Palestinian Performing Arts and Cultural Resistance

Palestinian Performing Arts and Cultural Resistance focuses on the role of theater and the work of theater makers in Palestine, for whom art has always been linked to questions of cultural resistance. This event brings together artists and people from Palestine and the Dutch cultural field who have long been involved in the Palestinian theater scene. What are their artistic strategies and visions? What are the concrete everyday challenges of performing artists living and working under military occupation? How do they counter common misconceptions and prejudices about Palestinian cultural resistance?

Presented by

Huda Odeh. A Palestinian cultural activist and professional with over 25 years of experience in Palestinian performing arts programs’ management, resource mobilization, and research. As an independent consultant, she has been working with several leading Palestinian cultural NGOs on programs funded by international donors such as SDC, SIDA, Drosos Foundation, EU, and UNESCO, among others. She left Westbank in 2020 for the studies of her daughters, and now lives with her family in Wageningen. They return to Palestine on a regular basis since.

Jackie Lubeck is a multi-national no-national playwright, living the better part of her life in Palestine. She is the co-founder of Theatre Day Productions (TDP- Ayyam Al Masrah) and works throughout the Palestinian Territories, but the biggest operation of TDP is in the Gaza Strip where she is both a writer and a designer. TDP built two professional theatres in the Gaza Strip: in 1998 (for the Gaza municipality) and in 2006 (for TDP). Previous to TDP, she was a co-founder of El-Hakawati Theatre Company, which built the first theatre in East-Jerusalem. Jackie was born and bred in Brooklyn.

Jan Willems, lived in Palestine for 30 years where designed and implemented the method that drives Theatre Day Productions. He became familiar with the Palestinian struggle during his activist work in the 70’s and in university in the Netherlands from which he has degrees in both theatre and mass communications. In 1993, on the verge of a possible peace plan, Willems decided to move to East Jerusalem to see if he could help in the rebuilding of Palestinian culture.

Alaa Shehada is the co-founder and director of the Palestine Comedy Club, based in London. He is an actor and comedian from Jenin on Westbank, where he discovered and graduated from the Freedom Theatre. He works as a doctor-clown for the Rednoses International and is a mask player with the Troupe Courage in Amsterdam. Alaa happened to be in Amsterdam on 7th of October and only went back to Jenin to renew his visa.

Naseem Areer is a musician from Jenin, who studies music at the BirZeit University, that defines itself as ‘a thorn in the side of the occupation, insisting on playing its role of enlightenment and creating a multicultural Palestinian society on the campus grounds’. He arrived here last August.

Amal Karam is Nijmegen’s seventh city poet. She grew up in Beirut, Lebanon. When she was eighteen she moved to Syria to study English literature. After her studies, she worked as a journalist, was politically active and wrote poetry and stories. In 1996, she came to the Netherlands as a refugee. Under the pseudonym Ama Karma, she wrote weekly columns for the Gelderlander from 2006 to 2013.

About Theatre for Gaza

Theatre for Gaza is an informal Dutch initiative started in October 2023 by artists and cultural professionals in the performing arts as a platform for information sharing, reflection and support in reaction to the – ongoing – genocide on Gaza.

In October 2023 several theatres in the country joined the so-called “sleep-strikes”: all night wakes for mourning, discussion and performances.

On November 29th, the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people, around 30 Dutch companies and theatres joined a call of Al Harah Theatre to present the “Gaza Monologues”, written
over 10 years ago by youngsters in Gaza.

In February 2024, dozens of Dutch theater companies and venues committed to benefit performances and
campaigning for the Gaza-based Theatre Day Productions. The “Children in Gaza” campaign aims at continuation of their work with children.

On May 3rd 2024, “Palestinian Performing Arts and Cultural Resistance” had its first showing in Amsterdam in cooperation with the University of Amsterdam.