At the heart of Dafa work lies a focused search for the context and the roots of Arab Puppet Theatre.
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At the heart of Dafa work lies a focused search for the context of Arab Puppet Theatre .
Uprooted-2 is a capacity building project to support young artists to develop their skills and knowledge in working with Palestinian and Jordanian children and youngsters from different and often marginalized communities in Jordan. A performance was created for children, which toured in and outside of Amman. The project looks into questions around identity/home/belonging.
A first workshop took place in October 2022 at the black box theater of NCCA (National Centre for Culture and Arts). This workshop was conducted by Abdalla Al Omari and Benno Voorham and focussed on interdisciplinary work, combining visual art, video with dance and theater.
The second workshop period, conducted by Husam Abed and Benno Voorham took place in November 2022 in one of the dance studios at NCCA. In this workshop, different ideas around working with objects in theatrical storytelling, both verbally and non-verbally, were introduced.
A third workshop was held April 2023 with Abdalla Al Omari, Husam Abed and Benno Voorham as teachers. May – June 2023 Benno Voorham and Husam Abed created a performance on the base of the developed materials that premiered June 10 at the French Institute in Amman.
The project was financially supported by the Swedish Institute.
The premier was at French institute and was performed at Osama Mashini Theater, Zaha Cultural Centre for youth in Amman and the Garage in Irbid.
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As part of a continuous search for the roots of Arab Puppet Theater, the book of Felicity inspired the show. To celebrate the cultural heritage and Palestinian fairytales & folktales, Dafa team choose the story of Half boy نص نصيص.
The story lies among 45 tales that the book: Speak bird Speak again قول يا طير.
The show has been performed in 2021 at Nad Prahou Pulmesic festival in Prague as a work in progress.
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Book of Felicity
Download PDFExploring how objects connect across borders, boundaries and difference.
Objects Without Borders is a practice-based research project that investigates the role of puppetry and object performance in connecting people across borders, boundaries and differences. The project draws on the knowledge and experience of people living on and between the borders and boundaries of society, including refugees and people from deprived communities.
We know how powerful puppetry and object performance can be in applied theatre and arts contexts. What we want to get at through this project is: How do objects help us to cross boundaries? What are the differences and unique benefits in the ways that objects help us connect across boundaries of communication, identity and communities? What are the objects doing for us?
The project ran six pilot sessions over Zoom between May-July 2021, connecting artists, community theatre facilitators and puppeteers from Jordan, the Czech Republic and the UK. Participants included Seenaryo, a UK NGO working in Jordan; Dafa Puppet Theatre from Prague; Theatre Orchard from Weston-super-Mare, UK; Wattle and Daub from Bristol (UK); Bristol-based producer Rachel McNally; and Sam the Artist, a Palestinian refugee visual calligraphy artist based in Bristol.
Across the six sessions each of us shared our existing creative practice, used objects to get to know each other, played with objects within and across the digital space, and collectively created an object-based devising process.
Theatre, Fragility, and connection: An Intimate Space
Download PDFSpectacular Bodies: Chapter about Smooth Life
Download PDFDafa Theater
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