while." Jasemin's delight at getting a place at the Drama Academy is so profound that even the thought of facing the daily ordeal at the Israeli checkpoint doesn't faze her.
Realising a lifelong dream
For George Ibrahim, opening the Drama Academy means he can finally fulfil a lifelong dream. The director of the Al-Kasaba Theatre is 64 and himself an actor and stage director. He would have appreciated access to solid training back at the beginning of his career.
"All the actors working in the West Bank today are working based primarily on their talent alone", notes Ibrahim. "I wanted this school to be available for those who will come after us. They should have what we didn't: the opportunity to study theatre from the ground up."
"Fed up with stereotypes"
Ibrahim has struggled his entire life to make art under the conditions of Israeli occupation. His art: "A Palestinian artist can of course not identify with Israeli culture and can never become a part of it", says George Ibrahim. "The Israeli theatre employs Palestinian artists as stereotypes. And Palestinian artists are fed up with it."
For many years George Ibrahim searched for partners to assist him in establishing a Palestinian drama school. He finally found them in Germany.
Johannes Klaus, director of the Bochum Drama School, a division of the Folkwang Academy, and dramatic adviser Volkmar Clauss took an interest in Ibrahim's project and helped him to develop a curriculum for the three-year bachelor's programme.
Actors, directors and university lecturers from across the West Bank and from Germany will instruct 12 students at the Ramallah academy in voice training, working with text, fencing and acrobatics. The acting theories of Konstantin Stanislavsky and Michael Checkov are also on the syllabus.
Meetings among equals
For George Ibrahim, the cooperation with his German colleagues was a valuable experience. Particularly because, as he says, it was a matter of "meetings among equals", free of any charitable overtones. "We talked about Shakespeare, Molière and Brecht, Stanislavsky and Michael Checkov. My colleagues did not come here as colonial Europeans with their prejudices against the Middle East. They simply believed in us. In us as people."
His German colleagues also helped George Ibrahim to search for sponsors. They found one in the Mercator Foundation, which is dedicated to supporting innovative educational projects. It is financing 70 percent of the school's budget, a total of 300,000 euros in the coming three years.
The founders were also able to persuade the German Foreign Office of the importance of a drama school in the Palestinian territories. It has integrated the Drama Academy Ramallah as a module in its initiative "Future for Palestine".
New prospects for everyday life
Strong winds of hope are blowing through the corridors of the Al-Kasaba Theatre these days. The hope is to develop an open window onto the world, a lively cultural scene and an occupational future in Palestine. It's not so much a matter of the "Middle East peace process" that politicians and foundations in Europe like to talk about so much – it's instead about creating new prospects for everyday life.
"We shouldn't be naive", warns George Ibrahim. "Nothing will free us from our isolation. Only politics and politicians, only the powers that be can do that. Theatre is theatre. A drama school is a drama school. It can't change the Palestinian people's reality. But it can bring forth better artists and better people, and contribute to a better understanding of theatre and of life."
Ruth Kinet
© Qantara.de 2009
Translated from the German by Jennifer Taylor
Qantara.de
Interview with Juliano Mer Khamis
"Politically-Speaking, I Am Palestinian"
Juliano Mer Khamis is an Israeli actor and director. His father was a Palestinian, his mother a Jew. Igal Avidan spoke with him about political radicalism, the traumas of Palestinian youths, about his most recent film and his "Freedom Theatre" project
Muhammad Bakri
A Palestinian's Career in Film Film
The Palestinian actor and director Muhammad Bakri is well-known internationally. This year he received a Silver Leopard for best actor at the film festival in Locarno for his role in Saverio Costanzo's film "Private." A portrait by Amin Farzanefar
Interview with Hiam Abbas
Rapprochement through Debate
Hiam Abbas was one of the Palestinian actresses who played in Steven Spielberg's film "Munich." In this interview she talks about how Palestinians and Jews worked together behind the scenes