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Theatre in Jordan sparks tears and joy
Several people in the audience began to cry when the young participants in a theatre project in one of Jordan's refugee camps gave a selected audience a preview on their show. The project is – among other Danish organizations – facilitated by MS ActionAid Denmark.
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In the first weeks of August, approximately 80 youngsters from Jordan have been trained in using theatre, dance, rap, stand-up comedy and tv and radio productions as a tool for telling the surrounding society about their lives and problems.
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13. August 2009
Her scream sounds louder than the sound of a freight train clamping the brakes on steel rails. But 22 year old Suhair Abu Aljna's scream does not come from the cold steel of a train. No, it comes from the sorrow and anger connected to the memory of a father, who died way too young.
”Why did you leave me?”, the young, Palestinian girl shouts with tears in her eyes as she bangs her fists against the concrete wall.
When Suhair's story ends a few minutes later, the applause roars like a thunderstorm on the little improvised stage in the Palestinian refugee camp in the Jordanian city of Zarqa. Several people among the audience – both young and old – cry openly.
Young people tell their story
Suhair's story was a small sample of the performance that approximately eighty young people will show the Jordanian public in just a few months – organized by the theater group, C:NTACT, from the Danish Betty Nansen Theater, and the Jordanian Community Development Committe (CDC). The project is supported by MS ActionAid Denmark and Danish Center for Culture and Development (DCCD).
The main part of the young people – all between 15 and 25 years old - participating in the project, come from the Zarqa governorate, where MS ActionAid Denmark is working with local youth in order to strengthen their ability to engage more proactively in their community. Other participants come from the Palestinian refugee camp in Zarqa and a number of the other refugee camps in Jordan, while approximately ten of them are refugees from the war in Iraq. The common denominator of them all is that they – as so many other youngsters in Jordan and the Middle East – only rarely get the chance to tell the world around them about the problems they face in everyday life.
The idea behind the project is, therefore, that professional artists help the young people to communicate their stories by using artistic means. The show includes both theater, dance, rap and stand-up comedy, which have been supervised by Jordanian artists working with the participants in workshops. In addition, two other workshops are concentrating on producing radio and television about young people's personal stories. The productions will later be aired in both Denmark and Jordan.
“I love it”
Both the Danes and the Jordanians responsible for the project emphasized that it is the young people themselves who decide what the overall theme of the shows should be, and what kind of stories they want to tell. Therefore, the task of the professional artists is mainly to give the participants the artistic tools to communicate their stories in the best possible way by themselves.
For the young participants, who are used to always being told by adults what to do, this is a whole new experience.
“It is so good! The teachers are nice to us, they are just like brothers. I love it”, says 16 year old Safe Eblaui, who participates in the workshop for rap music.
18 year old Ismael Rock, who participates in the rap workshop as well, is also thrilled: ”Now I know how to write about myself, my society and my problems much better.
Ismael has been writing rap songs before, but now he feels, he knows much more about rap than ever. He will therefore continue writing rap music after the show is over.
”I like to rap, because I can write about myself, and no one can tell me 'why do you write this?'”.
Theatre in all of Jordan
According to the project plan the first show is going to be in November 2009. This show will only include theatre, while a much bigger show, including dance, theater, rap and stand-up comedy, will be launched in January 2010.
Soon after the theatre show in november the young actors will tour around Jordan with their performance. In the future it's the plan that this show will also tour other countries in the Middle East.
For more information, please contact Mettine Due, MS, at mdu@ms.dk or Morten Poulsen, DCCD, at mgp@dccd.dk
