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News

The busy summer months have quieted down and the Nablus Circus School has settled into it's academic year routine, but the work has not slowed! September marks the beginning of the 2nd phase of the Circus for Change / Mobile Circus project, which is now co-funded by both the Danish Center for Culture and Development and the Social Development Fund of the French Consulate. In the coming months, trainers will organize workshops in Awerta, Iraq Burin, Yanoun and Sawiya villages, all places where Assirk Assaghir performed in July. In addition, workshops will begin in Askar refugee camp for teen boys and girls.

In other news, Assirk Assaghir will begin a new project called "Dancing Colors" which will be the creation, production and touring of a black-light/glow show. Special effects and mezmorizing acts can be created using black light and glow-in-the-dark materials, something that is completely new in Palestine. This show will be created in the coming months and will be toured during the winter break between semesters. This project is made possible by the Arab Fund for Culture and Development, based in Beirut.

Festiclown

Festiclown is a group of circus artists, clowns and supporters who are visiting Palestine to perform, teach and and show solidarity with the Palestinians. The group made daily performances in Nablus for one week before traveling to Jerusalem and Ramallah to continue their tour. Patch Adams, an American clown and doctor accompanied the group. While they performed he when clowning in a hospital and gave a lecture at An-Najah University. The Assirk Assaghir members who were part of the hospital clowning project attended both activities and gained insight and inspiration from Adams' work.
The Assirk Assaghir team on one occasion performed with the group in the Jamal Abdel Nasser open-air theater for a crowd of more than 400 people. Currently, a number of circus artists have returned to Nablus to give workshops for students at the Nablus Circus School.
Assirk Assaghir would like to thank all Festiclown participants for their support and enthusiasm in promoting the Palestinian cause. We hope to see them again next year.

Shake Festival 2011

Assirk Assaghir participated again in the Shake Festival in Berlin, Germany in July 2011. Six teen boys from the advanced group and 2 trainers participated in 2 weeks of workshops, shows and intercultural exchange with groups from across Europe and the Middle East. They learned new skills, met new people and learned how to make connections with people from diverse backgrounds and cultures through circus. Two of the group are brothers from Balata refugee camp and had not had the chance to travel outside of Palestine before.

Girls Only!

After 2 months of daily trainings and workshops, the teen girls group put together a show and performed it in the Child Culture Center in Nablus for a group of women and children. Later the same day, the whole group of 13 girls and 1 trainer went to the female-only swimming pool and performed the show again, then spent the afternoon swimming and celebrating.
The show consisted of acts in unicycle, poi, stilts, break dance, stomp dance, diabolo, pair acrobatics, group dances and stilts. The girls were proud of their achievement and this was the first time performing for more than half of the group. We look forward to welcoming new girls to our programs, giving them the unique chance to participate in physical and artistic activities and present their skills to the public. These shows and trainings are made possible by Swedish Clowns Without Borders and the Danish Center for Culture and Development.

Mobile Circus Village Tour, July 2011

The village tour of July 2011 was a great success in brining circus, fun and laughter to some of the most isolated areas of the nornthern West Bank. Additionally, it was a chance for teens from Nablus to see the Palestinian countryside and meet rural populations to exchange experiences.

Highlights:
Sawwiya village is located next to the expansive Eli settlement and often faces settler attacks, especially on school-aged girls who have to walk along the main road to reach school. Assirk Assaghir performed for a summer camp there for the most enthusiastic, active crowd of the tour. The cildren clapped, yelled, danced and participated in each act. When asked what their favorite part of the show was, two girls said, "The funny boys with the red noses" of the clowns, something they hadn't seen before.

Kufer Haris and Skaka are villages in Salfeet district, an area Assirk Assaghir hadn't performed in before. Both villages are very near multiple settlements and the entire Salfeet district has a problem with sewage and garbage from the settlements being dumped in their land. In one area, a near-by settlement was using land directly behind the children's school playgroud as their landfill. Assirk Assaghir performed in Skaka in a dirt field under the sun because the center was small and didn't have adequate facilities. The children in the audience sat under an auning. When asked what they thought of the show, one of the teenage performers said, "They really don't have much in that village. We performed outside in a field. I felt today more than the other days that our show was important."

Village Tour

Dear Supporters and Friends,

Assirk Assaghir: The Nablus Circus School would like to invite you to join our July performance tour of villages and refugee camps in the Nablus and Salfeet districts. Assirk Assaghir will bring the fun of circus to the most isolated and marginalized children in the area through clowning, acrobatics, juggling, unicycle, break dance and diabolo. If you are in the area, we would love to see you at one of the following shows. If you can't make it, revisit this blog and check out our facebook and flickr in a couple weeks to see pictures and videos. If you are planning to attend one of the following shows, please contact us beforehand to confirm date, time and place.

This tour is part of a larger project that provides circus workshops and shows for children and youth in Nablus and a number of villages and refugee camps. The project is made possible by generous support from the Danish Center for Culture and Development (http://www.dccd.dk) and the French Consulate Social Development Fund (http://www.consulfrance-jerusalem.org) as well as our many other supporters in Scotland, Sweden, Germany, France and the USA.

We hope to see you all there!

Performance Schedule

Sunday - July 10th - 4pm - Yanoun Village (East of Nablus)

Tuesday - July 12th - 12pm - Awarta Village (East of Nablus)

Wednesday - July 13th - 6pm - Old Askar Refugee Camp (in eastern Nablus)

Thursday - July 14th - 12pm - Skaka Village (Salfeet District)

Saturday - July 16th - 4pm - Kifl Haris Village (Salfeet District)

Sunday - July 17th - 10am - Iraq Burin Village (Southwest of Nablus)

Monday - July 18th - 5pm - Sebastia Village (Northwest of Nablus)

Tuesday - July 19th - 11am - Jemaeen Village (South of Nablus)

Wednesday - July 20th - 11am - Sawwiya/Luban villages (South of Nablus)

Wednesday - July 20th - 4pm - Asseera Asshamaliya village (North of Nablus)

Yanoun Village

When deciding which villages to visit with Assirk Assaghir's Mobile Circus, Yanoun village was one of the first on the list. Yanoun is a small community of around 100 people split into Upper Yanoun ( 6 families living on the mountainside) and Lower Yanoun, which lies in the valley on the road to the next town center. This peaceful place with its old stone houses and golden wheat fields has a dark side that is revealed when you look to the hilltops. Yanoun is surrounded on all sides by illegal Israeli settlements, leaving their only entrance and exit a small road through the valley to Aqraba, the nearest town. With the settlement block of Yatmar to the West, North and East and a new Israeli military outpost to the south, Yanoun's presence is preventing the entire 8km by 3km area from being taken over by settlements. Of course, this important position drives the settlers to harass, attack and antagonize the villagers in hopes that they will eventually leave 'voluntarily'. Israelis settlers would bathe in their spring (their only source of drinking water), poison their sheep and steal their olives (their only sources of income), not to mention attacking and sometimes killing them in their fields. In 2002, after a farmer was brutally beaten to death in his field, the villagers were afraid to stay and collectively moved to Aqraba. The Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) took note of what had happened and brought the villagers back with a promise to provide a constant international presence in the village, something that would help to deter settler attacks. To date, this has prevented settlers from making violent attacks and raids, but not from harassment and theft. On top of all of this, Yanoun is located in Area C of the West Bank (to see a map of the division of land by the Oslo Accords, visit http://www.ccmep.org/delegations/maps/palestine.html), so it is illegal to build any structure. Necessarily, young men and women who want to get married and start a family must move to the nearest town. There is simply no room for them in Yanoun, despite the vast area of rolling hills and valleys that stretch before them.

It is with all of this in mind that we chose to bring the circus to Yanoun. The group of advanced teens from Nablus were chosen to perform the show that will be toured to 8 villages and 2 refugee camps. They were told, "We'll start in Yanoun." Puzzled looks crossed their faces, "Where?!" They had never heard of this place.

When we arrived and set up to play in a small courtyard, timid children began to gather around. They were all very shy and serious as they waited for the show to start. The head of the village and the father to 4 of the girls said later that the children seldom laugh and are often afraid, especially of strangers. When the show started they didn't act like children usually do when watching a show. They were very still and quiet, but didn't take their eyes off of the performers. By the time the first clowning act had come, the children had forgotten their surroundings, forgotten to be afraid and shy. When the tall clown in yellow looking for his hat woke up the sleeping clown in red for the 4th time, and they chased each other around the room, the ice was finally broken and the kids broke into laughter. "We've never seen them laugh before," one of the EAPPI workers said.

As the show came to a close, we were all happy about the fresh, fun atmosphere that had been created in Yanoun, even if only for a short time.

As the teenagers from Nablus were packing up their things, unused to the quiet of the countryside, Rashid, the head of the village asked if he could take some of our time to describe Yanoun's history and current position to the boys. Considering the fact that they hadn't even heard of Yanoun before, we were glad for them to get a chance to learn about it. We all sat in a circle in the courtyard and listened to Rashid tell of the beauty of Yanoun and their lifestyle and the horrors they have experienced at the hands of the settlers. They kept looking across the valley to the other mountaintop at the new barracks the Israeli military had built, finally understanding what it means to live with settlers, military and the constant possibility of being uprooted from your home. As we sat there in the setting sun, I realized that during the preparation for the Mobile Circus, we had been focused on how the activities would affect the village children and had completely passed over the incredible impact visiting these isolated, vulnerable villages would have on our teenage students from Nablus. The boys loaded the equipment into the bus quietly, thinking over what they had just learned and the kind of life they had just been exposed to. Although they came to the circus school the next day back to talking about music videos and their new iPod, we knew that this experience was still with them and would make them open their eyes past the realities of life under occupation in a large city like Nablus to the others in their own country suffering in different ways.

All in all, the Mobile Circus is becoming a richer and richer experience each day. We'll see what the next 2 weeks of shows in villages and camps bring to light.

Peace

Circus for Change

Assirk Assaghir completed the first phase of the Circus for Change program funded by the Danish Center for Culture and Development. The project takes circus workshops to villages in the Nablus district. Assirk Assaghir chose two villages to start the project: Asseera Asshamaliya, a village known for its olive trees dating back to Roman times; and Jemain, an isolated village on the outskirts of the Nablus district. The trainers worked with more than 70 children, introducing them to many different circus arts, playing teamwork games with them, and giving them a chance at self expression through artistic means. The children were excited when they mastered a few tricks on the diabolo, or were able to juggle three balls and they were fascinated by the stilts and unicycles.

The next phase of the project is to tour a show in Asseera Asshamaliya, Jemain and 8 other villages in the Nablus district.

Assirk Assaghir has kicked off the summer with a full schedule of trainings, workshops and shows. With more than 40 students ranging in age from 5 to 20, the Nablus Circus School is always buzzing with activity. One of the most exciting aspects of this new phase in Assirk Assaghir's activities is the progression of the advanced group of teen students and their development into team leaders. A number of these youth teach the younger students, help plan trainings, and develop shows. Most recently they helped develop a show that was performed for an audience of elderly people who participate in a social welfare program through An-Najah University and another at the Red Crescent Society for handicapped children as a kick-off to their summer camp.

Circus Trainer travels to Germany

Bahaa, a long-time circus trainer at the Nablus circus school left in early April for Berlin, Germany to participate in the European Voluntary Service at the Grenzkultur circus. Bahaa will be able to learn new skills in circus arts and teaching while also sharing his knowledge with the Germans and internationals in Berlin. Bahaa plans to volunteer for one year and then return to Nablus to continue at Assirk Assaghir. We wish him the best of luck and want him to know that he will be missed at the circus school.

Shows for School Children

In April Assirk Assaghir's team of teens performed 4shows for school children as part of a yearly project in coopeartion with the Child Culture Center in Nablus. The show consisted of acts in poi, clowning, unicycle, juggling, acrobatics and break dance. School children participated in a field trip to the CCC to see the circus and partake in other artisitc and musical activities.

Antipodist Comes to Assirk Assaghir

Some of you may be wondering what an antipodist is. An underground movement against iPods? An Italian appetizer? It is actually someone who juggles with his/her feet. As part of their research for a new performance they're working on, Emilia Tau, an antipodist, and Bertrand Depoortere, a photographer stayed for 1 week in Nablus. Emilia gave trainings in juggling with feet and hands for all groups of boys and girls. The Assirk Assaghir team wants to thank them for their work with the circus school and wish them good luck in the production of their show about culture and circus.

Student wins 1st place in nation-wide gymnastics contest

Abed, a 14 year-old circus student from Balata refugee camp participated in a gymnastics competition through his school and won the regionals to go on to win first place at nationals. He competed against other students from around Palestine. His routine mixed gymnastics with acrobatics and contortion. Although new to the circus, Abed has shown enthusiasm and a strong will to learn both acrobatics and other circus skills such as unicycle and juggling.

On behalf of the Assirk Assaghir team, we say "Congratulations!"

Juggling and Diabolo!

Two jugglers and diabolo experts from the Czech Republic gave a 3-day workshop at the Nablus Circus School. They worked with beginners in 3-ball juggling and advanced students in clubs, passing and diabolo. They performed a shortened version of a light show for the students at the end of the 3 days. This is the first of a series of workshops that will take place over the course o 3 years. New students were amazed at the trainers’ skills and advanced students gobbled up new tricks and moves. The jugglers left with the hope that they will see improvement when they return as students practice what they learned over the next few months.

Mobile Circus

In cooperation with the Danish Center for Culture and Development Assirk Assaghir is launching a new project to take its programs to villages in the Nablus district. Over the next year and a half, in addition to regular trainings for youth and children in the city, trainers will be giving workshops and organizing shows in villages with especially difficult conditions due to military checkpoints and Israeli settlements. The trainers work in each village for one month, facilitating weekly workshops for children and youth. In the summer, a performance created by the Nablus teen groups will be toured around the participating villages. This project will allow the circus to reach the most remote areas in the district, giving children and youth a break from the realities of their daily lives and providing them with a fun, extracurricular activity, which is a rare opportunity.

Assirk Assaghir in the News!

A Palestinian weekly magazine in English, This Week in Palestine, published an article about Assirk Assaghir in its latest issue, which was focused on children in Palestine. You can read the article on their website.

http://www.thisweekinpalestine.com/details.php?id=3334&ed=191&edid=191

Contortion Training

The Nablus Circus School is currently hosting a French trainer who is a specialist in contortion. She has been giving training to the teen girls and boys groups as well as the trainers. Her trainings focus on flexibility, basic acrobatics and contortion moves and positions. Although a difficult skill to learn, students are enjoying their work with her and improving in flexibility and range of motion by the day.

Black Light Show

The teenage group of boys and girls performed a black light show on Feburary 6^th in Dar Al Fonon Center in Askar Refugee Camp. Although supervised by the trainers, the performance was created by the students who had been experimenting with the idea of black light throughout the semester. The show was comprised of acts in juggling, diabolo, acrobatics, contortion, poi, rhythm, clowning and break dance. It was very well received by the audience and after the show many youth asked to sign up for circus classes. Assirk Assaghir hopes to expand on this show and perform in a bigger theater this summer.

Clowns Without Borders, Belgium

Assirk Assaghir kicked off the new year with a visit from Clowns Without Borders, Belgium. A group of three clowns traveled to Palestine to make performances across the West Bank. While in Nablus, they made 9 shows in children’s centers and theaters, refugee camps and hospitals for more than 500 children. The show was a clowning show for children that centered around magic tricks and their successes.... and bloopers. It was the group’s first time in Palestine and first tour through Clowns Without Borders. Assirk Assaghir would like to thank them for the work they did and the fun they created!

Spot Light

In September 2010, three circus trainers from Assirk Assaghir created a clowning show called “Spot Light” which they toured in Sweden. The show was made up of funny sketches interspersed with acts in diabolo, acrobatics, dance and juggling. After the show a short film about Assirk Assaghir’s work and cooperation with Clowns Without Borders Sweden was shown. The group performed 10 shows over the course of 3 weeks as a way to fund raise for the circus school and raise awareness about Palestine. They performed in high schools, theaters and in a circus festival.

Student Initiative

While a group of trainers and trainees were participating in the Comedy Shake in Berlin, the rest of the teenage boys and girls had two weeks of free training in which they were encouraged to improve their skills and work together. As the traveling group left the teens to their own devices, they didn't know what they would find upon their return. To their surprise, during their absence, the group had not only been working on their circus skills and teaching each other, but they had also come together and created a performance called "The Queen." The show included unicycle, acrobatics, dance and drama. The trainers were very proud of the youth and how they took initiative and worked together to create something impressive. We look forward to seeing initiatives like this in the future!