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Support El-Hakawati

The El Hakawati Theatre works diligently to produce theatrical works, shows, tours, festivals, and trainings that target a wide variety of the Palestinian society every year. Those works and activities present multiple social issues to the audience, putting them under investigation that aims to reshape the audience’s perception for them, in addition to relying on modern resources to reproduce the Palestinian Folklore.

The El-Hakwati allows its network of friends and donors to be a part of its artistic and cultural message in Palestine in general, and in Jerusalem in particular.

Donors are allowed to donate and support one certain activity or a number of activities within the Theatre’s main programmes as follows:

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Shows with10,000 audience members yearly
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Theatre Shows attended by 30,000 students
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Workshops with 150 youth participants
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Community Activities for 6,000 participants

1. Supporting the Theatrical Productions Programme, Tours, and Shows

Providing the needed support to productions and tours is of vital importance to the work of the El Hakwati as this Theatre targets the general Palestinian audience and the Jerusalemite audience in particular with these activities which aim at reinforcing this people’s identity, the importance of their just cause among different generations, and the artistic and theatrical anchoring of the Theatre’s work within different scopes.

Within this programme, donors can support one or multiple components pf the Theatre’s productions or tours and shows as follows:

The live plays are the Theatre’s main chord which the theatre produce in cooperation with specialized troops and a wide network of the Theatre’s friends.

When supporting the direct plays, you directly support the cultural life in Jerusalem by reviving the plays’ activities and their reproduction for the Palestinian audience.

Supporters can help the Theatre produce a complete single theatre show in Jerusalem by donating $10,000. Donate Now

The Youth Plays are a series of drama workshops that are especially designed to produce the creative work of the youth in order to present them at schools within programmed tours. This programme gives a real-life opportunity to young artists to work as theatre directors, and the El Hakwati Theatre grants them the opportunity to become members of the Theatre’s Friends Network if they wish to pursue a career in dramatic production.

Supporting the plays by the youth directly contributes to turning the theatre’s experience into an educative one that runs within a systematic pattern that produces real and practical results. The donors to this programme help increase the number of the artistic workshops that contribute to integrate the youth into these workshops, and help them find their way to become influencers within the Jerusalemite cultural scene by indulging them into a long-term experience with the leaders of the El Hakawati Theatre and its audience.

Donors can contribute to producing one complete play by the youth theatre in Jerusalem by donating $5,000. Donate Now

From Tokyo in the east to Alaska in the west, the El Hakawati theatre ran hundreds of local and international shows and play-tours. The contribution of donors for these tours and shows are the support system of the El Hakawati Theatre which help it to persist with its local communication mission with Palestine and the world to create a global and human significance for the Palestinian cause.

Donors can help prepare for a complete tour for one of the shows by donating $10,000. Donate Now

2. Supporting the Festivals and Hosting Programmes

Ever since its establishment, the El Hakawati Theatre made sure it stays in direct touch with its audience and local community, and provided itself as an open space that collects together its audience, neighbours, and friends, whether individuals or institutions.

The Theatre, moreover, has always played a major role as Palestine’s cultural anchor, being the link between besieged Jerusalem and the rest of the Palestinian cities on one hand, and between Palestine and the world on the other hand through the festivals and plays it presents or hosts.

Supporting this programme builds a cultural, artistic, civil, and literary bridge with the world, and allows the world to stand with Palestine and support its just cause in return. Supporting this programme, moreover, backs up the Palestinian artistic base, allowing it to empower the theatrical troops, and granting them the space for free and creative production.

Within this programme, donations can be granted to different programmes and festivals:

By supporting the intellectual structure of hostings, donors contribute to opening new scopes and opportunities for Palestinian artists to exchange expertise with other international artists, whether by spurring them to participate in trainings and circulate them, or by hosting international artists to present workshops and seminars at the Theatre.
The Theatre aims at empowering the artistic culture of theatre by benefiting from different expertise that are circulated to reach drama teachers in Palestine.

Donors can contribute to hold a full hosting by donating $2,500. Donate Now

The El Hakawati Theatre hosted tens of artistic festivals within its scope of work in culture. Within this context, the El Hakawati theatre is considered a platform for many important festivals that always aspire to be hosted by it, in order to engage the Palestinian audience in Jerusalem and within the 1948 borders in particular into the Palestinian cultural scene.

Below are a number of the most prominent festivals that were hosted by the El Hakwati Theatre:

  • Ramallah Contemporary
  • Dance Festival.
  • Palestine Cinema Festival.
  • Al Kamanjaty Festival.

Considering the above, it is possible to support this programme by either donating to empower the infrastructure of the Theatre to proceed with its hostings, or to provide the support for the El Hakawati festivals, as follows:

a. The International Puppet Festival

The international Puppet Festival is considered a tradition that started in the 90s, and was held 19 times throughout the previous years. The Festival usually runs from the beginning of October until the end of the year.

The targeted audience of this festival are children between 3 and 15 years old. Its activities are various and include puppet shows, cinematic shows, and musical shows, in addition to puppet-making workshops.
The Puppet festival earned a very important spot among the Palestinian audience, and the Jerusalemite audience in particular, being the first festival that targets children directly and specifically. The festival could attract wide numbers of the Jerusalemite audience, and is waited for by hundreds of families every year.

b. Theatrical Days from the memory of Francois Abu Salem

Francois Abu Salem left the contemporary cultural movement the largest theatrical archive from the 1970 and until Francois’ death. The El Hakwati is inspired by this rich archive all the time to produce new theatre works that honour the journey of Abu Salem by presenting those works with other theatre inspirations from students of Abu Salem.

Donors can sponsor one of the festivals that take place in Jerusalem by donating an amount between $5,000 and $10,000. Donate Now

3. Supporting Workshops and Trainings

The El Hakawati Theatre designs and executes tens of trainings and workshops for its local audience in Jerusalem and Palestine all the time.

Supporting the trainings and the workshops that the Theatre runs follows a faith that theatre is not only an entertainment platform, but also a platform that raises the intellectual and cultural level of the Palestinian people, and a supporter of the national act that carries the Palestinian people’s cause, along with its humanitarian message and identity all the way to the world.

The El Hakawati Theatre’s staff work hard to present a variety of workshops and trainings in the field of theatre shows, some which take place inside the halls of the theatres, and some which take place in different cities in Jerusalem by working with various institutes and artistic groups, in addition to a large number of artists.

The workshops vary to include a larger group of amateur and professional actors, female and male teachers from schools, kindergartens, and nurseries, and individuals who wish to become drama teachers. The Theatre holds more than 5 main types of trainings and workshops which all finish by presenting a theatre show inside or outside the theatre that reaches to the marginalized areas in Jerusalem and Palestine. Those shows usually include 10 children theatre shows, and 10 other shows held throughout the year, in addition to multiple activities, musical shows, graduations ceremonies, and plays for school students.

Your donations can support more than one kind of trainings and workshops  by donating $1,000 – $1,500. Donate Now

These workshops are held either before or after a theatre show that is presented by theatre members to students, and ranges between 20-60 minutes, joining both parties as key participants. These workshops are considered a platform for students to express their opinions and thoughts freely in regard to the theme of the play. Those workshops differ from show to another, but still resemble in method, which usually consists of 3 major parts: First, questions and answers, second, theatre games that audience participates in from their seats, third, discussing the play and its context, which includes inviting students to the front where they can perform an improvisation with the participating actors.

These are a series of workshops that were specifically designed to give the youth an opportunity to form and express their personal opinions, to stimulate their imagination, and share their dreams, fears, and hopes. Those workshops are basically dependent on drama workshops, and animation workshops.

The theatre prepares for and executes specialized drama workshops that target children aged 9-12 years, and youth aged 13-16 years. Each workshop holds around 15-20 participants, and is distributed on 18 meetings, 3 hours each, for six days a week to conclude fully in 3 weeks.

These workshops allow the participants to focus on and experience discipline by participating in an intensive, unremitting activity to produce a short theatrical play at the end of each workshop, to be presented to the families and friends of the participants. Each workshop is unique in signification, as it is shaped to imitate the participants’ inspirations and thoughts, which makes every workshop a special project that carries out special and different results.

The theatre specializes unique workshops for school teachers that focus on using storytelling and drama as a teaching method. These workshops target female and male teachers of all teaching levels, and are organized in cooperation with specialized departments of the Ministry of Education and Ministry of culture.

Awareness raising seminars for teaching staffs, school administrators, and department heads are held in shade of these workshops to support and encourage theatre work, and recruit it in school life and Palestinian lifestyle in general.

The greatest achievement of the Teachers’ workshops was the publication of a brochure that encompasses the different activities and trainings of teachers by “Ayyam Al Masrah” partner institution, in order to best recruit it in the educational process for all different groups.

The El Hakawati theatre was able to develop a specialized curriculum to train female and male drama teachers within a year. This programme targets individuals who work in theatre to help them recruit drama in their work with children. The programme focuses on acting, talent, and artistic skills on one side, and on providing the participants with the needed skills, trainings, and tools that are guaranteed to attain best results with children, on the other side, regardless the children’s different needs and backgrounds.

The training guarantees a comprehensive experience for the participants by debating the skills that a child could obtain, and the best methods to achieve them by involving the child as an artist who becomes a part of the theatrical production. This involvement ensures the child affects and is affected by the mutual knowledge, when indulged in the field of drama.

4. Supporting the Building’s Infrastructure

Since the end of the twentieth century, the buildings of the El Hakawati Theatre stand high to host hundreds of activities, seminars, and community activities of artistic, social, and intellectual touch. These halls represent a scope of communication between different generations through arts and the way they intertwine.

Help is needed to renovate the halls of the El Hakawati theatre by providing the needed maintenance as they currently experience serious problems that stand in the Theatre’s way to host important events.

To support the Theatre’s Infrastructure please donate or contact us via email at Info@pnt-pal.org

El-Hakawati Theater needs your support now more than ever!

Help us to continue with the Palestinian theater movement 

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