Palestine
The Freedom Theatre
The Freedom Theatre (Arabic: مسرح الحرية) is a Palestinian community-based theatre and cultural center in the Jenin refugee camp, in Jenin, in the northern part of the West Bank, Palestine. Established in 2006, the theatre aims to generate cultural resistance through the fields of popular culture and art as a catalyst for social change in the occupied Palestinian territories. The theatre's goals are to "develop a vibrant and creative artistic community [that] empowers children and young adults to express themselves freely and equally through art [while] emphasizing professionalism and innovation." The theatre teaches courses in film, photography, creative writing, and theatre.
Origins
The theatre was inspired by Care and Learning, a project established during the First Intifada in response to the chronic fear, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder experienced by children in the Jenin refugee camp as a result of the violence of the uprising.
"We are not trying to heal their violence. We try to challenge it into more productive ways. And more productive ways are not an alternative to resistance. What we are doing in the theatre is not trying to be a replacement or an alternative to the resistance of the Palestinians in the struggle for liberation, just the opposite. This must be clear." Juliano Mer Khamis, former director of the theatre. Killed in 2011 on productive resistance.
Challenges
The 2023 IDF raid that resulted in the arrest of staff members
Juliano Mer Khamis' assassination in 2011 (an unsolved crime up till today)
The theatre’s liberal and progressive approach that is seen with criticism from conservatives within the Palestinian society
Its location in a refugee camp means working people with severe psychological trauma.
Strategies
Drama therapy: The theatre uses drama, role-playing, music, dance, and art to help students express their frustrations and act out their everyday struggles. The drama therapy program includes several pedagogical approaches to applied drama including theatre of the oppressed, playback theatre, drama therapy, psychodrama, therapeutic spiral model, drama in education and sociodrama.
Producing shows: The theatre produces its own shows and participates with them in international festivals to share experiences and stories from within Palestine.
As part of the Online Atelier for Arts and Production Managers Elefsina-Beirut, The Festival Academy hold a Plenary Session on "The Role of Festivals in Dealing with Contemporary Issues".
Find here a recording of the session in which Ahmed Tobasi, director of the Freedom Theatre, talks about their work (minute 39:08):
" [...] For us in the Freedom Theater, the whole idea is about conflict, and it starts from conflict—conflict on different levels: a personal conflict, identity conflict, political conflict. And all that started from Juliano and his mother, Arna. She was an Israeli Jew; she was part of the Israeli army, she served in the Israeli army. But when she found the truth and discovered what was going on, she decided to stop serving in the army and became an activist for Palestinian rights. She got a Nobel Prize, an alternative Nobel Prize, and she opened children's houses in the camp where, during the first intifada, they closed their schools, and the children were sitting in the streets writing and reading.
In that way, I'm also trying to focus on the community and the power of the community around you. If you can win the community, then all your work will be much easier, much stronger, and more effective in different situations. In the second Intifada, most of these kids became armed resistance leaders, and most of them died. In the second Intifada, Juliano, the son of Arna, came back and made a documentary—I hope everyone can see it on YouTube—called "Arna's Children." It explains a lot about the Freedom Theater and the journey of the Freedom Theater.
When the Israelis invaded the whole West Bank, they destroyed the Stone Theater. At that time, it was called the Stone Theater because the Palestinians were fighting with stones in the second Intifada. In 2006, the people gathered together, three founders, one of them became the Al Aqsa Brigade leader in the whole West Bank and was wanted number one by the Israeli army, Zakariya Zubaidi. He believed in the role of art and culture to resist and explain our story. In the West, when people hear about a freedom fighter, they think of a man with a big beard, a big belly, four wives, and ten children. But when they meet Zakariya, they find out he's a young man who believes in culture besides the gun and resistance.
At that time, we opened the theater and used it for resistance. I, myself, was an armed resistor and have been in prison for four years. But then I lost all my friends and houses, and started to believe that there should be another way to fight. The idea is not to die; the idea is to resist and stay alive as long as you can to tell your story. "