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Balata Camp Youth Group to Preform in London at St. George's on August 23rd

renegado | 11.08.2005 11:12 | Social Struggles | London

Making their world debut with this UK tour, youth from Balata  Refugee Camp, Palestine will make a stop to perform their powerful original piece, A'edoon in London on Tuesday the 23rd of August, at St Georges Theatre, Tuffnell Park Road, N.19.

Alternating between dance and drama, this innovative performance takes the audience through a rollercoaster of the extremes of human emotion - from pain and sadness, resentment and outrage, to laughter and finally inspiration and hope. 

The children of this group come from extremely difficult backgrounds; usually from homes missing family members in prison or murdered.  To combat the despair and isolation of their situations, they have created an artistically captivating and politically poignant form of resistance, A'edoon.  

Originally based on Marcel Khalife's "Ahmed Al-Arabi" this production chronices the expulsion of Palestinians from their village and their ensuing oppression as refugees.  While the people are trying to continue their lives by building schools and houses, the Israeli soldiers come back, attempting to force everybody to move again, to become refugees a second time over. As the camp inhabitants scatter and panic, a young boy is lost. Attempts by his sister to find him are to no avail, as it slowly
dawns upon her that he was killed by the soldiers.  

Half of the performance is Dabke, a traditional Palestinian dance.  Focused on the legs, the boys and girls fly brilliantly across the stage in unison and in time with the music, wearing beautiful locally produced costumes. The music and singing is live, performed by members of the group. 

23rd August, 8pm
St George's Theatre
49 Tufnell Park rd
Tufnell park tube
suggested donation £5 - noone turned away.
   
for further info contact:

 better_noir@yahoo.co.uk /  info@balatacamp.net

renegado
- Homepage: http://www.balatacamp.net