Permission To Perform
This project focuses on Palestinian theatre in a period of cultural regeneration, the golden era of the 1970s and 1980s in Jerusalem. Samer Al-Saber is completing this monograph Permission To Perform during his affiliation period with EUME. Although research on Palestinian theatre and Arab culture has increased in recent years, it remains minimal. The book tells the story of Palestinian youth who gathered in the wake of the 1967 war to launch a performance culture that thrives today. Based on fieldwork in Jerusalem and the West Bank, applying a combination of interdisciplinary research methodologies, including critical ethnography, performance theory, content analysis of newspaper articles, previously unexplored archival documents, analysis of essential dramatic texts, and personally gathered oral history, the book recounts events that have gone undocumented. It shows how the struggle for a comprehensive “permission to perform,” which serves as a reminder of the disparity in power in critical contexts, characterizes the relationship between the artists and the authorities. In this book and through historical documentation, he narrates how artists acquire the ability to legally, physically, literally, and publicly perform the experience of the oppressed under a systematically oppressive structure.
