The Freedom Theatre

Über uns

The Freedom Theatre is a community-based theatre and cultural centre in Jenin Refugee Camp, occupied Palestine. Convinced that the arts have a crucial role to play in generating resistance against foremost Israeli apartheid and colonialism and in building a free and healthy society, The Freedom Theatre offers a unique programme of activities in performing arts and multimedia, including acting, psychodrama, playback theatre, filmmaking, photography and creative writing.

The Freedom Theatre is developing a vibrant and creative artistic community in the northern part of the West Bank. While emphasizing professionalism and innovation, the aim of the theatre is also to empower youth and women in the community to challenge oppression and to explore the potential of arts as an important catalyst for social change. The Freedom Theatre aims to:
• Raise the quality of performing and visual arts in the area;
• Offer a space in which children and youth can act, create and express themselves freely and equally, imagine new realities and challenge existing social and cultural barriers;
• Empower the young generation to use the arts to promote positive change in their community;
• Break the cultural isolation that separates Jenin from the wider Palestinian and global communities.

Activities:
• Acting School: The Freedom Theatre offers an intensive three-year educational programme in theatre, with a focus on acting.
• Applied Theatre: The Freedom Theatre runs several theatre training programs for school teachers, mental health professionals and cultural workers.
• Creative writing: Participants in the Creative Writing workshops learn to compose articles, poetry, essays and short stories that are included in The Freedom Theatre´s youth magazine Voices.
• Drama workshops: Through drama workshops for mainly children and youth The Freedom Theatre provides a safe space in which girls and boys can express themselves freely and explore their creativity.
• Filmmaking: Students in the filmmaking workshops produce their own short films, on topics of their own choice, which are presented to the community and to the world.
• Freedom Bus: The Freedom Bus uses interactive theatre and cultural activism to bear witness, raise awareness, build alliances throughout occupied Palestine and beyond.
• Performances & Screenings: The Freedom Theatre hosts performances by other theatres and performing arts ensembles from Palestine and abroad.
• Photography: The photography courses put an emphasis on storytelling and self-expression through pictures. Participants produce their own exhibitions, in addition to working the youth magazine Voices.
• Productions: The Freedom Theatre regularly puts on in-house productions that often comment on social and political issues in contemporary Palestine and in the world.
• Theatre technician training: The Freedom Theatre offers further training in lighting, sound and set design. The theatre technicians work with the rest of the creative team to plan and set up performances as well as to ensure the smooth running of the theatre´s day-to-day operation.
• Voices magazine: Voices is The Freedom Theatre´s youth magazine, written and produced by young women and men in Jenin Refugee Camp and surrounding villages.

Jonatan Stanczak is the Managing Director of The Freedom Theatre.

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