Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 17:51:49 -0500 From: John Bell <john_bell-AT-emerson.edu> Subject: PUPT: Canadian puppeteers in Israel/Palestine Cf. the thread of wandering puppeteers, below is the second dispatch from Gabriel Levine, of Le Petit Theatre de l'Absolu, a puppet theater based in Montreal. They are currently on tour in Palestine and Israel. If anyone would like to see the first dispatch, please contact me. john bell great small works ******* Hello to all of you, This time, the setting is the genteel stone house of family friend Brigitte Anor, high up on a hill in the German Colony, West Jerusalem. All the culture shock that has managed to escape us throughout our West Bank travels is now hitting home. To be in a quiet place in a rich neighbourhood, to see people eating in cafes and living (relatively) secure and comfortable lives, to feel yourself on the side of the security guards and soldiers, is a shock I hadn’t reckoned with. There is also a new kind of paranoia in the air: we are staying only a few blocks from the Hillel café, site of a bomb attack several weeks ago. Today Brigitte dropped Hermine and I at the Israel Museum for the afternoon, our first free afternoon in two weeks. We wandered through the deserted sculpture garden and archeological halls, meeting only a few bored school groups. In one hallway was an exhibit of photographs of Israeli pioneers, the bronzed settlers of the early century. They are the new Jews, the farmers, fishermen and labourers, ploughing the desert valleys for the first time, working always under the same harsh skies in an uncannily empty landscape. With their rifles and machine guns, who are they protecting us from? The other is totally absent from these images. Despite it all, I was strangely touched by their smiles and hopeful faces, the images of people working together, the palpable sense of community spirit. It’s a popular socialist realism, staged and contrived, but still a far cry from the monolithic post-communist feel of much of Israeli architecture. There, collectivism is nothing more than a myth, buttressed by the forced community of this society’s core institution: the army. The soldiers and border police have been in our faces lately, at checkpoints and roadblocks, harassing our friends while they give us white people friendly mock-salutes. Crossing into Ramallah from Jerusalem a few days ago gave us our first taste of the real checkpoint routine: dust and chaos, long lines snaking around mazelike concrete barriers, car horns blaring from vehicles backed up for hundreds of yards, garbage and the ever-present barbed wire atop the surrounding bluffs. A man in front of us, a student at Bir Zeit university, was refused entry on some technicality. We shlepped our puppet boxes up to the nearest soldier. The young woman who informed us that because of some special new intelligence, Ramallah was closed to anyone but residents. But, I replied, we are scheduled to do a puppet show in Ramallah this afternoon. The word “puppet” seems to have a magical effect on Israeli authorities: they tend to burst into spontaneous half-smiles and wave us through. This time was no different. “Be careful,” she told us. “Keep your eyes open.” As usual, we are on their side, no matter what our motives might be for coming to this unbelievable place. Ramallah seemed tense at first, but much of the tension we’ve been feeling is the beginning of Ramadan. Most Muslims are a bit cranky and hungry, adjusting to the new rhythm of not eating or drinking until sundown for a month. During the day, we eat in back rooms and upstairs, away from disapproving eyes on the street. In Ramallah we were lucky enough to have some of their renowned baladna ice cream, gloriously viscous and slightly salty, with flavours that are delicious yet impossible to identify. My new theory is that eating ice cream in a place is a good way to overcome feelings of discomfort. Will and Lainie shared a banana split. A baladna banana split in Ramallah—a food experience equalled only by the also delicious Chinese food prepared for us one night at the Ibdaa center restaurant in Dheisheh camp. The chef, a true professional, wanted to show us that refugees could stir-fry chicken with the best of them. Our hectic schedule continued all last week, two shows a day in the Jerusalem and Bethlehem area. On Sunday we drove to Azarya, a dirt-poor town in Area C, Palestinian territory close to the green line that may or may not be annexed by Israel, and will probably find itself on the wrong side of the wall when it is completed. Apparently 70 per cent of Azarya residents hold Jerusalem ID and work in the city, which has become unaffordable for many, given the catastrophic housing and unemployment situation. Across the dusty unpaved street we could see the palm trees and boxy houses of Ma’ale Admonim, a walled Jewish settlement where other Azaryans find work. There seemed to be thousands of students in Azarya’s coed primary school, all of them razzing us playfully as we brought our boxes in. Exhausted by the desert heat, we told them that we could only do one show that day. No problem: a nice thing about the Middle East is that everything is flexible. We set up in record time, while children cleared paper and streamers off the floor. Then they started coming in the room, and kept coming: afterwards, we heard that there were 388 kids in a room barely larger than a classroom, fire codes be damned. They made quite a racket, seemed to enjoy the show, as usual, and offered us some nice interpretations at the end (encouraged by Nidal, our translator). Kids get all kinds of things from the story, anything from “the king was bad at the beginning, but then he got better,” to “the rooster wasn’t cooked very well,” to “poor people and rich people are the same.” Nidal told us that the story was good, because the King in our show was very much like Arafat—“He has his hands in everything.” This cracked me up completely. Not like Sharon, I asked? No, Sharon is different. Every people, I think, is unlucky enough to have its own king. Maybe this is how the show will go over in Israel… Speaking of Arafat, we drove to his mostly destroyed compound in Ramallah for a quick photo. “Do you want to meet him?” asked our cab driver. “It’s easy.” No, we said, but we’d like to do our puppet show for him. “No problem,” said the driver. Apparently he’d love it; he must be rather bored in there. Now it’s bedtime. Tomorrow we have a free day at the Dead Sea, then head to the north of the West Bank for shows in Nablus and Qalqilya. This is a leap for us, impromptu shows arranged by Ziad (the director of Ibdaa) and the Palestinian Counseling Center. Ziad told us that we were ready to go there, which sounds kind of ominous. But I still have yet to feel any real sense of threat from either side. Wish us luck. Lots of love, Gabe --- Personal replies to: John Bell <john_bell-AT-emerson.edu> --- List replies to: puptcrit-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu --- Admin commands to: majordomo-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu --- Archives at: http://lists.village.virginia.edu/~spoons
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