Voicing Resistance

The festival Voicing Resistance presents new works by young Arab artists who actively participated in the uprisings and political movements in the Arab world in 2010/2011. Directed by the dramaturge Irina Szodruch, the festival featured guest performances in dance and theatre, films, workshops and public discussions. The artists’ personal views of the protest movements and the most recent political and social developments in their home countries played a central role in all of the events.
The featured artists, e.g. Laila Soliman from Egypt and Ruud Gielens, Mourad Ben Cheikh from Tunisia and the group Zoukak from Lebanon, captured the uprisings on film and in writing – at first, to merely document their personal experiences. Later they gradually used the material to produce artworks which portrayed their view of the revolutions and frequently diverged from the official version and its presentation in the media.
Voicing Resistance presented these works to a broad audience in Germany for the first time and offered inside accounts which had received little public attention until then. The festival also hosted discussion forums targeted at local audiences and, in particular, young Berliners of immigrant descent.

Artistic director: Irina Szodruch; Artists: Laila Hassan Soliman (EH), Ruud Gielens (BE), Freedom Theatre, DAM, Abdallah Obeish (LY), Mourad Ben Cheikh (TN), Mustafa Said, Bassem Yousri, Zoukak Company (RL), Taoufiq Izeddiou (MA), and others