Betty Nansen enchants the Middle East on stage

Roars of laughter, goose bumps and eyes on the verge of tears. Young actors from Betty Nansen’s theatre C:NTACT project aroused great emotion in the Arabic audience, when they told their personal stories in a freezing cold theatre in Jordan’s capital Amman.

Bedouin fortæller enlights his audience.

The Tunisian Bedouin has just left the stage in Al-Balad theatre in Amman. Dressed in a turban, a large white shirt and bearing a cane, he has just been entertaining the audience with anecdotes about native people of Tunisia, on this frosty January evening. His contribution is part of the great Hakaya festival, which is supported by Mellemfolkeligt Samvirke, and which runs from the 12^th – 16^th of January. Hakaya means ‘story’ in Arabic – and the objective of the festival is partly to ignite the age old Arabic story-telling tradition and in this way bring 1001 Arabian Nights into the present, and partly to research how story-telling can be used as a tool to create dialogue between young people from different backgrounds.

Six young Danes, who are experts in the latter, sit ready on stage. They are young talents from Betty Nansen Theatre’s C:NTACT project, and as members of the project’s taskforce, they are used to travelling to remote parts of Denmark in order to tell other youths about their own personal stories. The six are seated in plastic chairs in Jordan’s capital waiting for their turn to go on stage. One is dark skinned, one is fair skinned, two wear a head-scarf, and two are wearing recently purchased Palestinian scarves around their necks.

Spellbound Jordanian spectator.

“I am really eager to find out if they laugh in the right places, says the 19 year old Khadije Nasser, while the person beside her, Nellie Walters, laughs nervously, and says, “ because this is the first time the troop will be performing in English.

“We have found it difficult to translate the word ‘perker’ (slang for dark skinned people of Arabic origin living in Denmark, derived from the word for Pursian) – and it isn’t certain that they understand our Danish humour”, he adds.

Happy C:ntact-actors after their performence - Khadije Nasser is seen to the right.

Personal stories in focus

Since 2003 have young people of other ethnic origin preformed on stage as part of Betty Nansen’s Theatre’s successful C:NTACT project. Through professional assistance from performing artists, the young people’s personal stories are put into focus and conjured into theatre performances, films, radio or texts.

C:NTACT is now, for the first time, in the Middle East. The objective of the tour is partly to prepare a C:NTACT course for ‘uncut’ youth talents in Palestina in conjunction with The Centre for Culture and Development (CKU) and partly to give a Danish story-telling contribution to the Hakaya festival. Hopefully in this way, a new type of dialogue will be created  amongst the youth in co-operation with Mellemfolkeligt Samvirkers partners in Jordan.

Jakob Holm from C:ntact with the actors.

“Theatre gives you an emotional understanding of the things you don’t understand. That’s why it is clear that theatre can be more than passive evening entertainment for adults, says Henrik Hartmann, theatre manger for Betty Nansen’s Theatre. He has travelled along to Jordan and adds,

“One of our objectives with C:NTACT is to give theatre back to the people who own the stories: We want to be able to articulate the young energy, and through the stories give the youth of the Middle East a greater sense of independence.”

Khadije Nasser on stage.

On the run from dad
One, who has a strong personal story, is Khadije Nasser. She comes from Lebanon, but is born in Denmark and has just started her studies in journalism at Krogerup Højskole.Wearing a black and white dress, matching head-scarf and runners, she gets up from the plastic chair and moves toward the stage, and when she starts talking, all the mumbling in the chilly Jordanian audience dissipates.

“My parents got divorced when I was 6 years old”, she says and her long eyelashes moisten with a few tears, while she reveals her story of how she and her siblings were kidnapped by their Lebanese father a few years ago. He took them on a ‘holiday’ to their country of origin. While the slight young woman tells her story, we imagine how she and her siblings hid the money they received for candy in order to call their mother from an old telephone box in Lebanon, and how they fled on a donkey across the river with their most important belongings in their school bag, before finally being reunited with their mother in Damascus.

“Bravo” someone yells out from the audience when Khadije is done telling her story. Several Jordanians have tears in their eyes and many feel the need to exchange a few words with the person sitting next to them.

The fear of their jokes falling flat is unfounded. A few minutes’ later people are roaring with laughter in the ‘Eskimo theatre’, when the young actors tell stories full of self-irony and share their personal experiences about feeling different in Denmark.

Stories of how Danish boyfriends fear reprisals from the Iranian army if they kiss a dark skinned girl, war in Sierra Leone and crime committed by immigrants in the form of a chocolate bar which has melted in the pocket of a six year old Kurdish boy’s trousers. The actors from C:NTACT told stories from far and wide before receiving a huge round of applause.

Evrim from C:ntact on stage.

Hit right in the solar plexus
After the show, the audience is able to ask the Danish actors questions. Many hands are raised, and it quickly becomes obvious that the Arabic audience has been hit right in their solar plexus by the stories of the youth.

“I am blown away. It is like holding a mirror up to my face. As a Palestinian, I know all about being discriminated”, says one young man.

“Is there an immigration crisis in Denmark”, someone wants to know. “Has the situation become worse for you since 9/11 and the cartoon drawings”, someone else asks. “Is it really your own stories”, a third person asks.

The Danish actors answer unanimously that they actually feel that everything is going in the right direction in Denmark and that people, in general, are more curious to know something about their backgrounds than they have been.

Khadije is quickly surrounded by people who want to hold her hand and give her a hug.

“It does something to me every time I stand on stage and tell the story about my father. But today is the first time that I have been on the verge of crying. The greatest crises in my life happened close to where we are now, and there were a lot of Arabs here who could identify with my story. I think that they have another premise which makes it easier for them to put themselves in my situation”, she says.

New ways of telling stories
Story-telling is very important for Arabs, but there is quite a difference between magic lamps and Bedouins to authentic stories about things that hurt deep down.

“In Arabic tradition we use the traditional stories to arouse the imagination and create contact to the inside world. The good thing about stories is that they can’t be wrong. They touch something in us because we are all created by –and recreate ourselves through stories. But personal stories, is a very private matter in the Middle East, and it is something new for us to see them being used in this way in the public sphere, says Shireen Yaish, coordinator of the Hakaya festival.

She hopes to see a stronger co-operation with C:NTACT and Mellemfolkeligt Samvirke on the issue of story-telling.” I believe that people discover one another through stories.” She points out that, “it’s not certain that we could get Arabs to stand on stage and tell stories, as the young Danes have had the courage to do.”