“What is it to be Palestinian?”

I have many questions to ask. Always. For when one travels it makes the world full of more questions, not less. I don’t know how to sort them, in my mind, in my heart. I find a definition for one, only to be struck with how simple and incomplete the answers must be. I learned about that from this joint American/Palestinian project, how little we really know.

We each have our own story and each of us carries not only our tiny lives inside ourselves, but that of our parents, our environment, our culture, our religion, our ancestors blood. I don’t know what it is to be Palestinian, to be Jewish or Israeli, to be a black American, to be a boy, a man, nor a bird in flight, an ant crossing a road or a mother burying her child.  I don’t know what it is to be a leader and an icon, threatened with death for speaking the truth or an actor gunned down for opening the minds of children, or the simplicity of a hotel clerk wanting nothing more then to work and to be grateful that he can feed his family.

How can any of us know what it is to have a concrete wall cutting the sun, your livelihood, and your family in two with nothing but rocks to defend yourself against tanks and m16s. How can we know what it is to be Jewish, to have holocaust memories bubble through your bloodstream or even deeper hues of exile, centuries of nomadic tribes searching for home. We all need home. How can I know what it is to be black and celebrate the work of Martin Luther King only to continue facing deep discrimination now riding just under the surface with every comment made about jobs you have earned or things you should endure?  How can I describe what it is to be an artist inside this world I find myself in, both externally and internally?

I was asked by a television reporter just before our last show,  “What is it to be Palestinian?” How would I know?

I answered what my heart has absorbed in the short passage of time I have been here:  To be welcoming; to be a people of the land, to see and feel from the heart. And unlike the land and their own governance, their hearts are pure and unoccupied, despite the conditions surrounding them. Perhaps because they share. Welcome, most welcome,” is heard on street corners and in shops alike. They insist on sharing. “Eat alone, die alone” is one of many proverbs they live by.

They acknowledge God in each greeting and response, each desire or wish. Such gracious hospitality inside their golden rocky green land of olive, lemon and almond trees; of wrapped women’s heads and protective men, of small children the size of my calf walking confidently through a crowd of people; of younger generations finding their own ways, choosing, changing and balancing, letting their hair and minds flow, yet still holding steadfast to their religion; of men inside male friendships, draping on each other; of school girls walking hand in hand, Christians and Muslims; of a rainbow color of skin tones and eyes, from the world mixing for centuries on this beautiful yet difficult land; and their accented gestures:  using both hands simultaneously, dramatically starting near the chest upward and outward, or from the chin, downward, touching, slapping, cupping the faces – their own and others; and their beautiful hands, fingers gathered together to form a teardrop to ask for patience, to calm or warn depending on the pursing of lips or brow; of walking to prayers with carpets on their shoulders, hands behind, rubbing their beads between their fingers; of clapping – palms tight, fingers upright, spread, adding to the sound, the rhythm, their Palestinian beat. I understand why this place is occupied by their very brothers and more importantly, why they are crying.

What do I think it is to be Palestinian? It is to have tenacity and endurance, to be of the land and to be of the heart and to live with pain. Simply put…to love.  Habib.

For the Palestinians I have met are full of heart, even if they disagree with America, our politics and our various denominations and practices of religion.  Even if individuals among them value life so little that they indiscriminately kill innocents. But are not we, the Americans like this, and the Israeli’s? How many among us have done this deplorable act of “terrorism.” Do we not feed, in fact perpetrate the violence that is in our world with more violence? What stops this cycle? For does the world really understand the Americans or the Israelis?  I don’t. I don’t know how one does. How does one understand Arabs? I don’t know the Middle East or the Arab World I have been gently introduced to through these beautiful Palestinian people. People.

To meet and eat and work with the other is to begin, to discuss and exchange, to get bigger and smaller pictures.  This is what my government has given to me through this cultural exchange and what Al Hakawati gives to many through the power of international theatre. An opportunity to dialogue, so that I can taste the common vein of humanity and in turn, can pass this on to you, as a way of letting that dialogue ripple.

Palestinians don’t understand why Americans are so blind to their plight, that we are ignorant. Perhaps, yes – definitely we are…but I also find the Palestinians to mistake our ignorance with that of their own because like Americans, they believe the world revolves around them and their conflict.  But does it?  Do they know the struggles in Darfur or between Tibet and China? What about South Africa and its road to reconciliation? Do they know America, know the checks and balances between the legislative and executive branches of our government?  Do they know the diversity among the citizens of my country and how it is considered our strength but we are so often pitted against each other? Do they know the mere size of my state or where Seattle actually is on a map? Do they know how young our country is and what it took and takes to fight for justice and the truth behind building a Democracy? Do they know the struggles we have with subsidies given to oil companies and bailouts for banks while cutting health programs for women and children? How Americans are over caffeinated so they can keep the pace of work work working to pay the credit we live on?  And why do we shy away from this conflict here in the Holy Land? Because we don’t care? No. We don’t understand it. How can we? It is its own world, full of woven intricate webs. We don’t know how to maneuver in it, as if we’re suppose to have the answers instead of the questions.

All of these things are simply what I see, just me- the way my artistic heart absorbs the world around me. And I know all too well, I don’t have a full picture. I am blind. It is not because my eyes are shut, au contraire, it is because they are wide open and the more I see, the less I know.  But still, I insist on and am grateful for being blind because I am learning to love the questions themselves and to answer my questions with more questions.  And life itself, is it not one big fat question?

Juliano

I’m not sure how to talk about the death of Juliano Mer-Khamis. Other then to say how absolutely heart broken I was from it. Deep inside. Not because of the shock of the violence, for Palestine is full of shock and not because he was a personal friend. I didn’t know him other then performing at his theatre for the past two years. But dear friends knew him well and because of that and deeper things I saw, I was altered from it.

For the most part, the choir was scared for their personal safety. I watched the power of fear engulf them in their last days and it made me examine my own fear and how to recognize it and confront it. I understood how it looked to them and understood why they were afraid but had difficulty with the severity of it. I understood that it was their first time in the country and they were housed in a lovely hotel that could have been in any European or American city and shuffled from here and there in diplomatic vehicles, never once crossing a real checkpoint, and when they occasionally got a hint as to what the Palestinians lives are like, it was understandably devastating to them.

I, on the other hand, was here on a second visit. I knew the landscape I was entering, I had digested the autrocities here that are so hard to comprehend, even seeing them first hand. When I arrived last year, the second I checked into my hotel, I knew I was in a foreign land. I walked through Qalandya checkpoint on my first day. I was not part of a large touring group. We were only eight in our entire cast, mostly Palestinian and compact for travel that it allowed more intimate maneuvering to the cities we visited. This year, I was the only American until a week before we opened. From the year before and the fact that I was a lone traveler, I was able to make deep connections and have been invited into the homes to eat, and to sleep. I have been welcomed into their lives. I understood things on another level. I knew what checkpoints were and border crossing and sudden acts of violence. I understood how long this has been going on and how sad it is that it has become ‘normal’ here. I was not afraid for my safety and felt no need for extra security by US forces as a way of protecting me while I performed. I knew our hosts were and continue to be concerned for their safety and of course, for that of their guests.

But we Americans think differently. We see the world as if it is all about us and we try to make it that way. But in this case, we are simply not the target. In fact, I felt that we needed to be less reactive so our artistic exchanges can speak the volumes they do. It is not about us but about the Palestinians. The random bombing timed near our opening and the targeted killing timed at our closing had nothing to do with our particular project. Ironic as it was to do this piece about Martin Luther King at this very time in Palestine and Israel; the story of our American history, its violence against people and its beautiful uprising for justice and equality, from a man dedicated to peace, to real peace is still, a continual journey in our country to be sure, but we changed the face of it. It was that message of love that we were invited to bring as a way of culturally exchanging with Palestine.

And even though quiet here in Jerusalem for the past several years on the big media side of things as if this holy land is experiencing quiet and peace, the actuality is, it is experiencing subversive violence and obvious rising tensions. But these acts are not related to us, or to our show but to a much much bigger picture. Just as Martin Luther King’s efforts were not just about equality for Black Americans but a much bigger fight for all citizens, thus the name of the Civil Rights Movement.  And that is the one thing that made the show here in Palestine such a powerful project.

Bringing MLK’s words and persona here teaches all of us, about the universality of peace and that non-violence is a long-term solution for all parties in conflicts because it is love that prevails. It made me look inward, to recognize my own personal fears but not to live them. I can’t help but have religious overtones here in the Holy Land, and I believe that God is Love itself and that the “Anti-Christ” is Fear itself. We must live the first and though acknowledge it’s presence, not live the second.

The other insight Juliano’s killing gave me was this…Besides the deep personal grief it shoved upon his family, his friends, and his fellow Palestinian theatre artists who are using art to help express and digest these post and present traumatic stresses, it gave a giant wound to the world. He was specifically targeted because he was an artist, a very unique and outspoken artist. To assassinate an artist is to rip the very fabric of the human psyche and that…that is what saddens me the most. I can’t even begin to articulate how deep the wound is becoming and how important it is for all of us to pay attention and to start talking about extremism and what causes it and from the act of one individual or small group of individuals, not blanket the whole Arab world or the Palestinians in particular as terrorists. Art has the power to transform. Love has the power to comprehend. Help to support the efforts of artists in this land.

here are a few links about Juliano and the Freedom Theatre

http://www.thenation.com/article/159842/remembering-juliano-mer-khamis

Human

After the Nablus show, I had a great moment when greeting some of the audience who stayed to say hello. The man from the University who welcomed us and gave us the dignitary’s tour said to me, “Do you know what the people are saying about you? You’re an amazing actress! You don’t act the part, you live the part.” (Oh… no truer words are said in more ways then one.) But to me, of course, that IS acting, the present moment-to-moment connection, you HAVE to live the part on stage. They have a young tradition of theatre here – only thirty years or so, they are still finding their way with it and they often pull from the cinema and that is a very different and plastic style of acting.

Kamel is an amazing director. I would love to see him act as I think he understands this idea of really living the part.  In fact, he often keeps his actors purposefully in the dark, as he doesn’t want them to act, he wants them to be. He has a way of layering that at many times drives me crazy with not letting others in on the process, but he often works with young actors and he likes to work somewhat organically. He tills his soils with trust that something will take root and if it’s full of weeds at the same time, so be it.

It was great to drop the idea of being blind and I marvel at the fact that others didn’t even consider what I was working on. Instead, they simply thought I was either using a very strange American acting method or once they knew, thought, how could I do this or that without seeing. But being blind does not mean you do not see. And that is exactly what Kamel understood about blindness. The blind see heat or feel the change in vibration as objects or people get closer, they hear every creak in a floorboard or breath as it shifts with emotions. They know darkness to be their friend and allies.

It was that layer we were working on; the character of a director and an ability to sense and taste and feel the action of the show, not just watch it or hear words only as meaning.  And that is the very act of directing to know the show’s full sensory ride, to give that impact and experience to an audience. That is what live theatre is all about! Our visual senses dominate so much of the time and it was an amazing process to discover the minority within and to breathe that into the character.

I love travel; it allows me to look inside myself without fear just as I am visiting a foreign country. Not that there isn’t fear but it’s more of a curiosity with more caution then fear itself. I am fortunate to be here. Especially a second time and I would come a third and a fourth if somehow I can. I wish to.

Palestine is purity and magic and so bizarrely atrocious all at the same time.

The Palestinians are people who continue to hold onto their homeland and live under another country’s military occupation and deal with the installations of checkpoints and walls that further divide them from their families and each other and are made to feel inhuman and forced to make normalcy of the situation that has now reached such tension that it is sure to explode and implode and form some huge chemical reaction.

The Palestinians are the kindest, most generous people I have ever met in the world – such an opposite impression of the way they are painted -as terrorists – and yet are they not simply resisters? Would each of us not resist to the raping of our land, the raping of our culture? And would not the insane among us, act out as they do in every one of our cultures, including our own America when the distraught among us takes aim at others before turning their gun on themselves so they can be somehow heard. All of these acts of violence are flatly unacceptable and yet we rarely look at the why. What causes a person to do such things?

The atrocities I spoke of earlier are simply and horrifically, the occupation. It has reached such astonishing levels that despite the numbers of witnesses to counter the political spins, (from Scandinavian humanitarians to Jews helping in the fight from both inside and outside Israel, to International NGO’s and solidarity movements) this oppression continues as if the destiny of the world is bent on Right-wing Extremists ruling through fear, ignorance and domination.

What is that all about? How do we wake up from our blindness or accept our blindness and develop our other senses because of it.

The Palestinian hearts have a freedom that juxtaposes their ever-repressive, unknown daily circumstances that govern their lives.  The world is here with its many hands that keep ripping parts of their fabric in an attempt to help or understand or to control depending on one’s alignment. Inside of this, the Palestinians hold that internal freedom as their most beautifully pure and magical treasure that no one in the world, can ever possess.

The blind metaphor is not such a bad way to see this. We are all blind. Anyone who sees what is actually happening here cannot justify actions by our country supporting this kind of brutality and violations of international laws.  We must all educate ourselves and acknowledge our own country’s use of Vetoes and finances for this continued oppression.

And as an actress, I must continue to discover my oppression of my own self and grow from that insight in order to find that internal magic and alchemy of theatre that allows the world in and through that experience reflect on their own personal growth and that of the collective so we can all embody the word humanity.

Ever forward in love and art,

mik

 

99

Just before the Nablus show, the choir was ready early so they circled up and began praying. Perhaps they did this more often, but I had not yet witnessed it. I would have joined them as I love it when people pray or meditate or connect with God. I am Christian by birth and baptism so I was familiar with the held hands of a circle, the bowed heads and requests for being vessels for God to speak through them. Once last year, I participated in the Muslim prayer with Kamel, Razi, Abed and Nisbat. They pray side by side after washing and cleansing, they face Mecca and bow their entire body to God’s presence. I wanted to feel it in my body for I am not only naturally a monotheistic person in my deep core beliefs but also understand life through movement. We are all praying to the same God even those who do not know it.  I have not followed my religious upbringing but have taken a broader more encompassing path in my personal relationship with God; being far more spiritual then religious.  I have never understood the way many religious people believe there is only one road to God. It’s not so much a road rather a connection and just like water takes many paths to the sea in it’s never ending cycle from water to air to land and back to sea again, so we all do with God. God is not the sea or the air or the land but rather the cycle itself.  I admire the faithful and the way they spend time honoring and acknowledging that vast greatness, whether religious or spiritual or both.

So in this preshow moment of a prayer circle I was moved but not quite ready for the show and when finished with my preparations did not want to disturb the circle. I stood outside the circle and simply joined them in their final Amen. They dispersed and I found myself in a simple contact jam with one of the Palestinians, Faris…it felt like a continuation of the prayer to God, through my language, my wordless words.  It was lovely and made me think of my dear friend, Joan Hanna and the magic she brings to my life as she lives this prayer and sends it up and down and over and under and behind and within and without every day of her life.  She paints with her body and sculpts the air and friendships around her with light and gesture, sound and truths and teaches me to concentrate on the act of breathing itself rather then the air that travels in and out. She reminds me of keeping the child’s relation to the world at large and within and to play and to dance in all its forms and to be oh so very present.

Ahh the glorious exquisite world of motion and the act of prayer in the multitude of forms that honor and relate to the great force that is the very essence of life. This, I get to feel in every cell in my body in this world of the Holy Land where religion is the very foundation of society that reside here and the multitudes that flock here because of it.  99.  Arabs have 99 words for God.

A Call to Prayer

I have been helping explain things about this culture to the other Americans here from my observations and understandings.  I am fascinated by the way we all see things through our own specific lens.  And how often, those lenses don’t understand the full picture and so our judgments or thoughts are actually quite misguided.

For example, here you will see people pray wherever they are. If they are a shop owner or work in the theatre, they find a spot for their rug, anywhere, in the corner, on the street, they face Mecca and take the time (five times a day) to acknowledge God in their lives.  They wash their arms and ears and mouth and bend their knees and bow with their whole selves as they recite their favorite part of the Koran, which is a spoken book so all have memorized it’s text. They acknowledge the teachings of their prophet Mohammed and weave it into their thoughts and activities.  Their prayer is a beautiful thing to behold either of the individual or the masses.  Oh my, have you seen the videos of the demonstrations in the Middle East and when these hundreds of men prayer together? (Maybe its not shown on CNN or your local news, but Al Jeezera shows it) In person it is even more astonishing.  It’s mind body and spirit connection practiced five times a day!!

One day, backstage, Steve, the wonderful musician of the choir, said something like, “Yeah, I saw them praying to their…their…”  “To God,” I said, “they are praying to God.”  “No,” he said,  “they’re praying to their Allah or something like that.”  “Allah is God, it’s their word for God, they actually have 99 names for God.” “Oh, he said, “I thought it was their guy, Mohammed that they are praying to.”  “No, I said,” it’s to God they pray, the same God. Mohammed is their prophet, they don’t pray to him, it’s more like they pray with him as their guide.” I then went on to explain how Muslims often also have a misunderstanding of Christians as they don’t understand the Holy Trinity. There is one God to them, not three.

He was so beautiful in his response of “Thanks, I just learned something, I didn’t know.”  This is what travel is all about.  And religion is very hard to comprehend from outside – as are countries and all the circumstances and lessons and lives that it encompasses.  Lenses.  It’s important to take off the glasses or put them on once in a while and realize, everyone doesn’t think like we do and their worlds operate differently and we can’t judge based on our concepts or perceptions as they are often misaligned with the full realities.

Vistas

Nablus is one of the most beautiful places I have seen in the West Bank. It is nestled between two mountains and made for a valley of hell when there was a siege in 2002 so all over the city you see scars from the blown up buildings and large pictures of men who died in the battles defending their town. But the city has and is building itself up again and is quite the bustling center of West Bank Palestinian life. A few of us hopped off the bus early and ran through the old city buying soap and spices and specialty deserts. It was a lovely voyage with curious stares at our mix of colors and language with these beautiful black women guided by our Palestinian friends and my strange green eyed choppy haired blonde white self among them and P Michael, such a delight at his ability to express every emotion that runs through his body from the site of chickens in a cage and hanging open aired meat to the trinkets and shops that catch the eye like a kid looking at candy.  Ramzi, Nadaal and Rajai leading us through the Old city market and the windy hilly terrain to the University.

There we were met by some dignitaries of the University and our lovely US Consulate woman, Cindy, flagged with her body guard and other consulate members.  The man proudly explained the Universities role in giving an advanced education for Palestinians so they don’t have to go abroad for education and how they have grown up in this occupation and are not able to even see a sea or go to Jerusalem or study with their fellow Palestinians from Gaza.  The University has partnered with the US Consulate to help facilitate this and they now have one student from Gaza studying here.  One. May there please be more students in Gaza able to go to college. Education is essential here (and everywhere!).

I love Nablus. The theatre is a giant auditorium and lecture hall that doesn’t have much front light and had so much more space on the stage itself that you feel a little drowned by the size. But the audience is well versed in seeing different shows and was right with us from the start. I personally felt like I had a tough time getting in the rhythm- I felt like trucks were running between my cue line and my words but eventually I got on board.  The group of actors is a lovely bunch and on the way home Kamel made us laugh as he sat in the tour guides seat and pretended to give us a tour over the loud speakers. I love seeing him like this, his playful side. It is such different touring this year as we are much bigger in numbers and size so a large group tour bus is needed for transport.

Jenin and Nablus are two places that have intrigued me the most, because of their beauty, their recent painful histories and the ancient pulse of the land that dominates the vistas. I don’t know if it is because I come from a hilly mountainous locale or that there is something in the air that I can’t quite articulate but both of these areas have something special. Jenin has fertile agricultural valleys but the rivers are drying up from Israeli’s control of the water for settlements and the farmers are in more and more of a desperate situation.  We stopped at a large sign that speaks of the money the Americans are pouring into the area but as our Palestinian friends have said, “Yes, it’s blood money. It was American bombs that destroyed this place so they are giving money to rebuild.” And rebuild they are.

The freedom theatre was a lovely contrast to the stage at Nablus. So tiny yet filled with creativity. Nablus felt more academic of course. I loved the photos of Alice in Wonderland that were up on the Freedom Theatre walls. Apparently they do fifty shows in a year. We stopped for sandwiches in the town after our show and I felt there were lots of students and an energy that was young and shifting.

But the views from the University in Nablus still paint the vistas of my mind the way the Palestinian olives linger in my palate. Such delicious beauty and so different then my Pacific Northwest wonders. The colors are golden rocky and green and the haze makes you almost see the tanks that not long ago topped the hillsides so high above. I can’t get those vistas out of my mind and returning to them was like reliving a dream. I drank it in.

 

 

Flowers

Had my first real day off. The consulate took the choir to the Dead Sea and invited me to join. I rode a camel named Mickey, slathered my body with mud and floated like a cork in the Dead Sea’s salty water then soaked in a hot mineral bath. It was heavenly. Slept solidly last night and I swear I had one epic dream, not a myriad of several. I don’t even think I moved and those of you who know how much I travel can imagine how much I travel when I sleep.

For day two off I walked through the Old City, then I slipped into a shop to brighten my room with a bouquet of flowers and ran into a woman I had met last year, Camilla. So good to see her. She introduced me to a Kenyon woman, Ann, who is here working on a special assignment for the UN and Tony Blair. She seems so lovely and I look forward to getting to know her while I am here. We had a nice instant connection. Because of Camilla, the owner made me a beautiful bouquet of roses and refused to take money for it.  So I returned to my hotel with a huge smile on my face from such hospitality and generosity and of course, the flowers.

A few hours later I had run out to get a paper and had just slipped back into my hotel to grab my hat for dinner as it was getting quite nippy out when I got a call from the lobby. It was Camilla. She had an extra ticket and wanted to scoop me up and take me to a Caribbean party at the UN Headquarters. So, away I went with the flower shop owner and his wife and two teenage children, a cobbler and Camilla. It was quite the night. We danced until well past 2am. Cindy and Frank from the US Consulate were there as was my new friend, Ann, along with a smattering of UN employees from various countries and various ranks from a Danish General who is second in command here to my new friend, Ann and everything in between or beside or…?  It was fun to dance, dance, dance. Haven’t done that since my injury really. All because I wanted to give myself a present. It felt like a whole evening of flowers.  Life.