Discussing gender equality in Vietnam through performing Palestinian plays
Together with our partners at International House Belfast and Can Tho University in Vietnam, we’re very pleased to have received a grant from the British Council to train Vietnamese teachers of English in Remote Theatre. In the first two courses, which finished last week, the teachers worked towards Lockdown Theatre performances of plays related to gender equality, originally created and performed by young people in Gaza.
As we all know, Remote theatre (and its later variant Lockdown theatre) was born and bred in Gaza. So we invited some remote theatre specialists from there (Amal Mukhairez, Haneen Jadalla, Rinan Jamal and Soha Isleem) to come along and watch the final performances and provide some feedback. We were also very honoured to have some of the students who created and acted in the original performances with us in the room. In the videos below you can see each of the three plays and a part of the discussion that followed.
I love the way the Vietnamese teachers have taken these plays and made them their own, incorporating lots of remote theatre techniques very successfully and using them to focus on gender equality in their own context.
‘Live your life’ was originally created and performed by Sally Hweihi, Shaza Hamad, Razan Hweihi, Marwa Hamad, and Malak Hamdan from Beit Hanoun prep girls UNRWA school A Gaza, with support from their teachers, Manal Ismail and Rinan Al Muzanin. https://youtu.be/PeofGSQet3I
“Nobody can destroy your dreams’ was originally created and performed by, Siwar shaat, Qamar Abu Fakher, Dana Abu Rahma, Saja Shaat and Tala Abu Abdou from Al Madina Al Munawwarah girls Prep. UNRWA School, Rafah , with support from their teacher Soha Abed Almajeed Isleem https://youtu.be/dd54OPhiGKg
“It’s your choice” was originally created and performed by Malak Radi , Yasmine Jouda , Noor hijazi, Malak Abu Safi and Lama Abu Ouda from Beach Prep Girls’ UNRWA School ‘C’, Gaza with support from their teacher Abeer Younis. https://youtu.be/z4fv2idB4m0