Children of war express feelings through art
By Larry Muhammad
lmuhammad@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal

Ribal Alkordi, a Palestinian boy living in Bethlehem's war-torn Aida refugee camp, used to throw stones at Israeli soldiers.

"They invade the camp and kill people; they burn down houses," said Ribal, 16, in a telephone interview from New York, where he was touring.

Casualties on both sides have mounted in the Middle East conflict amid continuing suicide bombings and military actions.
But the energetic 11th-grader learned to channel his anger into acting and dance through an apolitical, nonprofit arts institute in the camp - the Al-Rowwad Children's Theatre and Cultural Training Center.
"Al-Rowwad helped me not go and throw stones at the soldiers anymore," he said. "Our lives are very difficult, but we go to the center and express our feelings through art. They teach us languages -- English and French -- and they have events and theater."
Ribal and 10 other Al-Rowwad youngsters are visiting Louisville this week as part of their first American tour performing Palestinian dance and theater.
"All the camp children throw stones," said Abdelfattah Abu-Srour, Al-Rowwad's founder and director. "But we wanted to take them off the streets, waiting for soldiers to come and sometimes get killed, to give them an alternative form of resistance, one that would lead somewhere other than the military approach."
Founded in 1998 for children 6 to 18 years old, Al-Rowwad ("the Pioneers" in Arabic) mobilizes Palestinian artists and educators for three-month arts workshops. It has served about 800 Aida children since it began.
The students perform original plays, including the musical "We Are the Children of the Camp," which they performed in Denmark and Sweden in 2000.
In the United States last month, they performed at a festival and several schools and theaters in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
The Louisville performances will include a show Thursday at the University of Louisville's Thrust Theatre. Russell Vandenbroucke, chairman of U of L's theater arts department, urged theatergoers "to seize the opportunity to encounter in person these young emissaries from this war-torn part of the world.

"While our eyes and ears may be numbed by years of news reports on the Middle East, we seldom have the chance to experience for ourselves the human beings who are among the victims of war, violence and occupation."
Stage One, Louisville's professional theater for young audiences, will host a workshop for the Al-Rowwad group on voice, body movement and imagination in American acting techniques.

J. Daniel Herring, Stage One's artistic director, who is conducting the workshop, noted that the theater has hosted groups from the former Soviet Union, Africa and other countries.
"Every country does the arts a little bit differently. We knew Al-Rowwad was coming to the U.S., and as a courtesy we felt like we'd offer a workshop and discussion. We feel strongly that when kids work together through the arts, it's a great way for cultures to blend and for us to learn about one another."
The Aida Camp is an area of makeshift homes where 5,000 Palestinians are crowded along narrow streets and gunfire and other violence are not uncommon.
Camp children frequently experience nightmares and bed-wetting, exhibit aggressive, antisocial behavior, and lose interest in school, according to reports by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
Officials of the Al-Rowwad center, now located in a two-room house with basically a computer lab and a library/performance space, hope to establish a permanent, full-service cultural center and theater in the camp, equipped with high-tech lighting and sound systems and a movable stage for traveling shows.
The group's Louisville visit is sponsored by arts, education, human-rights and business groups, including the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Islamic Cultural Center, Louisville Arts Council, Stage One Children's Theatre, Ramsi's Cafe on the World, Genesis Arts, Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, River City Drum Corps, Squallis Puppeteers, Muhammad Ali Institute for Peacemaking and Understanding, Committee for Peace in the Middle East, University of Louisville Department of Theatre Arts and the West Broadway United Methodist Church Community Center, among others.
"These exchanges fulfill a central role for Al-Rowwad," said Abu-Srour, the director. "They project positive images of Palestinian children to the outside world, as opposed to the violent representations often portrayed by most media outlets. It's also important that these children know what is normal life without checkpoints, and to continue to have hope."

Published on July 4, 2005 at:
http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050704/SCENE05/507040334/1011/SCENE