IMEU : Performing Arts

The Muppets take Ramallah (Samantha M. Shapiro, The New York Times)

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:39:11 PST

This season's episodes of "Shara'a Simsim," the Palestinian version of the global "Sesame Street" franchise, were filmed in a satellite campus of Al-Quds University, a ramshackle four-story concrete structure that houses the school's media department and a small local television station. The building sits in an upscale neighborhood on the outskirts of the West Bank city of Ramallah, not far from the edge of the Israeli settlement Psagot.

Breakdancing lifts spirits in Gaza (Ayman Mohyeldin, Al Jazeera)

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 00:28:25 PST

Many in Gaza are still coming to terms with the 22-day war waged by Israel earlier this year. But one group is trying to lift the blues - by setting up a breakdancing club. The style originates from New York in the 1970s - and now it's being exported all over Gaza. Al Jazeera's Ayman Mohyeldin reports from Gaza.

The talents of dancer and choreographer Ata Khatab (Hana Awwad, This Week in Palestine)

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 13:37:20 PST

In 1979, ten years before Ata Khatab was born, Mohammad Ata and two other young men founded a humble dabkeh group. This dabkeh group would later be known as El-Funoun Palestinian Popular Dance Troupe and would later become one of Palestine's leading dance troupes. Yet, at the time, Mohammad Ata probably had no idea that ten years later he would have a son, Ata. Or that twenty years after that, Ata would be one of El-Funoun's leading dancers.

Thousands of Gaza children try for kite-flying record on Beit Lahiya beach (Ma'an News)

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:09:58 PST

UNRWA called it a record-breaking day Thursday as 6,000 of Gaza's children from 119 schools brought their homemade kites out to the Beit Lahiya beach and set them aloft in the wind. Observers counted at least 3,000 kites, shattering the previous record of 710, registered in Germany. The day was organized by UNRWA summer camps, which operate throughout the Gaza Strip and host 240,000 children each summer.

Young Palestinian-American musician's world travels work their way into his first CD (Raymond M. Lane, The Washington Post)

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 13:30:37 PST

Barefoot and sun-blasted from a summer job working as a swim coach in upper Northwest Washington, 21-year-old Ramzy Charles Suleiman smiles an easy smile and caresses the keys of his grandmother's upright piano. It's a Sunday at his boyhood home, a day spent creating what he calls "performance ready" compositions for both instrumental -- he plays piano, clarinet, saxophone and many other instruments -- and "spoken songs." Later this year he will earn a degree from the Berklee College of Music.

Palestinian youngsters make music in former prison (Erika Solomon, Reuters)

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 12:26:23 PST

Ramzi Abu Redwan says he remembers waiting in the halls of Al-Fara'a prison as a boy, holding his grandfather's hand and staring up at the walls as he waited to see his father, jailed by Israel. Now, those same walls echo, not with the footsteps of Palestinian prisoners, but with music and children's laughter. The prison, just outside the West Bank city of Nablus, was used in turn by the British, Jordanians and Israelis.

Young Palestinians in Gaza find their voice through hip-hop (Jordan Flaherty, The Electronic Intifada)

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:08:48 PST

The Maqusi Towers in Gaza City look a bit like US housing projects. The neighborhood consists of several tall apartment buildings grouped together in the northern part of town. It is also ground zero for Gaza's growing Hip-Hop community. On a recent evening in one small but well-decorated apartment, a dozen rappers and their friends and families relaxed, danced, smoked flavored tobacco, and rapped the lyrics to some of their songs.

Staging a revolution (Patrick Martin, Globe and Mail)

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 13:09:23 PST

Walk down the unpaved lanes of the Jenin refugee camp, past the many posters of martyrs, and you'll find The Freedom Theatre - a drama school in its third year and a budding acting company that just staged its debut show: a production of George Orwell's Animal Farm.

Video: War on Gaza relived on West Bank stage (Al Jazeera English)

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 07:24:02 PST

While Palestinian leaders have been slowly edging towards reconciliation, its people are still dealing with the aftermath of Israel's latest offensive on Gaza. A group of actors in the West Bank have staged a play which focuses on the injustices of the war. Nour Odeh reports on how Israel's war on Gaza is likely to live long in the minds of Palestinians.

Israeli bombs silence Gaza music school (Nadia Hijab, The Daily Star)

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 14:11:55 PST

There was a music school in Gaza. It was just six months old. The school worked out of rented premises in the Palestinian Red Crescent Society building just across the street from the Preventive Security Forces compound in Gaza City. The compound was targeted in the first wave of Israeli bombardments on December 27, and twice more the next day. The five-story building was vaporized; a flat gravel surface is all that remains.