El-Funoun changed its style over 25 years, but never its commitment to Palestine

When Palestine's el-Funoun dance company celebrated its silver jubilee in the newly established Ramallah Cultural Palace seven months ago, the occasion was notable on several levels.

In any country, it would be significant for a dance troupe to mark 25 years of creative activity. In Palestine, such an achievement is momentous. In the face of the Israeli military occupation and repression of everything Palestinian, including cultural entities, and despite the inhibiting role that lingering social traditions have played, el-Funoun has been able to not only persevere but grow, develop, experiment, challenge, resist and rekindle dreams of freedom, justice and peace.

It has become the embodiment of the paradigm of cultural resistance to oppression.

Speaking to the crowd packed into the theater for the silver jubilee, Azmi Bishara, the famous Palestinian politician who serves in the Israeli Knesset, offered the following words in his keynote address for el-Funoun: "While the occupier celebrates its monopoly over modernity and progress, it does not mind at all when our heritage is occupied by folklore and orientalism. I salute you for breaking this rule which they hoped to dictate upon us, after they had destroyed in the nakba a fledgling Palestinian project of modernization."

El-Funoun means "the arts." The full name of the company in Arabic is "Firqat el-Funoun al-Sha'biyyah al-Filastiniyyah," which translates literally as "Palestinian Popular Arts Troupe." The word "popular" sets the group apart from such established forms of dance as ballet, jazz and modern. Although the group's more recent and daring works clash with the connotation now, the name was selected back in 1979 to emphasize the group's folkloric roots.

El-Funoun began with a mission to revive Palestinian music and dance folklore as a manifestation of national identity. Its early productions drew on extensive research in Palestinian villages, celebrating centuries' old songs and dances, including the dabke, a provincial dance popular among Arabs of the Eastern Mediterranean, using traditional Arab instruments (such as oud, nai and tabla). Although el-Funoun never presented a vocabulary of folk dances verbatim on stage, it was unquestionably influenced by the themes, styles and character of tradition.

At that time, Israeli leaders routinely proclaimed that Palestine didn't exist as a nation. They attempted to destroy or confiscate indigenous Palestinian culture, heritage, tradition, history and identity, if not explicitly then through convoluted schemes and arbitrary laws. For example, flight attendants on board Israel's airlines El-Al were issued Palestinian embroidered costumes; the golden Dome of the Rock was prominently figured on Israeli travel brochures; hummus and falafel were served as traditional Israeli cuisine; a myriad of Arab and Palestinian slang expressions entered the Israeli lexicon and the colors of the Palestinian flag were banned in any shape, form or combination, even on paintings. Any assertion of Palestinian identity was punished.

It is little wonder, then, that el-Funoun's efforts to portray the roots of Palestinian dance and song was considered a dangerous form of subversion and punished accordingly. Several el-Funoun dancers and managers suffered various measures of persecution, including prolonged detention without charge, torture during interrogation and travel bans. Clandestine dance rehearsals were not uncommon for el-Funoun at times of military crackdowns. Performing in occupied Jerusalem was normally punished with a three-day closure of the hosting venue, a military order tacked on the door declaring a closure due to "illegal activities."

Nevertheless, with oppression came recognition. Soon after its inception, el-Funoun achieved much popularity among Palestinians, both in Palestine and in exile. The group's songs became household tunes and its dances spread feverishly, particularly among young people. When the recording "Sharar (Sparks)" was banned for its "nationalistic content" and all the cassettes confiscated, people ubiquitously and defiantly reproduced it on home recorders all over, making "Shahar" the most coveted cassette in Palestine at the time.

El-Funoun also challenged entrenched taboos and anachronistic traditions in Palestinian society. Women's rights, freedom of choice, the empowerment of youth, democracy, communication with the world - despite the siege - and addressing social themes were frowned upon by social traditionalists, but the community's firm support of the group fended off a backlash. Soon several new dance groups emerged, inspired by el-Funoun.

Throughout the 1980's and during the first Palestinian intifada, resistance meant nourishing the roots and expressing the attributes of Palestinian national identity that had been suppressed by the Israeli occupation. Starting in the mid 1990's, however, el-Funoun's mission has transformed itself. The group found that preservation and survival were no longer sufficient - to create and participate in forging a contemporary cultural identity became more urgent.

To this day, el-Funoun respects Palestinian heritage but also explores, absorbs and integrates modernity. The challenge is to intervene in the development of Palestinian identity, to critique stagnation, capitulation and despair, to envision a new, modern identity that is rooted, yet in dialogue with life, with progress, with universal rights and freedoms.

At first, el-Funoun suffered turbulent internal debates and a great deal of soul-searching until it established a crucial link between authenticity and contemporariness.

The context has not been easy. Years of forced isolation, travel bans, closures, arrests and killings have plagued Palestinian society for decades, crippling its economy, decaying its social cohesion, stifling its artistic development and denying its normal growth. The process of cultural rehabilitation must reckon with a multi-faceted and formidable challenge. Giving up or surrendering to apathy are not allowed. Palestinian cultural organizations such as el-Funoun, realize they must persevere against unfavorable odds.

For example, during the spring of 2002, for instance, when Ramallah was under lockdown, the members of el-Funoun decided to challenge the curfew and go to the studio to rehearse. They were preparing for their latest production, "Haifa, Beirut & Beyond." During this "illegal" rehearsal, a dancer's phone rang. A ringing phone during a rehearsal at the time was usually a bad omen (mobile phones are strictly forbidden during rehearsals, except during times of turmoil and insecurity, meaning most of the time). The dancer picked up his phone with trembling hands. The rest of the troupe froze, trying to interpret the news through his gestures. His pregnant wife was in early labor and all the roads from their village home to the city hospital were blocked by military barricades. He was stuck in Ramallah as his wife was about to give birth a few kilometers away. Feeling totally helpless, he cried.

Though the dancer's relatives tried to drive his wife to a hospital, they were humiliated and threatened at two checkpoints, and turned back. She was forced to deliver at home with no medical supervision.

She gave birth to a premature, perilously stressed but charming boy. A relative finally succeeded in driving mother and child to a hospital in Nablus, and after weeks in an incubator, followed by months in critical condition, the baby recovered, and his father was able to smile again during dance rehearsals. He never quit dancing or hoping.

One of el-Funoun's choreographers was in the middle of making a dance about a massacre that took place during the nakba when she was interrupted with news of her mother's death. She was shot repeatedly by an Israeli soldier while she was embroidering on her front porch in Nablus. No pretence. No apology. No explanation. After a period of shock and mourning, the choreographer returned to finish her dance.

El-Funoun has beaten the odds by focusing on artistic development, learning, experimenting and interacting with Arab and international dance artists. Artistic excellence has become an important objective. And as the need for Palestinian resistance has grown, so too has el-Funoun's will. But throughout its 25-year history, the group has maintained its commitment to re-humanizing the image of the Palestinians, asserting their inalienable humanity and expressing their dreams of a just and enduring peace.

So much of art in the imperialist countries is sterile, self-indulgent commodities to decorate the homes of rich patrons or provide them with another avenue for investing their money when stocks are falling.

Art in Palestine, however, is part of the liberation struggle. Samia A. Halaby in her book "Liberation Art of Palestine" puts this art in context, explains its symbols, development and historical roots, and gives important insights into one of the conflicts shaking the world today.

Creative artists--either in occupied Palestine, Gaza and the West Bank, or in refugee centers in countries like Jordan, Lebanon and Syria--face immense practical problems. Hannah Safieh, one of Palestine's leading photographers, had most of his equipment and significant negatives stolen by Israeli soldiers in the 1948 war. In the 1967 war, his studio in Jerusalem was looted.

On July 2, 1982, Israeli planes bombed the Museum of Solidarity with Palestine in the Shatila refugee camp, which previously had held a very successful and warmly received exhibition. Much of the art in the museum was destroyed. In September of that year, Israeli forces insti gated a massacre at Shatila and the neighboring Sabra camp.

Mustafa Al Hallaj, one of Palestine's most famous graphic artists, lost 25,000 of his prints in the Israeli attacks on Beirut but managed to save the wood and masonry cuts he used to make them.

A number of painters, like Fathi Ghaban, have done time in Israeli jails for including the colors of the Palestinian flag--not a depiction of the flag itself--in their art.

Material conditions sometimes made traditional art materials hard to find, so artists turned to using bits of exploded shell casings, leather and parts of houses destroyed by the Israeli army in their compositions.

Still, for all the repression and attacks, Palestinian artists persisted. Abdul Rahman Al Mozayen is a fighter as well as an artist, who practiced his art both in Lebanon and during the first Intifada. He explained the connection between the Palestinian people and their artists, saying, "When we draw the tragedies we experience, we must not depress our people. We must help them to recover and renew their resolve to fight for liberation."

Halaby focuses her book on two broad movements of Palestinian art. One grew up in the liberation movement in Lebanon during the 1970s and the other drew its impulse from the first Intifada. She puts them in their Arab context, since the Palestinians are an Arab people, and shows their relation to the visual forms produced by Cubism, Futurism, Constru ctivism and the Mexican mural tradition, all of which reflect a revolutionary base.

The use of certain symbols in Pales tinian art--the cactus, the eye, the horse, the mother--is explained by Halaby in clear and illuminating detail. Full-color plates in the back of the book represent the work of many of the artists discussed, who are carefully put in their cultural and political context.

The whole point of this book is to illustrate and explain that the true art of Palestine "rests on the Palestinian struggle for liberation."

Samia A. Halaby's life and courage are reflected in this book. She was born in Jerusalem, Palestine, in 1936. In 1948, Israeli aggression forced her family to move to Beirut, Lebanon. From there her family emigrated to the United States.

After formal training in American universities, she taught art for 18 years, ending with 10 years at the Yale School of Art. Her work has been exhibited internationally and is in many museum collections--among them the Guggenheim in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris.

She is active with Al-Awda NY-NJ, the Al-Jisser Working Group and the Defend Palestine Committee. Not just active. On Sept. 23, 2001, the day that New York officials were holding a memorial service in Yankee Stadium for the victims of 9/11, Halaby helped organize and served as a spokesperson for a meeting in solidarity with the Muslims in the United States.

Born in 1942 in the village of Birwa in the Galilee in what was then Palestine, Mahmoud Darwish is the considered to be the national poet of Palestine. In 1948, Darwish’s family fled their village and when they returned it was inhabited by an Israeli settlement. The Darwish family moved to another village, and here Mahmoud grew up as an “internal refugee” in what had become Israel. As a young man, Darwish’s political activity earned him punishments from the Israelis in the form of house arrests and imprisonment. In 1971, Darwish left his homeland, not to return until 1996, when he was warmly received by Palestinians who had long honored the man and his poetry.

Here is a sampling of Mahmoud Darwish’s brand of simple yet powerful poetry:

A Lover from Palestine (Excerpt)

Her eyes and the tattoo on her hands are Palestinian
Her name is Palestinian
Her dress and sorrow Palestinian
Her kerchief, her feet and body Palestinian
Her words and silence Palestinian
Her voice Palestinian
Her birth and her death Palestinian

I Am There

I come from there and remember,
I was born like everyone is born, I have a mother
and a house with many windows,
I have brothers, friends and a prison.
I have a wave that sea-gulls snatched away.
I have a view of my own and an extra blade of grass.
I have a moon past the peak of words.
I have the godsent food of birds and an olive tree beyond the kent of time.
I have traversed the land before swords turned bodies into banquets.
I come from there, I return the sky to its mother when for its mother the
sky cries, and I weep for a returning cloud to know me.
I have learned the words of blood-stained courts in order to break the rules.
I have learned and dismantled all the words to construct a single one:
Home

Identity Card

Record!
I am an Arab
And my identity card is number fifty thousand
I have eight children
And the ninth is coming after a summer
Will you be angry?

Record!
I am an Arab
Employed with fellow workers at a quarry
I have eight children
I get them bread
Garments and books
from the rocks.
I do not supplicate charity at your doors
Nor do I belittle myself at the footsteps of your chamber
So will you be angry?

Record!
I am an Arab
I have a name without a title
Patient in a country
Where people are enraged
My roots
Were entrenched before the birth of time
And before the opening of the eras
Before the pines, and the olive trees
And before the grass grew
My father descends from the family of the plow
Not from a privileged class
And my grandfather was a farmer
Neither well-bred, nor well-born!
Teaches me the pride of the sun
Before teaching me how to read
And my house is like a watchman's hut
Made of branches and cane
Are you satisfied with my status?
I have a name without a title!

Record!
I am an Arab
You have stolen the orchards of my ancestors
And the land which I cultivated
Along with my children
And you left nothing for us
Except for these rocks.
So will the State take them
As it has been said?!

Therefore!
Record on the top of the first page:
I do not hate poeple
Nor do I encroach
But if I become hungry
The usurper's flesh will be my food
Beware…
Beware…
Of my hunger
And my anger!