 Thank you so much for joining us, and we're very pleased to be bringing you to Golden Thread for co-states. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to the entire staff and all the people that were very hard to be here. The topic of our panel, the Arab Spring, is dramatic reverberations, is something that we've been, as a company, as hybrid theater works, thinking a lot about and bringing it into our own work. So it's a topic that we feel very comfortable speaking about. Obviously, there will be a nice variety of opinions over the course of our panel, which will be about you to find us afterwards and continue the discussion that way. So, my self, I'm JJ Elfar. I'm a producer and executive director of hybrid theater works. I'm also theater director. I am a Georgian-American, but now I'm questioning my hyphen. So, what can I say? I'm Amos, I'm a long-distance racist. It's part of the thinking about how we came up with what to call ourselves hybrid theater works, thinking about the sort of layered identity, this match up of identity, and seeing that as, you know, the trend. And this is my associate. Hi, I'm Tracy Cameron-Francis. I'm a theater director and also the artistic director of hybrid theater works. And I'm Egyptian-American. So, I'm from Sausage. Sausage, yeah. And I think I'll tell you a little bit more about kinds of theater works. So, our organization is really more of a collective of artists, and we have artists mostly based in New York, but also all over the world. We are seeking to create work that's at the intersection of arts and activism in all of any ways that we can define that. But mainly with a focus on international work and international collaboration. We really try to use technology as well to push ourselves in that regard. Our official mission, if you're wondering, hybrid theater works is an organization that creates international collaborations in the intersection of art and activism. Two of our ongoing programs are the Artist Response Forum and the Global Spotlight Series. The Artist Response Forum was created out of a need to really shorten the timeframe between the thing that happened and the artistic response. We were looking to invite artists to create short-form work. We're talking ten-minute pieces that were staged in site-specific locations and non-touristional theater locations, giving artists a chance to really engage as global citizens, as arbiters of different media and different schools of thought surrounding global issues, and give them a chance to really dive in and create work that was immediate. One of the topics that we did, which Tracy will tell you a little bit more about, was a show called The Revolution Will Be Livestream. And in just a second, you'll be seeing some images from our show. And that show featured artists from all over the Middle East, as well as Arabic artists in New York. That's funny. Yeah. Thank you. I'm going out for that. So part of our Global Company and the Artist Response Forum is to have our artists engage with things that are currently happening in the world and to continually be responding to and incorporating that into our work. And we felt as Middle Eastern American artists, when the uprisings happen in the Middle East, that it greatly affected how we approach the work either with Middle Eastern artists and also our work about the Middle East. Personally, as a director, I've directed now three new plays dealing with nutrition uprising in the last year. So I'm always curious about the need to respond and the different ways the artists have responded to these changes in the region. And the thing that you are behind us now, this was kind of a smaller version of these types of responses. We engage artists from all over the region and from the U.S. to just respond somehow. There were dance pieces. There were multi-media pieces. There were also traditional types of plays as well as visual art. So it basically created a conversation using art rather than discussing it as we're doing now, giving different viewpoints and responses to what was happening in the world then. And part of the structure of the forum is to allow space for performance but then also allow time for just unstructured conversation. It's always followed by a little bit of a party. So we don't have a formal discussion, but it really allows people to sort of pursue the threads of the conversation that they found most interesting or talk to the artists that they were really inspired by their work. So why don't we just let you guys introduce yourselves briefly and just tell a little bit about your background and also the background situation currently in your country of origin or your presenting today. We want to move this towards you. Hello everybody, my name is Anatma Sanyi. I'm from Iran actually. I live in Tehran, partly in Seattle. I'm a playwright and I teach in the University of Tehran. Okay. Hi everybody, my name is Hadi Al-Islam. I'm assistant lecturer at Tehran University, Egyptian University. I'm a faculty class at the Theatre Department and I'm here as a scholar in residence. So far, I'm affiliated to NYU but I'm allowed to transfer to CUNY University under the supervision of Professor Marvin Carlson. Hi, my name is J. Abdo. I come from Syria. I'm an actor. I'm a musician as well. I have been in this entertainment business and I've been in theatre, TV and films since 1988. I've done more than 42 films. I mean, some 1,000 TV shows and 21 theatrical plays in more than four languages. Now, I'm here in the United States. I came due to the situation back home in Syria and I'm based on Los Angeles. Also, we're supposed to have a Tunisian director, Nasser Al-Mahdi, who is unable to join us for today. We do have responses that we send questions out to our journalists and we send them to another Tunisian director, not Nasser Al-Mahdi, but Lufti Ahtur, who has created some really remarkable work in Tunisia. So we do have those responses to our questions as well and I'll be referring to those even though they couldn't join us in person. So we start with our first question, which is how do the social and political change is in a way to safer change artistic practices in your country and how the aesthetics change? So basically just give a little bit of background for you to be a little bit different but how the theater and performance scene was before uprisings and also post-uprisings. Okay. Actually, I think I should be the last person because I didn't come from an Arab country because of the language. Firstly, because of the language we are not included as Arab people. Middle Eastern. Yeah, but we are Middle Eastern. So the Arab Spring is what did happen in Iran actually. If I speak about the main movements, the main social and political movements in Iran, I have to speak about three movements or revolutions. The first revolution refers to Islamic Republic of Iran, which happened about more than 20 years ago in actually 1978, something. And of course it was a big show culturally, economically, politically, and of course its influence on art is deniable. And then the next movement can be the Reformist Hatch Power about 16 years ago, Mr. Khatami Erkater Power and he elected as the president. And of course that time also we can see lots of changes in art and specifically in theater which is my major. And the turned one refers to about four years ago. We call it based on, I mean it depends on which party we belong. We call it Green Movement. It wasn't a kind of revolution. It didn't have any obvious result. It was just a kind of movement and we call it Green Movement. And of course I can speak about how it I mean affect the theater in Iran and some other arts. About Egypt, before the Egyptian revolution, all the Egyptian painters have suffered a lot. The state fund favors were suffering from bureaucracy, the blind censorship, shorted your fund and enlightened management. Limited performing areas, centralization of arts mainly in Cairo and Alexandria. Most of the performances were in patients of well-known and despicists whether in Arabic or Western place. No one dared to commence on our rulers' actions and decisions when they wanted to criticize the rule that they simply use samples to manipulate the censorship. Actually, most of the Egyptian artists get tired and despair, struggling with narrowed minds and a Victorian system. They have to fight the bureaucrats in the censor, the emergency law, all of these curbing production conditions and restrictions. Our former regime, Nougat, the theater has its far-reaching critical implications as it may convert to be a protest. The audience has such awareness for that they surround the theater and the media in general action and put them under their control to be sure that they could suppress any kind of criticizing voices. And the question now, what happened after the onset of the Egyptian revolution? As far as the Egyptian revolution hasn't made radical effects in our cultured scene. As of now, we haven't achieved any kind of change in our organizational structure and our working methods and funding policies. And to be honest, no one could expect such a change to take place in view of the radical succession of ministers and that we do have so far and we have hasn't had confusion since. The theatrical organization Egypt with its current condition is not qualified to satisfy artists' revolutionary interests and they will not stop their fighting to demand the right to free suppression and artistic freedom. I think the only few and small steps that we have been taken by the artists since the evolution outbreak from my point of view could be summed up in two things. First, we do have now the Outdoor Art Festival in Fennifilmedin or Art Square. It takes place each month bringing various kinds of artists like musicians, painters and performers and we do have also the theater streets. One of the very important steps that the artists did because of the evolution that the art in general and the theater in particular now has the right to go down to states and they can object to the cultural prison that we had before. I think we need this kind of movement of theater first of all to reach the people, whatever they are and to get rid of the art centralization. Second step we have achieved to know that we witnessed the onset of the Egyptian revolution a powerful upset of a new branch of the documentary theater that has been absent from the Egyptian theatrical scene during the last decades and which we told the Tibetan theater. This kind of political art that we have been denied many years ago for example we do have three of us unique Tahrir stories, pages from the Tahrir daily hanging out the masters by the light of the evolution moon and our latest layman no time for arts. Also the features that we can have from most performances that all of them or most of them were a result of improvisational workshops and you know I think the revolution succeeded the continuum spirit that we had missed a lot during the last decades. Finally the only thing that I can say is that our revolution is still ongoing or what we call El Salvador okay the revolution continues and despite the unrest that we are still suffering from a lot of problems we are very optimistic about the coming future you know to have a radical change that takes time so just we will be able to achieve what we want. Thank you so much you made my life easier we can copy, paste what she said and apply in Syria it's exactly the same since 60's artists try and do their best to reflect the political actually all artists are qualities in a certain way so artists and specifically theater they tried and did their best so they had to do in Syria but the oppression and the repression and the dictatorship that we experienced was always surrounding them and forbidding them to do certain activities or artistic activities like painters also and cartoonists like musicians everywhere singers I mean because they don't understand music so I know from my from my experience we always have tried to do theater plays and always it was disaster and very very very difficult to realize because always we've got somebody in the audience before the play is shown who is correcting us and advising let's get rid of this and why are you saying that and it's not to say this why don't we replace it with this idea that would be better for the play and we all know how much an artist is struggling to make a wonderful show so he can't he can't get rid of any word any karma so they come and say let's don't mention this and don't mention that regime in Syria has tried all these years to make up of the mafia or the head of the snake look as an angel so they permitted all artists to criticize everybody down or below the president below the family let me say because it is or it's still a family business and all the artistic activities were to criticize and make fun of those aspects below the family so you couldn't touch the family once the artist is brilliant the family would contact him to become a friend and then without sensing what is he doing where is he going he becomes one of the family now when the revolution started in Syria so many artists started to well they wanted they wanted us to appear on TV and speak in favor of the military and the security service and so many of us didn't do that we fled all over the world and when I first came to America I was frightened and I was very scared of speaking out so my wife who is here who is more courageous than I am suggested why don't you do something a plane regarding this revolution to reflect some like your friends did inside some of them were killed but let's do something you are here in the United States we have at least we are free to speak out and do something on stage and I was scared at the first beginning I said no I'm not little by little we started to create a different scene I was playing I was playing on stage and pantomiming at the beginning I was very scared I was telling her I'm afraid of someone in the audience will report me and they will harm my hands and yes by the days all the terrific and the horrific war going on there and I decided to put a mask on my face then when the show was that close I decided not to use the mask I became a little bit more brave yes that's why they try to put the fear in our hearts in order not to touch where they with the focal points of the problem in our going on I want to talk a little bit I want to talk a little bit about how you feel censorship both government censorship self-censorship and also censorship from the culture and the community have affected the work and also for everybody what we're going on how appropriate is it to do performance and what is the role of performance when there is an ongoing conflict in terms of how dangerous it is and how appropriate it is to still be creating art in the wake of that yes regarding censorship we have a very huge and powerful censorship in Syria and by time it becomes a part of the artist itself because I need to be on stage and to perform and to do and to be part of this artistic movement or artistic way I mean anyway but by time rehearsing we say let's not mention that because you know they will come and say I don't know so let's not lose our time to do this stuff so this stuff which meant to be our mission in life suddenly becomes something I can't act while so and I mean this is in every aspect in art only in theater TV is more dangerous for them because everywhere in the artwork theater is less viewed than TV so many people don't go to theater but yes we have here but TV is more dangerous so the most censorship is in TV still we always try to do Hamlet they say why Hamlet Hamlet you go and pick something else more popular people know and can affect people and get understood by people in life Hamlet what do you think look the the mention of Vinicius something that attached to our culture or to our struggle against this enemy behind borders but this stuff or something like Hamlet or Kings or Caesar or Julius Seath so it's always we have a censorship that sometimes you understand and some other times which is more you don't understand why can you talk a little bit about you just mentioned a little bit more about Dali which is going a lot more direct than a previous more symbolic work that's going to be different the new work I've noticed is much more directly political and directly referencing the situation can you talk a little bit about how that censorship self-censorship and government censorship has shifted or changed since the uprising I believe that when you perform in the streets it gives it gives you the space to say what you want and when you state your opinion directly in front of the audience no one can put this kind of line censorship no one can respect the performers from saying something in between the lines or something like that so actually the censorship is still or does exist in the public theaters more than the state theaters and for that I you know like something like a victory or again after the revolution that we have this space to perform directly to the audience before the revolution we have I think 100% we haven't such a chance to do that before Do you think I do on a censorship there are you either overcommit or work with it or actually most of the energy as writers playwright in other kinds of writers spend for avoiding red lines it's what we do and actually we are it's the kind of fighting we fight censors and they fight us very good and we try to prove our abilities at the center they try to prove their abilities so about maybe 20 years ago it was much easier to avoid censorship because they didn't know anything about us but now they know everything about our tricks and we know anything about their tricks so I want to continue what you say about Shakespeare and Hamlet sometimes Hamlet is difficult to be performed in because Hamlet is about a kind of passive intellectual which we can find ourselves in him so if the drama drama ties Hamlet as a passive intellectual censors they'll get it and then we try to find another way and they try to catch up so it's kind of a game between us and censors one of my last plays is about censorship because I felt that censorship is the most important thing in my own life and suddenly I found myself as a person who even in my dreams tried to find a way to avoid red lines and I wrote a play called Asfalo Sofeline you know what it means Asfalo Sofeline is the kind of the lowest part of the hell and I wrote about a censor who had an accident and he went to coma if I can express myself right and then his wife tried to her husband's responsibility but she can't because she really really engaged with the book and the man was censor and she felt in love with the writer so I sent it to the actually it's a very brief of the play I sent it to the place for being censor and they told me that wow it's crazy you wrote about us I I told them yes I wrote about you but I just tried to show how I mean you are human being and you are not our enemy and I just tried to get closer to you actually I just wrote this play to feel more to feel closer to you to understand you actually they didn't approve it actually yes it's a bigger problem I mean you have to live in Iran to know how everything is a kind of game in Iran everything never got really serious I mean when we speak about censorship it never gets really really serious you always have chance to find a way and I mean avoid the red lines so we are really trying to keep on this game I want to add something some of the artists in Syria dare and broke the censorship one of them was killed in a very terrific way sent to his parents and or they called his parents and come and pick him so the other one is that was a singer in the city of Hama the second one is a cartoonist named Ali who is globally famous leader and president of himself in a funny way so they kidnapped him broke his fingers and throw him 73 years old and throw him somewhere and somebody found him looking for the hospital now he lives in Dubai the third one is Manik Jandani a pianist two things started in Syria he put his piano in front of a white house and started to play music nothing, he said nothing just raising awareness about Syria was going on so please stop this killing I don't know who is responsible they attacked his parents who are seniors 70 and 80 years aged his father is a doctor he beat them so we can do it the risk is too much we can do it it exceeds only courage we have the ability we are very talented people we've got talents all over the places Syria, Egypt, Iran by the way we have amazing with some Iranian artists with all their respect they have amazing theater amazing cinema movies we know how to do it but the risk would be too high going off of that speaking of creating work in the huge risk involved in these places I have a question here why create the work what is the artist's objective we wanted to talk a little bit about the role of theater which has always been referred to as the mirror of society the way to reflect us back to ourselves and I wanted to ask the three of you in the times of crisis in the times of up people is theater specifically political theater called on to do more are we being asked to do more in the mirror but are we asked to become active in the conflict and take a stand is there an action that's being required of us or is it just continually to reflect and discuss and provide meaning to what's going on and also is there also part of us as artists that are required to present new possibilities for the future to not only engage with what's happening right now but to how do we overcome this how do we envision the future and possibilities that are beyond this and what do you feel the artist world is and what are the most important things who ever wants to I would like to say something politics in our country is not like politics in Europe politics in Syria is not like politics in the United States or Australia or even Africa my friend's father was behind bars for 14 years just for one sentence he asked in Syria he said why in this country the decision could be taken by one person he said one sentence and he was thrown for 14 years so politics in theater in Syria is something fighting against they don't allow you to speak politics on theater because it's their mission and their specialty they decide you have to follow when they change you change I've always dreamed of a play like I saw yesterday between the poet and the translator because of my languages I said I can do so many languages let's do an Israeli and a senior who meet somewhere in a train in an airport I couldn't dare to say the idea to mention so politics in theater so far was fighting against the umbrella the snake's head which wasn't allowed now that the revolution is taking place we are not doing so much we are singing in the streets we are moving with the singer we are dancing for the fight like they did to Dubai now but I'm sure after the revolution with Syria the new Syria Iraq Syria will be settled I think we can discuss at that time what political theater could be because people can think and act I mean liberal what is political theater now is what people do in streets and sing together and dance together and move together and paint together and sometimes they see and cry from happiness at the beginning one singer he sang he composed a song he lives in Paris the song was named titled YAHIL as a musician I can say musically it's a little I don't want to be offensive but the level of musical musically or artistically is nothing but the impact of that song moved the whole Syria everyone everybody even musicians they were singing the song and people who were who were cat or goat singing that song are still aging from two years I would say we don't have Lady Suleyman or Lady Semen she's a director and she said on behalf of herself and the other artists that every artist should fight with the weapon that he has she has okay but I can't, I should admit that the same situation we don't have this kind of liberal climate it to be useless to just to express liberal ideas and something like that because somehow as I said when the artist stepped to you know somehow they also they do that and they are afraid of having attack but we get really forces also they can if they exceed our company the red lines maybe they can do something to the audience also so we in harmony to have this kind of liberalism first in our country and it will happen but just I think as I said it will take time and of course the artists then could cement themselves over the country and they can not just comment on what is happening they also could activate and really pop-spade with creative ideas about how to develop our country bring this bit about mirroring society I mean we can sort a bit and we can recognize three kinds of theater in Iran in general first of all a very dominant kind of Iranian theater belonging to the government which is the mirror of the government and is supported by government but it is something that everybody knows it and everybody can recognize that it is performance which is based on government's voice it has its own audience but not general audience the second kind of Iranian theater is kind of experimental theater when I say experimental maybe you think that it's kind of very I mean avant-garde theater but it is not it's something that nobody can't understand it I mean just people who make it can understand it or maybe not but I'm sure that audience can't understand it can't get the meaning of the meaning of the performance from the bottoms of the signs so the government is very agree with this kind of theater because it doesn't look like governmental and at the same time it is governmental so because it is completely how can I say it is mine and one of my friends idea to call it a kind of anti viruses theater does it make sense? something that has no virus is completely healthy in the government's view but it is experimental when you see it can cross the borders to other countries and every people from other countries can get it as a very avant-garde theater but nobody just can see them that it is something has no meaning for Iranian audiences and it is something that is really spreading out in Iran because some very very young people who doesn't want to be the mirror of the government but at the same time they want to do something without crossing without encountering with red lines they automatically just choose this kind of theater and the third kind is a very very social kind of theater which comes from dramas first and then goes to performance these are kind of theater I can say some names like like like all their names but all these kinds of playwrights and others they just try to be really a real mirror of the society but with some experimental structure and they always have some problems in crossing encountering with red lines but it's my suggestion if you want to get the real mirror of the Iranian theater you need to start from these writers and you never trust to experimental theater from Iran so going off of that theater as a space is a communication we are trying to communicate something to our audiences and so first of all who are the audiences right now in Egypt who you have mentioned has a lot of more street theater going on but have the audiences shifted and who are the ideal audiences and also what do you think the importance of the Iranian War being presented in the United States of being communicated to different cultures okay actually now we have this kind of shift in the source of audience and the performances and as I said we haven't reached yet the perfect situation or perfect circumstances that helps the artist to perform what he really believes and what he wants to say and for that the the main hope for us now that the artist go to them okay this will be a kind of you know send them to come back to the theaters actually our theaters have been evacuated maybe 15 years ago something like that when you look at the sort of audience that attend the performances you will see something like friends of the artist their families their some critiques you know I don't know it wasn't a real audience you know the real audience definitely we have once it was in after the evolution of 1952 we also took time something like six years or eighteen years something like that and then we had a real intellectual movements in the artists and really the audience where for real they attended the performances because they believe that it can discuss their social life and also they can get knowledge and cultural aspects from other worlds through this theater but now no also we will have to wait until having the rest in our country to reach the real audience I remember now a smart theater director who used to is also a politician and they the censorship told him not to approach politics in his theater theater is theater part is politics so he was smart enough to pick a theme from life make it his political struggle and he picked love as a theme for his plays in his career and he was referring to love but he was he was talking about love referring to his political freedom political speech freedom of speech freedom of expression so as a intellectual and as an ordinary people in the audience you could understand his mission and understand his I mean everything he was referring to and you could say this is politics it doesn't look like so smart people can use in theater in political theater and we also have a very very low level of political theater who is ruled by the government in order to criticize small people in the government and that's it you mentioned that you did a show in the US can you tell us a little bit more about what that was and what you were hoping to do to communicate with that actually my wife and I came she came with an idea that we have to do something she was painting some about real stories from the revolution people that we knew and they have terrific experiences with this revolution and she said that let's do something on stage because you know acting is more faster to the people's minds and art so yes, we created she created a monologue about her friend who I think she can tell us later about that and my piece was from a real story that happened not that tough but it seemed tough and strong it is they used to call people to pick up their radius bodies so come on pick up take your son's body or brother your 110 people so come and see who is your brother, who is your relative and the father goes to pick his son his son's body who used to be in the ancient and once he is when he was looking at the bodies he sees his his son and he was looking at his son and his son he was waiting in queue and suddenly he sees someone among dead bodies moving so the tragedy was or the drama was what should I do at this moment pick my son or the living body the still living body I don't know Drew's secular atheist so they say hey hey are you here do you have anybody here they are so savages yes that's why so brother because it was the best age and he picks the one who doesn't know and he takes me that was the scene we created and I was so afraid of the beginning to do it on stage where did you do it? in Minneapolis in one of the biggest I don't remember the stage name but it belonged to the University of Minnesota who was your audience for that? students artists because we spread the flyers all over email by yes on the walls professors from University of Minnesota came so the audience was more than 400 that was I think it was so you have just brought up a question that I'd like to feed into our final question to the panel and then we'd like to open up to your questions finally how much do you feel that religion that's on board is created in the theater is it sort of a cat and mouse like it is in the subject issue is it in Egypt and in Syria where the government is in transition how much do you feel that appeasing a certain party or moving good to a certain party is necessary to survival of the work as well and do you think that theater needs to be secular in order to be effective I think it's my belief that theater cannot be religious cannot be attached to religion religion must be at all this is my belief and sorry and I do respect of religions and I live in an artistic community I used to live in an artistic community in Damascus which we come from every religion and sect and beliefs and backgrounds and but I think religion has a very good very big impact in our communities not the way the regime showed the world what is it in Syria I am talking about Syria the regime wanted to show people to show the world to make the world fear of Islamist which is not true religion has impact in the Arab world but not the way they tried to convince everybody what I believe is we can mention religion sometimes but it's not necessary and I think theater must be yes apart from religion and what I know and what I am sure about that these days religion in our country in Syria specifically has nothing to do with I mean to interfere with arts and I saw so many examples where religion both religions in our country are hanging arts to make something to to get rid of this religion other than you I believe and I should underline and emphasize in our country especially in Egypt that the main characteristic of the Egyptian people they are mothers they can't accept someone to impose on them any kind of restrictions in the name of religion and to be fair about our situation in Egypt actually the brutal effects the blind censorship that we have been suffering from it started with the Mubarak regime so it doesn't relate to the Islamists and if you really concentrate with the reticence in Egypt now the Islamists haven't done anything to prevent or to stop to stop anyone yes we do have what we call extremists but those people will be stopped by the normal people in Egypt yes all of us will stop them as we refuse to have the restrictions by the Mubarak regime we will also refuse or reject anyone who come and say to us in the name of Allah we prevent that or we don't accept that no and to give you an example about that actually Mubarak regime we suffer from a very strange kind of movies in the cinema it was trivial in its themes and the people they were very smart they couldn't accept of triviality and they demand from the artists to present something more reasonable and at the same time it's not we don't have this kind of openness like we see in Mubarak or in the USA movie theater and something like that but at the same time we are not this kind of restrictive people we can't accept sexual scenes and something like that but to be what you call there is to be logical to have a reason to put this scene during the context so I know you want to discuss a little bit about the newspaper in Iran and how it's been responding to the air in spring so let me add something actually when we speak about the relation between the region and theater in Iran we are in a very difficult position because in the center in the capital in Tehran which is the cultural center of Iran theater is not religious I'm speaking about the second and the third sorts I already have mentioned it's not religious and nobody asked it to be religious I mean experimental theater experimental theater can not to be religious but I want to add something which is theater in Iran should be religious to affect general people it's the point when we speak about Tehran educated intellectual people they know what they want democracy they want freedom and they know what to catch freedom and they really try to do that in their own way in an Iranian way not really protesting but what about small cities what about villages when we speak about Iran we are speaking about something like 75-80 million people and just about 11 million more or less living Tehran and some small cities around it but what about other cities people in other cities are really religious and we can't ignore this fact when we speak about Iran so I think I mean many people in small cities look at theater like the devil's instrument you see and they don't let their girls to involve the theater but they let their girls their daughters their boys and girls to engage with religious theater because they feel it's a safe place and it's a kind of they if they do theater they do something for God so I think in a kind of new interpretation of religion we can think about a kind of religious theater that is perfect on people who lives in small cities and I think it's something that we need to think about when we speak because I think I'm just one sentence nothing more in Tehran the ritual of going to theater is a kind of going to party because we know each other very well we say oh great perfect and you please come to mine which is next week so everybody knows each other it's kind of party and we know each other we know what we want to do and so we are something beyond being affected by theater I mean it is small cities which really really need theater it's special and I mean actually when I was asked to come to this really really nice panel and place nice San Francisco I brought something I thought what how Arab Spring really affected on Iranian arts I can't say nothing there is nothing about that I mean especially in theater we didn't work on Arab Spring newspapers some magazines just mirrored Arab Spring and I brought some of them I thought maybe you would like to see how it is mirrored in our newspapers or magazines but I didn't bring all of them which I thought are more important than others first of all I have to say that there is something there are two completely different views to Arab Spring in Iran a kind of very conservative conservative view 3 or 4 3 or 4 okay I just solved it in 2 but you can add names the other 2 first is kind of very conservative view to Arab Spring in some newspapers like Kehon and so on which prefer to call it Islamic Awakeness instead of Arab Spring because they want to say that it is not something nationalistic revolution but it is a kind of Islamic revolution and it is under the influence of Islamic Republic of Iran and it is a kind of revolution to spread out Islam with western countries but on the other hand some more reformist reformist views to this phenomenon to the Arab Spring prefer to call it Arab Spring prefer to say that it is under again under the influence of green movement and to say that it is not something to fight with western countries it is a phenomenon in which West and East West and Middle East try to be friends with the level right doesn't make sense so for example I just quickly say what they have what they speak about in a newspaper called Shab which is one of their most reformist newspaper in Iran a writer that wrote about the influence of literature for example published poems on Arab Spring or in the other from the same from the same newspaper Tavia Azad Armaki who is a socialist person he spoke about how Arab Spring is beyond the ideology and it's something beyond the ideology beyond the leadership and so on is something that just happened by people and again Shab there is a there is a kind of interview with Chomsky which is I mean focuses on how the revolution is a kind of criticise of the power instead of just changing the position of the power and one very interesting article I found which is by Muhammad which is written by Muhammad Abu Chanyu and the title is democratising or democratised is about is this Arab Spring something that western countries try to be happened in Middle East or it is something that was happened by its own by people but in the newspapers like Keihan I found something that Sharia Madari there is a very good person in Keihan newspaper we say that you call it Arab Spring to nationalise the transformation of the Middle East you call it Islamic awakeness or instead of saying Arab Spring say it Islamic identity and there are many many other articles that if you would like yes they can read them yes thank you how are we doing oh we have a sign okay so we have about we have a firm 10 minutes for any questions and then we will go to the center so we will try to get the questions in answers brief I guess so we can get as many as we can um I'd like to ask you a question do you think that such a thing is a bourgeois artist you from Syria do you think that such a thing is a bourgeois artist is it possible that some artists are bourgeois you know what I mean the reactionary I don't understand do you think there is such a thing a bourgeois artist you think bourgeois bourgeois artist who is a reactionary do you think that it is possible that people who support the Assad regime might be opposed to the Israeli incursion in that area do you think that you have the freedom of speech you come to the empire you come to the empire to support the United States support free speech here in which this government supplies weapons and billions to the Israelis to kill the Palestinians now you are able to speak freely here like I am however our government, my government, not yours my government is killing millions of people around the world so now you are free to say what you can I have been free to say what I could I got arrested for saying some of the things that you said in this country it's amazing we found that there are certain people who are bourgeois reactionary artists they are not just free speakers they are all material conditions and then you find that there are progressive people who are artists thank you so much for this question I am recently here I am not awake yet from the long long sleep in my country when I first came to the United States I was amazed how people can speak up I compare with my country you sir compare with what you need what I need now is to remove the cancer from my body I don't care about anything else in any aspect before removing this getting rid of this cancer which is eating my body part after part I do understand what your needs are but I didn't have enough time to think about everything else except my people's problems now which is I have so many friends in jail my friend actor has passed last week my cousin two months ago so my parents are under shelling nowadays I need to think about and focus and concentrate on this little circle maybe in the future when I'll be more relaxed I can think about something else maybe here maybe back to my country where I will have the free speech but thank you so much for your question I do respect your perspectives but I can't think about them now I can't even yes but I do respect them thank you so much that's what this country is filled with that's what this country is filled with people who cannot think of anyone else except themselves so it's a great immigrant country hundreds of people from South America who have come here because there is free speech and in their country supported by the United States they're being oppressed thank you very much if I could ask a very specific question in Syria, Egypt, and in Europe the possibility of professionalization of theater independent of governmental subsidies in your published playwright can a young playwright in Europe or in Egypt or in Syria before this hard condition or after live of publication performances etc independent of governmental subsidies not at all not at all even with governmental subsidy it's impossible to live with theater in Iran so at this, I mean it is about maybe four or five years that government don't help theater practitioners economically so what we gave from government is just censorship so but even if government helped us as a kind of how can I say just by subside we couldn't live with theater it's why that we always do many things we write for theater, for TV for film, we page we drive in a similar situation in the United States so answer just to in a country like US really we do have a very huge budget for the artists the artists complain about this institution from the money from the government and in Egypt actually part of the problem that we suffered from that our theaters get low levels during the the last decades the artists moved to the cinema and television to get more money it's not possible to live on the money of the theater no, it's impossible okay, I'm sorry we actually have one time for one more quick question about two minutes and I know that Michael also had a question I encourage people to approach all of the panelists between other panels well, a question for some about your wonderful story about your play about the censor but it struck me it was very amusing but it struck me that maybe it's quite subversive what you did and some of the questions that made me think to ask are did you expect that it would be rejected or were you trying to deliver a message to them and convert them and then what happened ever when the play was rejected is it over can you give it to other people to read or is that really that's it writing the play is an enormous undertaking to go that far and stop let's really stop this actually we all all the writers in Iran leave with their hopes so when I wrote that play I thought maybe I can find a way and still I'm trying to find a way but I have to say that censors are really really human beings they are different kind of people sometimes if you are lucky the one who read your play is the kind person and you can speak with him they are always men you can speak with him and you can convince him to accept your play with some very very minor kind of changes but I was not lucky in this case my last play I mean in case of my last play Boron the title of the play is Boron 6 90 601 something in my last play I was really really lucky the censor was my friend he was my classmate so I spoke with him and he easily accepted me I told him that no please don't worry about this just let it be performed then once you get we encounter any problem and he accepted us and we encountered problems after one month performing and I'm so happy that I could have one month performance in this case I was not lucky so I said that the thing which is very very very good in my country is that writers write their plays regardless how censorship will treat them doesn't make sense there are times to read a really quick closing thing 20 seconds go ahead please we have a short statement from one of ours in Syria that recently fled Syria we're not going to say her name just for the purposes of it just to kind of give us something to think about leaving the panel if we were to ponder the current crisis that the regimes of the Arab countries are going through we will find out that the main cause behind it consists of the marginalization of the people and they're being banned from taking part in the decision making process the majority that is completely pushed aside our political authority is conversing with itself no dialogue is being held between the two sides if the theatre's main language is dialogue then isn't the theatre a model that must be followed if the absence of dialogue is the main cause for the crisis will the presence of dialogue serve to solve the crisis and to resolve it can the theatre a dialogue based structure which is a dialogue based structure representing alternative for the resistance therefore is theatre at this point a useful process it seems that I have started to get closer to finding an answer to all of my questions the theatre has started to fall into the context of the current events it has even started to position itself at the heart of this context yes we do need the theatre today and we seem to need it more than any time in the past but I hope that the people who humanity has been marginalized and stepped on to confront our oppressor regimes so just something to think about and ponder and to continue this conversation and have one or later on or next week I just want to thank all of our panelists for sharing this thank you all very much for your time so how's keeping stuff? we need to be, if you would like to continue watching the panels today the next panel will be at 1pm sharp which is a short amount of time to catch a lunch I would highly encourage that you enjoy lunch across the street at the coffee bar they have a variety of warm items salads as well as packaged sandwiches