Saudi Arabia. Theatre. Women. Three things that don't naturaly go well together. However three weeks ago I went out to Saudi with the Natioanl Youth Theatre to run theatre based workshops for Women (there was also a guys course as well), they ran the course last year and it went down well. This year it got cancelled. It was all down to political reasons as women aren't allowed to perform. So there were 5 NYT members, a director, assistant director, lighting & sound technician and a stage manager (all female) in Saudi Arabia, what do you do? Put on your own show.
For 2 and a half weeks we wrote down our experiences, how we felt about the situation and most importantly, what would the Uk be like without art? What would our life be like with no freedom of expression? All this became the fuel for our piece we put together and performed on the last day. As well as this we did do 8days of 2hr kids workshops and 4 4hr staff workshops (kids split by gender & staff all female only)!!!
Remember when you were a kid and you wanted to be something totally ridiculous? I wanted to be an astranought. It was only because I watched Wallace & Gromit and I thought it looked really cool, little did I know that it was more to do with science than anyhting else. My point is, is that when we were kids our imaginations stretched for miles, we could dream big and have the opportunity to reach it.
In Saudi the girls we worked with completely lacked in any form of imagiation - their minds were literal and practical - it was as if they were already young women. Then you had the boys and it was like you were working with children again. Even at such a young age the girls are learning how to become women and what their role is. When you ask them what they want to be when they grow up it's nothing like as ridiculous as what you or I would have said!
When doing the staff workshops I spoke to a woman who works for Aramco on the King Abdulaziz center for world culture. Her dream is to be on the stage, her reality is taking people on tours around the new cultural centre... here that's a dream that if you work hard enough you can get, there it's pointless even dreaming about.
The show however was something I had bever done before, I had never written anything for starters...(!)... but to be able to combine all of our experiances the good and the bad - and have a piece to perform by the end was truly exhilarating - that's also down to the amazing work of Polly Bennett & Peyvand Sadeghian!
All in all it was an incredible experience but is beginning to feel like a rather strange dream. It was surreal to experinece being a women out there - and of course rather shocking - by the end I was getting tired of the constant stares, the photo taking and just the lack of respect. I felt as though they didn't really want us there and by the end we wanted to go home. A world where you go to the theatre and are made to sit at the back behind a white wall sepaerting you from all the rest, watching your fellows colleges (men) on stage celebrating the work they've created, a world where you are constantly waiting, where women wanting to be creative is non-existant. This is a world that doesn't come close to what we have.
I hope I haven't painted too much of a negative picture. Yes I learnt a lot about the culture and about women, but it certainly wasn't all negative. We are very quick to judge people who maybe don't dress the same as we do or look different due their culture or religon. However I learnt that actually these women love what they wear and are very strong and independant people in their own way and that was really inspiring.
For me, it's back to 'The Girls of The Globe' which now I feel has many different meanings!
jacobvanloon
dailybridgerton
turnnoffyourmind