This is really worth reading. "We live in a region decimated by insurmountable borders, remnants of colonialism past and present. A theater artist in Gaza will probably never be able to share a theatrical experience with another in Baghdad, for instance. (In the first half of the twentieth century, an actor could have taken the Palestine Railway to Aleppo and transferred to the Baghdad Railway, continuing onwards to Iraq.) The distance between Gaza and Baghdad is less than the distance between Chicago and New York, than between London and Berlin, Beirut and Istanbul. The radii of theater—and therefore of societies—is shrinking despite the fact that we live in an era of greater interconnectivity and advanced transportation. Why is that? And why does it matter? Why do we need theatrical dialogue between societies? Without unmediated encounters with imagined realities on the stage, we forget how to live. We become alienated from strangers. We jeopardize our shared humanity. We isolate individuals and barricade communities, rendering them easier manipulate and exploit. It becomes easier for us to kill, bomb, and enslave one another. We tighten the limits of our imagination." jadaliyya/pages/index/12028/new-texts-out-now_eyad-houssami-doomed-by-hope_ess
Posted on: Sun, 16 Jun 2013 19:16:00 +0000
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