There is power in championing the arts at times of war

Recently, I chaired an event hosted by London’s Royal Court, English PEN and Shubbak, with West Bank  theatremakers Iman Aoun, co-founder of ASHTAR Theatre in Ramallah and Marina Barham, general director of Al-Harah Theater, based in Beit Jala, alongside UK-based playwright and screenwriter Hannah Khalil, to discuss the lived realities of making theatre in Palestine now and how theatre itself can be used as a medium for dialogue and resistance.

The conversation was characterised by the irrepressible determination of these makers to keep creating; an unquestioning conviction of the power of theatre in times of crisis. Aoun spoke of ASHTAR’s The Gaza Monologues, a play composed of the voices of 33 young people from Gaza, originally written in 2010; on November 29, 2023, the International Day of Solidarity with Palestine, the play received more than 250 performances in 58 countries and 20-plus languages around the world, with further events still planned. Aoun has also just finished a run performing in Mojisola Adebayo’s play Oranges and Stones with ASHTAR, which presents a wordless, symbolic portrayal of occupation.

Meanwhile, Barham has just concluded a 20-date speaking tour, which has taken her all over the UK, talking about the work of her theatre company and particularly the power of theatre in aiding children and communities to overcome trauma, a key aspect of Al-Harah’s work. She told us of Al-Harah’s colleagues in Gaza, who have continued running drama classes for children throughout the genocide. She worried it would be too dangerous to gather the children in one place, but her colleagues advised her it would be dangerous for the children wherever they were – “at least this way, they have a chance to smile”.

Researching my book, Acts of Resistance, which focuses on the political power of the arts as a form of resistance, I looked at the story of many artists who have continued to make art in circumstances of war and oppression: in Palestine, and also in Sarajevo, Pinochet’s Chile and during the Second World War, among other examples. I was driven by the question of why, even under the most oppressive circumstances, people create art against the odds. The answer of course is – why would they not? To sing, tell stories, dance – these are all essential aspects of a full human identity, which is not lost under the hail of shellfire, however much those pulling the trigger might seek to deny it.

‘Art under siege is a particularly potent form of resistance: an insistence on vivacity, the intent to go on living’

Understood like this, art under siege is a particularly potent form of resistance: an insistence on vivacity, the intent to go on living. It is an assertion of humanity – the humanity that is so gravely under attack right now in Palestine. This underlines the huge power of giving a platform to Palestinian artists now, and the grave implications of silencing them.

We need to hear about the horror of what Palestinians have lived through – over the past 10 months and the past eight decades – and we also need to hear about their passions, ordinary struggles, poetry, jokes, folk tales; all the narrative threads that make up a rich life. Sharing humanising stories through art is a vital counter-genocidal act. Aoun spoke urgently at our event on the importance to Palestinians of international acts of creative solidarity. Those who stand up for what is right, she said, gain three things: our humanity, our dignity, and – potentially, if we work together – a better future.

So it has been a potent kind of shame, in recent months, to belong to a culture sector that has at times seen fit to cancel Palestinian artists’ events; irreconcilable with what I consider art’s first duty – to protect the dissemination of truth, even when it is difficult. Yet there are also many venues that have given a platform to Palestinian voices – the Arcola, the Bush, the Royal Court Theatre, Theatro Technis and Liverpool’s Unity Theatre among them. What they are surely discovering is that the significant majority of the British public is in support of the Palestinian cause: a recent YouGov poll found that 73% supports an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Every event I have attended has been packed out.

Alas, the Free Gaza Circus center stopped performing last week. It shared that, finally, the conditions have become unendurable, due to the spread of epidemics including skin diseases, hepatitis and polio. With news of Israel’s assassination of Hamas’ political leader Ismail Haniyeh making a permanent ceasefire an ever more distant hope, the theatremakers of Palestine urgently need their international colleagues to stand for them, and demand justice.

Acts of Resistance is available here and is published by Footnote Press