Nemashim is a two-track program
for young adults in Israel:
the first “track” consists of monthly workshops in theater conducted by
facilitators Shadi Fakhr Al-Din and UriShani
in Arabic and Hebrew.Over the course of
the past six months Nemashim’s participants have experienced workshops in many
kinds of theater, including working with masks, Playback theater, “Unseen”
guerilla theater, scenework and monologues.This, our final workshop, focused on music, movement, and politics.Five to six of the participants will be invited to live in our Commune
in Haifa for
Nemashim’s “second track,” a year of community service, study and performance.
***
Thursday, March 9, 2006
Musical Interlude
Late arrivals from the north of Israel
to Nemashim’s fifth and final workshop for the 2005-2006 class walked in on a
musical cacophony of guitar and percussion—the participants had improvised a
musical crescendo to start the session.After a brief opening discussion circle, each participant was given the
opportunity to share a piece of recorded music and explain why it spoke to
them.
Some participants shared a very
personal piece of music; Yosi brought a recording that he himself arranged and
performed.Ahmad
presented a motivational piece of music that had both western and eastern
influences; it reminded some participants of the Klezmer music Or shared later
on.Of Klezmer, Or noted that it has the
ability to both be incredibly sad and uplifting at the same time, reminiscent
of the Arabic saying “shir al-baliyya ma-yudhak,” “it is the core of
tragedy that must make us laugh.”
Participants presented Israeli
hip-hop, American 70’s jazz, Mendelssohn, music from
Titanic, Indian choral music, techno, Arabic popular music and Israeli
children’s music—the last had most of the Jewish participants singing along to “Adon
shoko,” “Mr.Chocolate.”Many brought songs that had a personal
resonance for them, and in the discussion following Shadi noted that it is
important when choosing music for a theatrical performance to investigate
whether it has the same connotation for everyone else.Although the participants have come to know
each other well, music selection belied differences in cultural capital.Uri smiled as he told the participants that
“no one surprised me—I understood exactly what each of you was trying to say
and I could connect with your personalities.It is so perfectly ‘you.’”He
sent everyone to bed with the happy observation that despite differences in
personal taste everyone gets along.
Friday, March 10, 2006
Sound and Commotion
The following morning heralded a
meeting of the old and the new.Afek, Michael and Hila, three members of this years
Nemashim Commune, arrived just in time for Muhammed al-Mughrabi’s energetic
warm-up.Uri engaged all of the young
people in a simple drill “walking and stopping,” a modified version of the
Perspectives theater exercises (you can see a short
video-clip about it.).Uri observed
that while the drill’s instructions are simple, the actors must learn how to
give up their own ideas and intentions and put themselves in a space of pure
reaction.Following this opening
exercise, the workshop participants and commune members paired up for contact
improvisation in pairs and foursomes.(two videos: back-to-back
and contact [three
hours after I uploaded this clip, I already got a very positive reaction to
this clip!! It really worth a look!! U.S].)
After warming up, Uri and Shadi
asked the participants to volunteer to be in a three-person “band” that played
music to inspire, and react to, short scenes.Afek’s guitar playing was much appreciated (a video example) ; Or’s
clarinet solos, true to Klezmer style, inspired both sad and celebratory
moments onstage(a video example).A short movement exchange between Michael and Or, who did not know each other, was
particularly successful. (another
video example).In the final scene,
the participants improvised a military exercise in which Khaled was the sole
misbehaving actor; eventually the rest of the actors formed a group and began
chasing after him. (video)
In the processing session that
followed, Uri asked Khaled how it felt to be the Arab that all the Jews were
chasing after.“I didn’t take it that
way,” replied Khaled, “I was just a participant like everyone else.”Hila described the experience as “surreal,”
while Ahmad found it challenging to
play music, that “it isn’t my place.”Zohar noted that the music “is freeing—it gives you all the ‘givens’ you
need to make a scene and react.”Shadi
said that he noticed “a freedom of expression that I hadn’t seen from the
workshop participants before.”
A White Ballot is a White
Flag
The workshop moved quickly from
music to politics.Uri and Shadi
presented the participants and the commune members with a selection of words
(religious, secular, right-wing, left-wing, traditional, democrat, Palestinian,
Jew, man, woman, Arab) and asked participants to pick one that most clearly
described their identity and explain why.Many participants expressed frustration with the exercise and did not
want to define themselves so rigidly.Participants then had to pick the thing that was furthest from their
identity.
Ahmad
identified as Palestinian, saying that there was something that differentiated
Palestinians from other Arabs because it was an identity and a nation that some
people refused to recognize.Or chose
“leftist” because he prefers to be defined by something he can choose to be; he
said that he believes all people are equal and this is a leftist value.He also noted that “since everyone in my
immediate environment is Jewish and Israeli it doesn’t move me, it’s not
something I have to fight for.”Yosi
also chose “leftist” though he noted that “secular” would also be appropriate
since he made a personal choice to stop being religious.Noam
picked “leftist” because the movement put people in the center (ha’adam
bamerkaz) which is also the slogan of the Meretz party.The right, he noted, always put something
else as the focus, i.e. nation or God.
Hila, Afek, Zohar, Renana and Daniel all chose “woman” but each had a very unique
justification.Hila said that “I was
born this way,” but Afek differed, saying that “being a woman is not an anatomical
distinction, it is a choice.It is a
societal definition, and every person has elements of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ within
them.”Zohar said that she had just
recently begun to identify with womanhood, particularly by seeing menstruation
as something “right, a cleaning of the body, a gift and ability” rather than
something to be ashamed of and hide.Renana agreed with Afek about the difference between “female” and
“woman” and said that being a woman for her was “a way of thinking and
behaving.”She said she didn’t always
agree with the feminist call for “equality” and preferred to see the uniqueness
of being a woman.
Muhammad
said that for him the term “Arab” represented something special whereas “I
already know that I am a man.”Fatina
also chose “Arab” and distinguished that she was choosing Arabia,
the feminine term.“Everything about
me is Arab, my beauty is Arabic beauty, people see that I am Arab.I used to define myself as Palestinian-Arab,
but now I say Israeli-Arab, that is my citizenship.”Part of the exercise asks participants to try
to find themselves in the other; to this end, Uri asked Fatina if she could
define herself as “a Jewish Arab.” She laughed.“Of course not.You’re either
Arab or Jewish.”
Michael
picked “man” simply because “this is the one thing I am sure of what it
signifies.”Khaled picked “secular, not
because I don’t consider myself Palestinian or Arab, and not because I am
against religion, but I am against the fundamentalists.I believe God is present inside of me.”He also said that “being Arab isn’t the best
thing, but there is nothing better than being Arab.”
Uri was frustrated with the
participants’ reluctance to define themselves, urging them to think deeply
about what it means to take on or refuse an identity.Khaled said, “I would choose to define myself
as hungry!” reminding everyone that it was lunch time.
After lunch politics were put on
hold so participants could hear about the experience of living and working in
the Commune.Hila, Afek and Michael described their individual and group
endeavors.Afek urged the Palestinians
to consider joining, saying, “we pioneered the Commune, but it is very
important that there be Arabs in the program.”In leaving, the threesome welcomed everyone to visit them in Neve Yosef.
Nemashim once more returned to a
discussion of politics in general and identity in particular.Khaled asked Fatina why she no longer
identifies as “Palestinian,” reminding her that nationality is different than
citizenship.She conceded that she was
Palestinian by nationality and Israeli by citizenship.Next, each person chose a term that was
furthest from them. Renana chose Palestinian, saying she does not identify with
nationalistic movements; Yosi, Zohar, and Noam chose “right-wing,” Or chose “Arab,” Ahmad and Khaled chose
“traditional,” Renana chose “Palestinian” and Fatina and Daniel chose
“religious.”
In the discussion following, Uri
asked Or that even though he feels very “left-wing,” since he chose “Arab” as
his opposite is there a tiny part of him that is scared of Arabs?Or said “Perhaps, yes” which inspired a very
interesting conversation about what it means to fear someone or something.Yosi said it was paradoxical that Jews should
fear Palestinians: “it’s like being afraid of bugs,” meaning that it is silly
to be scared of something when the balance of power favors you.Khaled said, “if you are scared of me, then
that gives me permission to be violent—it’s you or me.”Fatina added that “our culture raises us to
be afraid of no one , to stand up for what we believe—why else would our young
men come from the West Bank and carry out
suicide attacks?”Ahmad
said, “we are afraid when we don’t have backbone.”Renana noted that everyone, including her, is
a little bit racist and said that fear is self destructive in that it actually
empowers the other.
The participants discussed
racism on the street in TelAviv; Ahmad
recounted the times he was stopped and had to show his identity card.Fatina recalled the recent police killing in
Wadi ‘Ara of Nadim Milhem and how this was also racism.Zohar agreed: “during the disengagement you
can’t believe how many training courses the IDF soldiers underwent to learn how
to deal with the settlers, how to talk to them, how to be nonviolent.And it was nonviolent on their part.This proves that we have the means, but we
only care when we are talking about Jewish people.”
The discussion turned to the
upcoming elections; Uri asked each participant whether they were of voting age
and who they would (or would like to) support in the elections.Daniel
said she didn’t care about politics and was not planning to vote, prompting Uri
to ask her if she would be okay with living in a dictatorship.She conceded that no, she wouldn’t.Renana also did not want to vote because she
did not find her voice in any of the present parties and “there isn’t exactly
going to be a revolution.To pick a
party is to be part of this façade.”But Ahmad disagreed, saying
“when you don’t vote you are in effect strengthening the more extremist
parties.” (a video of parodies of election publicity for
2006)
One participant compared voting
to eating: “We don’t choose to eat—we have to go eat.And likewise we have to go vote.”
A Matter of Trust
After dinner, politics were left
behind in favor of movement and touch.After exercises in trust-falling (video example) and
trust-running, the participants paired off and led each other around the room
and the yard outside, eventually guiding each other by voice over longer and
longer distances.This was a warm-up for
statue games; with eyes closed, one person had to feel the position of the
other person and replicate it.The
participants also did this drill in foursomes and found themselves in more and
more complicated positions.
Uri then asked for a “director”
to create a two-person still scene that reflected “oppression” and one that reflected
“the ideal solution.”The “statues” then
had to improvise a scene that began with the first image and ended with the
second.Khaled and Zohar improvised a
militaristic scene (video
example); Khaled and Daniel
enacted a wife’s oppression by her husband; Fatina, Ahmad
and Or presented two hungry Palestinians and a Jewish businessman seeking cheap
labor.None of the scenes was entirely
successful, partially because the form itself was challenging but also because
participants could not imagine their ideal situations; the “ideal” was usually
cynical or partial.When Daniel, as an oppressed housewife (video clip), chose to
leave her husband, Shadi asked where she would have to go—wasn’t it more ideal
that they work things out as a couple?Uri noted that oftentimes a woman leaving home encounters hardship, and
we should use our artistic license to work out a more lasting solution.
March 11, 2006
Don’t Believe Everything You
Read
The final day of the workshop
began with “Theater of the Newspaper.”Uri instructed each group of participants to pick an article from the
newspaper and present it as a scene, emphasizing the disparity between the
written word and reality. Since the newspapers were all in Arabic, it was up to
the Palestinian participants to translate for their peers.
Daniel,
Ahmad and Zohar presented a
scene/article about violence in the Arab schools; in their version, Zohar
played the manipulative daughter of the principal of schools while Daniel was the reporter trying to get the real story
(video clip from the first
stage, video-clip from
the stage.Or, Yosi and Khaled
presented a skit based on an article about a serial murderer of old women;
Khaled was a grandson coveting the inheritance of his grandmother (Or) while
Yosi played the hitman who sees killing as an art form (video).Uri
disagreed with their choice of a comedic presentation, citing Or’s performance
in particular as less effective than a more sympathetic portrayal of the
grandmother.Renana noted that while
Yosi was funny, “you used your own rhythm and not the rhythm of the character.”
The most successful scene was
the reenactment of a fatal car accident by Renana, Fatina, Noam and Muhammad.In the article, a family’s young daughter is
run over by accident and two days later her mother gives birth to another
daughter, who the family names after her.The actors took the idea of “the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away” and
gave it a twist: the daughter (Fatina) was actually fathered by a neighbor (Noam), who killed her because he feared he would be
found out.Neither the mother (Renana)
nor the father (Muhammad) suspected him, and forgave
him for the deed.The group mixed Arabic
and Hebrew, at times in the same conversation, though a spectator noted that
when Muhammad found his daughter dead his response
was in Hebrew, “and usually in the hardest times we revert to our mother
tongue.”Shadi said that he would have
liked to see more depth of character from Noam
and Muhammad, and that Renana was able to convey the
character of the Palestinian mother.
Interestingly, none of the
groups chose to portray a political scene, despite the previous day’s lengthy
political discussions.
Completing the Circle
For the final theater exercise
of the 2005-2006 Nemashim workshop, participants were asked to become one of
the many characters they had played during the five workshops.The other actors then entered one by one as someone
related to the character and played a short scene.The exercise was very challenging, and also
brought together the skills of reacting and ‘taking’ what the other actor has
to give, improvisation, physical comedy and depth of character.
The workshop ended with separate
Hebrew and Arabic processing sessions where participants were asked for their
general opinion of the workshops.After
fond farewells, each participant headed home, many with hopes that this meeting
would not be the end of their participation in the Nemashim program.
Exit interviews over the next
month will help Uri and Shadi determine the makeup of the 2006-2007 Commune in
Khalisa.As of now the Commune is
limited by financial constraints, as are the length and depth of workshop
sessions; Nemashim welcomes donations that will help us continue this important
work.Donations should be addressed to
our umbrella organization (“friendship village”)
and earmarked “for Nemashim.”
[the Arabic report is a
translation of this one, but the Hebrew and the German are different.]
