Puppetry in times of war

What is the situation for puppeteers and theatre artists in Ukraine and Palestine?

Introductions by Dr.Daria Ivanovna-Hololobova (Unima Ukraine), Marina Barham (Director of Al-Harah theatre in Hebron) and Husam Abed (Dafa Theatre and artist at FiF).

Dr.Daria Ivanovna-Hololobovna is a director, cultural manager and researcher. She is President of Unima Ukraine. Lecturer at Kyiv National I.K. Karpenko-Karyi University of Theatre. Expert of Ukrainian Cultural Foundation. Researcher at Heinrich heine University in Düsseldorf. Curator and participant of international artistic and educational projects.

Marina Barham is co-founder and General Director of Al-Harah Theater and has been an active cultural operator in Palestine, the Middle East and Europe since 1998. She was President of the Palestinian Performing Arts Network from 2019-2021. Alongside producing theatre productions, for the last 23 years, she has managed international, regional & local tours and Euro Med Projects, and curated Palestine International Theater Festival for Children & Youth, Yalla Yalla Street Festival and Bethlehem Site-Specific Theatre Festival in Palestine. Al-Harah Theater believes that theatre has the potential to change the lives of those who make it and those who watch it.

Husam Abed is a Palestinian Jordanian versatile artist with multilayered projects in his art career. He is a theatre creator, director, performer, puppeteer, musician and producer living in Prague, Czech Republic. He started his practice-based research PhD at Bath Spa University/UK. He holds a Master of directing for Drama and theatre at Alternative and Puppet Theatre faculty/ Academy of Performing Arts/Czech Republic. He is known for his puppet theatre work under: Dafa Puppet Theatre, a multi-awarded theatre company based in Prague. Dafa was co-founded by Husam Abed and his wife, a Hungarian puppeteer and stage designer Reka Deak in 2015. As a community theatre maker and facilitator, he believes in theatre as a public practice, a tool for social change, for rewriting personal and collective history and for finding new narrations. Theatre for him is a style of life and existence more than an art form: a medium for expression, communication, inclusion and connecting through differences. The themes and visions in his work focused on exile, war, home, dreams, man vs nature, family relations, human relations’ cruelty and daily struggles.

At 18.00 Husam Abed is performing «War maker». Tickets for the performance can be bought in advance on this website or in our box office on the day, depending on availability.

The talk is part of the series «Puppetry in a (geo)political perspective», a collaboration between Figur i Fossekleiva and Unima Norway.

Photo is a screenshot from TedxBrayfordPool talk «Peace begins with a puppet» with Valerii Dzekh, Ukraine.

Free entrance.