Welcome
Home
a gathering for those who are not allowed to return
Friday 16th June 2006, from
7.30 pm
The Great Hall, Queen Mary University, Mile End Road, E1
Mile End tube, bus 25
Tickets £6/£8
box-office: 020 7307 5060
on-line: www.drillhall.co.uk
The State of Israel was formed in 1948. Within fourteen months 369 Palestinian villages were eradicated, their inhabitants dispersed mainly into the Middle East, and are still denied the Right to Return to their homeland. Welcome Home presents international artists and artists from the region responding to the notion of performance and human rights.
The evening will include the performance Memorial Service - 369 Villages
by Oreet Ashery and Mikhail Karikis, a performance for two vocalists, a
video projection and a paper shredder. The Al Zaytouna group will dance
a traditional Palestinian Dabke dance. Since the British occupation and
the formation of Israel the Dabke became
a representation
of Palestinian identity and is associated with political and national aspirations.
Dabke is practised mainly in refugee camps and in the Diaspora.
Also Welcome Home presents films and video works curated by Reem
Fadda, the
director of the Palestinian Association for Contemporary Art, Ramallah. The
programme includes Annemarie Jacir and Nassim Amaouche’s Quelques Miettes
Pour les Oiseaux; Nahed Awwad’s Lions, Sharif
Waked’s Chic Point,
Ayreen Anastas’ Pasolini Pa* Palestine, and Ahmad
Habash’s Coming
Back. These films and videos go beyond the realm of the merely territorial
to question the basic issue of rights and freedoms, of war, and of the right
for an extended free cultural and actual existence.
All this and more: music, party decorations, refreshments, drinks, and
other interactions!
Queen Mary
University,
East
End Collaborations and the
Live
Art Development Agency for Performance
Studies international (PSi) 12: Performing
Rights, a festival of creative dialogues investigating relationships
between human rights and performance. Produced in association with London
Artists Projects.
