Ramallah's Contemporary Arts Festival, one of the largest cultural events in the occupied West Bank, began on Monday for the first time since the war in Gaza forced a two-year suspension of most cultural activities. The festival, which runs until July 16, features 48 artists and artistic groups, including dance, theater, circus performances, and video art.
Festival Returns After Forced Hiatus
Khaled Aliyan, the festival’s director, said the event returned "after a forced-two-year suspension due to the genocidal war on the Gaza Strip." Previously limited to contemporary dance, the festival has expanded to include Palestinian artists from all fields. Art, theater, and film festivals that were once held regularly in Ramallah and other parts of the West Bank came to a halt amid escalating violence, Israeli military raids, and attacks by Israeli settlers after October 2023. Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967.
"Culture and art historically play an important and distinctive role in our struggle ... because they reflect our identity and reinforce our role as a Palestinian society," Aliyan added.
Opening Performance: Al-Sirah Al-Hilaliyyah
The festival opened on Monday at Ramallah’s Cultural Palace with a showing of Al-Sirah Al-Hilaliyyah, a musical play based on an Arabic poem of the same name. The play tells the story of the Banu Hilal tribe, a subject of one of the most famous Arab folk epics. The Khashabi Theater, a Palestinian acting company based in Haifa in northern Israel, performed the play for the first time in the Palestinian territories after touring Europe.
Ola Hanna attended the opening performance with her family from the Arab town of Ramleh in northern Israel. She said she hoped Palestinian cultural life would return to what it was before the war in Gaza. "Without music and joy, for me there is no life," she said.
Festival Highlights and International Participation
The festival will also host the Palestine Arts Forum, bringing together 22 artists, cultural programmers, and arts institutions from 15 countries. Art critic Youssef Al-Shayeb told AFP that hosting such a large festival with a diverse program of contemporary performing arts, despite the hardships of life in the Palestinian territories, was an achievement. "Simply continuing life is, in itself, an act of resistance," he added, pointing to settler violence, increased checkpoints, and Israeli military operations in the West Bank.
