Palestine on freeDimensional

Statement by Palestinian performing arts organizations

Sun, 20 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000

17 July, 2014

We, cultural workers representing the majority of Palestinian performing art organizations, condemn the current Israeli attack and aggression on Gaza, and the indiscriminate killing and maiming of mainly civilians, among them many children and women.

As artists, the most powerful weapon we have is our ability to play, dream and imagine. The oppressive forces fear this weapon because as long as we are able to imagine another kind of reality, we have the power to pursue it – a free and just Palestine.

Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish’s books removed from Riyadh International Book Fair

Sun, 16 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Just a few days after all the works by Saudi publisher Arab Network for Research and Publishing were removed from the Riyadh International Book Fair for violating the Kingdom’s laws, the works of globally celebrated Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish caused protests and have reportedly been withdrawn from the fair and are not to be sold:

Numerous news sources were reporting the removal of the books, while images and videos circulating on Twitter purported to show the protests against Darwish’s ouevre as well as the packing-up of Darwish’s books.

Dispatch: Mazen Maarouf on 'All that is banned is desired"

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

“All that is banned is desired”,

When art turns into a reflexive power, to get banned!

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In the Norwegian capital sleeps on the shoulder of water Oslo opera house. It is a peaceful structure breathing below a changeable weather that displays simply the “unexpected”, the “percussive” and the “unrest”. The weather of Oslo resembles a state of instability. Political in the first sense and in a country somewhere, thousands of miles away from Oslo city. The “unexpected”, the “percussive” and the “unrest” are three vertices, each of particular dimension, that induce a temptation into the artist/writer/activist to move within and try to come up with a result. Yes, if these three vertices got joined together in a triangle, nothing can fit inside better than a chart of “politics of nowadays”. That may sort an elementary exercise in geometry. Is it easy to construct a triangle when the three points are located on the page? May be. A matter again to be thought about! Not that easy in fact. You have to cling in your neck a basket of requirements! Metaphorically speaking, to be able to connect the three vertices, you have to distinguish them first. And to be distinguished, an effort has to be done as they wouldn’t be located so clearly. And the medium that hosts them should be already existing, but either translucent, either turbid or dirty. However, you need also to track the “why” behind their location as well! Is that too complicated? The simplest way then, sounds to go backwards. If you know that the paper (the medium) we are talking about is nothing but the country, any country under political and military conflict, ethnic struggle, civil war, revolution, or any other kind of tension, then you can find your way to the “why” and you can understand how it means “translucent, turbid or dirty”. You will end up most probably pointing your finger to each of the vertices: the “unexpected”, the “percussive” and the “unstable”.

Urgent Call to Action: Free Zakaria Zubeidi !

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 00:00:00 +0000

On the 9th of September Zakaria Zubeidi announced that he will embark on a death fast, a complete food and fluid strike, in response to the continuous postponement of his release from Palestinian Authority prison. This effectively means that unless the Palestinian Authority releases Zakaria he will most probably not make it through the week.

Zubeidi, co-founder of The Freedom Theatre and former leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, has been imprisoned by the Palestinian Authority for close to four months. No charges have been made against him, no evidence presented and throughout his imprisonment his rights have been severely violated, as described by among others Human Rights Watch (http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/07/27/israelpalestinian-authority-theater-group-hit-both-sides).