2024
PALART FESTIVAL
The third edition of our annual PalArt Festival took place from 5th to 7th December at the Pleasance Theatre, featuring an amazing theatre performance, as well as a special film preview and workshops.
From 5th to 7th December 2024, we showcased the best art and theatre from Palestine in the third edition of the PalArt Festival, which opened with the incredible Alaa Shehada, who performed his powerful play The Horse of Jenin—a universal story of a boy growing up in Jenin who, like every child in the world, simply wants to play and have fun. The Horse of Jenin had premiered in Amsterdam the previous October and had been sold out ever since.
Other featured artists included actor movement specialist Micaela Miranda, comedians from PalCom, and musician Rama Alcoutlabi. In addition to the play The Horse of Jenin, the festival also hosted Dabke and movement workshops, a sing-along event, and a special film preview.
THE HORSE OF JENIN, written and performed by Palestinian actor and comedian Alaa Shehada, tells a universal story of resilience and imagination. This show combines storytelling, mask and stand-up comedy to explore the everyday life of a boy growing up in Jenin in Occupied Palestine who, like every child in the world, just wants to play and have fun.
Following a major invasion in 2002, a German artist travelled to the city to create an artwork with the kids of Jenin. They built a horse, five-metres tall, out of metal and debris from the invasion. The horse is an Arabic symbol of freedom, so the people of Jenin placed this statue in the centre of the city where it stood for 20 years to represent their hope and resistance. In October 2023, an Israeli army bulldozer entered the camp and the horse was ripped from its place and driven away.
In this solo show, Shehada wonders what happened to the Horse of Jenin and with a powerful mix of imagination and comedy, he builds a new horse from the fragments of his memories and his hopes for the future.