Output details

Returning to Haifa Pre-text. Research based process drama into the limits of self-other imagining through drama pre-texts in the Palestinian-Israeli Situation. With Hala Al Yamani

The Returning to Haifa Pre-text Project draws on the novella by Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani and was devised, performed and applied in collaboration with Assistant Prof. Hala Al Yamani, University of Bethlehem in the period 2008-2013. The audience for this two-hour participative, pre-text based, process drama, included; young people, university students, teachers, higher education lecturers, community educators and activists, local politicians, theatre practitioners, NGO workers, and international applied drama practitioners. It was performed at: the 6th International Conference on Researching Applied Drama, Theatre and Performance: Performance, Cross-Cultural Dialogue and Coexistence, University of Exeter (04.04.08); University of Bethlehem, Centre for Beautiful Resistance, Aida Camp, Bethlehem (14-21.11.08); Chester Town Hall (06.06.09); Chester Cathedral (07.06.09); ‘Citizen Actor in a Fractured World International Conference’, Desmond Tutu Centre, Plymouth (09.06.09); University of Chester (17-21.09.10); University of Bethlehem (04-08.04.11); An Najar University Nablus, West Bank Palestine (08.06.12). Interactive video was used to link with participants at the Islamic University of Gaza in these last two venues. The first stage of the research investigation focused on the limits of self-other imagining in the Palestinian-Israeli situation through drama pre-text. This practice fed into the publication ‘Using Process Drama to Understand Self and Other’, in ‘Blood Sweat and Theory: Research through Practice in Performance' (2010), Freeman J. (ed), Libri. The second stage of the research focused on the use of the pre-text form in creative pedagogical approaches in classroom teachers programmes in all University Teacher Education Departments in the West Bank and Gaza. Outcomes were published in the Report for the World Bank: ‘Reviving Palestinian Schools’ (2012). DVD available.