Toby Brown LSMedia The Independent Liverpool Student Newspaper
In a brilliantly candid account of topics such as terrorism and the Israel-Palestine conflict, Zayid’s autobiographical stand up deals with the post 9/11 relationship between America and its Arabs.
Having heard nothing about Maysoon Zayid other than she is a Palestinian-American comic with cerebral palsy, it was with large amounts of curiosity rather than anticipation that I headed down to the Epstein Theatre on Sunday afternoon. Even before Zayid stepped on stage, I suspected that I was going to enjoy her take on things. With a fantastic and glowing introduction by Liverpool’s very own Alexei Sale, it was great to see a Jewish comic warming up for his Palestinian counterpart and roundly condemning Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people.
Maysoon gets her gig underway with her take on the traditional call and response, berating the audience for even daring to feel sorry for her and making light of the jerking limbs caused by her cerebral palsy. The comedy comes thick and fast, with topical stories punctuated with quick, jokes leading up to weighty and often bawdy punch lines.
Using an ever growing number of call backs to previous anecdotes, Maysoon weaves her own narrative along with that of the Israel-Palestine conflict and life in post 9/11 America.
Maysoon’s parents moved to the New Jersey from a small village in rural Palestine and by her own admission her upbringing was exceptionally strict. Her father forbade Maysoon and her sisters from riding a bike or sitting on a seesaw, in what can only be described as a misguided attempt to retain her virginity until her wedding day. The comedy respectfully yet openly pokes fun at some of the more extreme examples of parenting.
Treating her family in much the same way Jewish comics have often conjured up caricatures of the dreaded ‘Jewish mother-in-law’, Zayid refers to her husband as ‘the refugee’ because she first met him in one of the West Bank’s crowded refugee camps. Using tales of visits over to Palestine to see ‘her refugee’ she explains the backward attitudes that a society under such oppression resorts to, at one point telling of how her mother-in-law gathered all the women of the village together to assess whether a disabled person was worthy of her son.
Zayid lampoons the post 9/11 attitudes to Muslims in the US, by conveying the difficulties of being a shaking Arab at the airport who was dropped off by a father with a striking resemblance to Saddam Hussein.
Regardless of the history her people, Maysoon’s comic digs are sharply leveled at both Israeli and Palestinian politicians. Packing out theatres as a listened to voice for the Palestinian people, whether it’s the US or the West Bank, gives her comedy the kind of importance that few achieve, and puts her up there with the very best. She uses her voice and position to raise awareness and address issues that not many politicians, never mind comics, often go near.
The barriers to success that Maysoon Zayid has overcome are larger than most and that alone makes her worth listening to. However, her comic skill in turning the trials of being a disabled Palestinian woman born in America into something very funny, without losing its point, shows her to be a remarkably gifted performer.
Read original article here
Denise Marray
23 November 2012
Khaleej Times
Palestinian artist Larissa Sansour draws inspiration from the political occupation and dehumanising treatment witnessed during her childhood days, and transforms them into profoundly symbolic works of art.
A Palestinian astronaut plants the national flag on the moon and then floats away into space. These sequences, bas-ed on iconic images from the US moon landing and Stanley Kubri-ck’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, are at once startling and moving beca-use they express both profound hope and sadness.
The images, from the short film A Space Exodus, are the work of the Palestinian artist Larissa Sansour, whose name made headlines last year when the clothing and accessories company Lacoste forced the withdrawal of her shortlisted photography artwork from a competition being held at L’Élysée Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland. Her work was apparently considered ‘too pro-Palestinian’.
In response to the censorship, the museum broke off relations with Lacoste, the corporate sponsor, and cancelled the competition which carried a first prize of £21,000. The story of the censorship made headlines across the world, and Sansour and her Danish husband found themselves at the centre of a media storm, which proved both uplifting and exhausting. The censored work, Nation Estate, which has since been developed into a futuristic short film, places the Palestinian people in a skyscraper, supported by the international community, with each floor representing a city — Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Ramallah. The citizens in this luxury development can move about freely, via elevators (no checkpoints), but it is a sterile environment affording ‘freedom’ within the confines of an artificial construct. The skyscraper has views over the Dome of the Rock of Jerusalem — so the inhabitants overlook the real Jerusalem, forcing them to face a painful reality of exclusion and separation.
Speaking from her London apartment, Sansour said she and her husband are taking a much-needed rest after completing the film version of Nation Estate, which took nine months of intense work. Ironically, Sansour had wanted to win the Lacoste Nation Estate photography prize. In the event, the publicity that ensued from the ban raised her profile, and she was able to pour the res-ulting profits from sales of her work into financing the high-end production film made in Copenhagen.
Sansour was born in Bethlehem; her parents met in Moscow where her Palestinian father was studying mathematics. Her mother is Russian and worked in radio in Moscow. Upon returning to Palestine, her father was invited by the Vatican to found Bethlehem University. The family home, recalled Sans-our, was like an unofficial embassy, full of leading thinkers and political discussions. As a child, she drew instinctively and her father encouraged her precocious talent by finding her art classes to attend.
She remembers her childhood as ‘sunny’ but punctured by disturbing moments of images of violence on the street. “I think what it does psychologically, and you can’t shake that off, is that you feel that not all humans are equal. As a kid that sends a strong message: ‘You’re Palestinian so you will be treated like dirt.’ It becomes cemented — this dehumanisation — from an early age.”
When she was 15, her family life with parents, brother and sister, was harshly disrupted with the ons-et of the First Intifida, an uprising against the occupation of the Palestinian Territories, which lasted from December 1987 to 1993. Her parents, in an effort to protect her, sent her to boarding school in England, where she studied for her O and A levels. Her memories of this time, she said, are full of gloomy grey skies and a feeling of alienation. Those years sowed the seeds of an aversion to London, which she has only recently overcome. She now loves the international buzz of the city, with its vibrant cultural scene.
After returning to Palestine for high school, she then set off for the United States, studying art first in Baltimore and then in New York, where she completed her Masters. She continued her Fine Art studies in Copenhagen, Denmark, where she met her husband, a writer, who works with her on the film scripts. The couple, who moved to London three years ago, have a five-month-old daughter, whose joyful arrival has meant a shift in priorities.
A Space Exodus was showing at the Edge of Arabia’s ‘Come Together’ exhibition in the heart of London’s East End last month. Artists from across the Middle East showed contemporary work using a wide range of mediums and expressing powerful ideas.
Edge of Arabia is unique in engaging directly through educational programmes with the local East End community. This approach is appreciated in an area of London where, after years of social deprivation, a burgeoning arts scene has given a new lease of life to the once run-down streets, but left many residents feeling excluded. “We’re proud to be the education partner with Edge of Arabia,” said Narull Islam, co-founder of the Mile End Community Project.
“This is probably the first exhibition that has really engaged with the local community. They have got the young people involved; that’s really refreshing. It gives our young people confidence to meet renowned artists.”
Article appeared here khaleejtimes.com
When all we have are words to keep the dignity of those killed alive… Palestinian poet Rafeef Ziadah in her moving tribute to a child named Hadeel killed by the IDF in Gaza.
By Abdullah H. Erakat, Ramallah
Yasmin Qadmany’s parents did not want her to study acting. In fact, they tried to prevent the 26-year-old engineer from doing so, to the extent that when she told them she was going to follow her heart, they stopped talking to her. That was three years ago, and next year she will graduate. But before she does, she and fellow thespians at the Drama Academy in Ramallah will put on a production of “Romeo & Juliet.”
“I faced difficulties. But I overcame it because I saw it as a challenge,” says Qadmany noting that her relation with her family is now better than ever. Qadmany is gearing up for another challenge in late November: a two-week workshop taught by the all-female company, the Manhattan Shakespeare Project.
Sarah Eismann, the founding artistic director of the Manhattan Shakespeare project says the project came about last year after she performed in an international production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at the Folkwang University of the arts in Germany. Students from Palestine’s Drama academy also made up the cast.
“They were just incredible artists, as well as passionate, courageous and really wonderful people. So when their director asked if I wanted to work with them again, I was like yeah, of course, I would love to,” she adds.
The Drama Academy managing director Petra Bargouthi says the workshop, (English with Arabic translation), is an excellent way to prepare her students for next year’s Shakespeare festival in Germany.
“Language is the most important character when it comes to Shakespeare. It’s a game of language, so this will be very helpful for our students to understand and discover the poetry in Shakespeare,” explained Bargouthi – also a movement therapy instructor – in an interview with Variety Arabia,
The academy, the first of its kind acting school in Palestine, is located in downtown Ramallah and is hosted by Al-Kasaba Theatre and Cinematheque.
Teaching artist Jensen Olaya says she hopes that she and her colleague Eismann will contribute to the “already rich curriculum” of the Academy.
Olaya explained that the sessions will be recorded by film documenter Lena Rudnick: “I feel that Shakespeare is a widely used tool to teach theatre and performance. I feel like his themes are universal on the smallest, most intimate level and I hope that the universal themes can help us connect past cultural and political divides,” she wrote in an email to Variety Arabia.
It’s not only her first trip to the Palestine, but to the Middle East. While she says there are people in Ramallah who have already welcomed her, Olaya says she still cannot quite comprehend that she is actually going and does not know what to expect.
“We have received support – both financial support and moral support – from people in the US and I feel like I have a lot of people who are hoping that I go out there and return with wonderful stories to share about Ramallah and its’ people,” Olaya adds.
“It’s a little scary,” says second-year acting student Rabee Hanani, who has mostly been educated in Germany, but his feelings are more of curiosity than fear.
“By being exposed to different cultures from different countries in the world, we gain more,” he said.
Third-year Drama Academy student Jihad Al Khateeb says he hopes this workshop will make him a better actor, not only in performing Shakespeare, but in general.
“I think the most important thing is how to do Shakespeare the way he intended for us to do it,” says the 24-year old.
Leaving Ramallah, Olaya and Eismann will head north to Jenin’s Freedom Theatre, where they will carry out the same thing.
The venue made the news headlines in April 2011, when its co-founder Juliano Mer Khamis was murdered in broad daylight by unknown men on the steps of the theatre.
Managing director Jonatan Stanczak said the incident caused some students to drop out of the student theatre acting school, but things are now back on track.
Currently, British director Diane Trevis, the first woman to work with the Royal Shakespeare theatre, is conducting a workshop there.
“I am aware that Shakespeare is a very important component of any actor’s development. It’s a great opportunity for us to have one of the best Shakespeare troupes in the world working with our students,” adds Stanczak, who is a nurse by profession.
“We believe culture is the glue that keeps everything together and it is also the process that allows Palestinian society to form itself around ideas,” he said.
“Most of the people who come to Palestine and do the workshop become more aware of the Palestinian life and Palestinian humanity,” says Bargouthi. “I hope this will be a way of knowing us and understanding us and also for our students to see how people perceive them.”
“I merely want to connect as an artist on a human level: person-to-person, overcoming political barriers,” said Olaya.
Eismann says the Manhattan Shakespeare project is simply excited because it is their first venture into creating international relationships.
“We’re not there to make a political statement. We’re just there to create theatre, and to create art,” she concluded.
The story was originally published in Variety Arabia November issue.
Marika Sosnowski talks with Samah Sabawi about Gaza, poetry, politics, music, culture, the upcoming play Tales of a City by the Sea plus much more. http://marikasosnowski.com/2012/11/babel-4-samah-sabawi/
By Samah Sabawi
Israel’s current assault on Gaza will not bring Israel peace nor will it force the Palestinians to surrender. Three years ago, Israel launched a brutal attack on the city it occupies and besieges killing more then 1400 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and injuring thousands more while destroying most of Gaza’s infrastructure and turning vast landscapes where houses once stood into rubble. What happened in the years since then is a testimony of the Palestinian people’s real weapon – tenacity, a weapon no one in Israel can understand nor truly match. A weapon Palestinians possess that will see them through until they gain their freedom.
When foreigners visit the Occupied Territories they are often struck by just how resourceful Palestinians are, how positive they remain and how ineffective Israel’s policy of subjugating them is. Yes, Gaza is an impoverished, besieged, overcrowded and occupied strip of land, but a closer look helps shed some light on exactly what it is that Israel is up against.
This past year, despite the crippling siege on Gaza, some amazing things happened. Gazans stood on the cutting-edge of urban agriculture: they were learning through a UN funded project to produce fish and vegetables on their tiny rooftops. The skill of learning to farm without soil in confined spaces is necessary in a place like Gaza where 1.6 million residents are cramped into 360 square kilometers of land and where much of the agricultural land is off limits because Israel maintains a 300-metre deep zone along the length of the border fence denying Palestinians access to their prime agricultural land.
Gaza opened its first ever paintball park bringing equipment and protective clothing through the tunnels that link Gaza with Egypt. The game referee Rami Eid told Reuters this was important so “the youth of Gaza can play games that are played around the world”.
Gaza also hosted this year for the first time an actual circus along with clowns and acrobats. The circus that travelled through Egypt’s Rafah border brought happiness to many children who had never had such an experience. Gaza also hosted its first ‘PalFest’, an international Palestinian literature festival along with poets and musicians coming from all over the world.
If that’s not enough to impress, Gaza opened its first restaurant for the deaf. The stylish Atfaluna restaurant near Gaza port was hailed as one of a few facilities for the disabled in a besieged impoverished city where waiters and cooks use sign language. The restaurant was realissed with help from the Drosos Foundation of Switzerland in order to generate income for the deaf in Gaza, where the unemployment rate is over 25 percent.
This year, as always, the youth in Gaza were finding ways to express their creativity and their skills. From amazing daredevil Parkour, learning how to surf, to rap songs and art exhibits, they were finding their confidence and were healing from the aftermath of the trauma of Israel’s last destruction of their city.
This year, Gazans lead the way to inspire people around the world as they literally turned rubble into art. Gazan women driven by the determination to self-empowerment mixed with environmental awareness turned garbage and rubble into pieces of art that can be sold, this project was made possible with funding from the non-government organization ‘Supporters of Palestinian Environment’.
Despite the restriction on building supplies, Gazans used the tunnels to bring in cement and iron and have rebuilt many of the structures that were destroyed. A highlight for many was the walkway ‘corniche’ by the sea side which many proudly posted photos of on their facebook profiles.
Within the walls of their big prison and in spite of the siege and the frequent Israeli bombardment, the people of Gaza managed to find the space to create, to dream, to build and to hope. This is the essential stuff that resistance is made of. This is why Israel’s recent attack will not defeat the Palestinians and will only hurt Israel in the end, exposing it for the tyrannical state that it is.
Israel has launched a war to break the Palestinian spirit, to destroy all they’ve rebuilt, to uproot all that they’ve replanted. This is a war on the Palestinian people’s tenacity to resist despair. Israel will lose this war because it fails to understand what it is up against. A state that only knows how to destroy will never understand the art of turning rubble into masterpieces.
In January 2009 when Israel bombarded Gaza for three weeks, they called their assault ‘Operation Cast Lead’, Amnesty International had a better way to describe it; they called it ’22 Days of Death and Destruction’. Today, we are reliving that nightmare once again, and once again I find myself searching for words…
Searching for words
Gaza…I search desperately
For words… for definitions
To tell the story of ammunitions
Exploding in a child’s body
I try to shout my indignation
But I am lost in vocabulary
Drowned in phrases as old as me
And I am as old as the Occupation
I need new words
How hard it is to find
Definitions that can restore
Humanity to a small strip of land
Along the Mediterranean shore
Siege, starvation collective misery
Familiar words in my head they linger
Bombs fall from the sky every day
Powerless words I can’t use any longer
I need new words
“Palestine is occupied….”
These are now hollow words…
“Palestinians are oppressed…”
These are now daily words…
“Palestinians are dispossessed”
These are now…tired words
“Palestinians….have a right to exist”
Words often spoken…worn out words
I need new words
Gaza…my home city
My earliest memory of Jasmine flowers and meramiah tea
My first taste of sour lemon dipped in salt
My first climb on an almond tree
Gaza, my destiny
My father’s heart sky and sea
My mother’s first love
My sister’s first breath
My pride and dignity
Gaza is under fire
Obliterated by hate
Strangled by a demonic desire
To erase my history
Gaza is in pieces
And I…the writer…
I’m speechless
What language can possibly save me?
What words?
Samah Sabawi January 2009
By DIAA HADID Associated Press
NUS JUBAIL, West Bank—The Palestinian olive harvest, an ancient autumn ritual in the West Bank, is going upscale.
In an emerging back-to-the-land movement, Palestinian farmers are turning the rocky hills of the West Bank into organic olive groves, selling their oil to high-end grocers in the U.S. and Europe.
The move is a reflection of the growing global demand for natural, sustainable and fairly traded products, albeit with a distinct Palestinian twist. The hardships faced by local farmers, ranging from a lack of rainfall to Israeli trade obstacles, mean that organic growing is one of the few ways Palestinians have to compete in outside markets.
“The Palestinian future is in the land,” said farmer Khader Khader, 31, as he stood among his organic olives in the northern West Bank village of Nus Jubail.
Organic farming has grown into a thriving business, by Palestinian standards, since it first was introduced in the West Bank in 2004. Now, at least $5 million worth of organic olive oil is exported annually—about half of all Palestinian commercial oil exports, said Nasser Abu Farha of the Canaan Fair Trade Association, one of the companies that sells high-end organic olive oil to distributors abroad.
The West Bank-based company purchases the oil at above market prices and pays what’s called a “social premium”—extra money to farming cooperatives to improve their communities.
About 930 farmers have fair-trade and organic certification, while another 140 are “converting” their land—a two- to three-year process during which they stop using chemical fertilizers and pest controls while monitors from Canaan and the Palestine Fair Trade Association provide training and check soil for chemical levels.
Their work is overseen by the Swiss-based Institute for Market Ecology, which is accredited to certify organic products for the U.S., E.U., and Japan. Hundreds more farmers are simply certified as fair-trade, where they and their workers are paid decent wages for their work and produce.
The trade is tiny when compared to major olive growers like Spain, Italy and Greece. But it’s significant for Palestinians, for whom harvesting olives is a cultural tradition that gathers even the most urbanized families.
An average of 17,000 tons of olive oil is produced in the West Bank every year by thousands of farmers, according to aid group Oxfam, which works on the olive industry. Most is for local or personal use, and only about 1,000 tons is exported a year, though that number is likely higher since many farmers sell oil informally through relatives abroad, Abu Farha said.
Organic farmers hope the high-end trade will keep them on their lands, despite difficult odds and high overhead costs.
Palestinians seek the West Bank as the heartland of a future independent state. Most of the 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank live under a semi-autonomous government. But Israel, which captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, wields overall control. Roughly 500,000 Jewish settlers live in the West Bank and neighboring east Jerusalem, taking away resources.
More than 120 Jewish settlements dot the West Bank, often encroaching on Palestinian farmlands or preventing farmers from reaching their land. Israel’s separation barrier, built to prevent militants from entering Israel, has swallowed nearly 10 percent of Palestinian farmland, according to U.N. estimates, limiting access and lowering yields.
Israel also controls more than 80 percent of the West Bank’s water in lopsided sharing agreements, said Palestinian water official Ribhi al-Sheik. In other areas dilapidated water pipes have wasteful leaks. Most farmers depend on rain and unlicensed wells, depleting already-stressed aquifers. In some parts, Israeli military authorities also ban rain-collecting cisterns. Badly planned Palestinian towns have paved over fertile lands.
Outside markets for fresh produce aren’t profitable. Goods must cross through Israeli-controlled export crossings, causing delays and lowering quality through exposure to sunlight and constant reloading from one truck to another.
Israeli military spokesman Guy Inbar said the long export process was solely for security reasons and “not intended to harm” exports, noting that Palestinians export some 100,000 tons of fresh produce a year. He said Palestinians access more water than what is allowed for under sharing agreements and that farmers with permits are able to reach land on the other side of the separation barrier.
The challenges sparked a new way of thinking: Palestinians had to make finished goods that could survive the rough growing conditions and lengthy journey to outside markets.
Fair-trade, organic products that can be rain-fed, particularly olives, were the perfect solution.
“It’s the future of Palestinian exports. The future is in added value, through environmental and social accountability,” said Abu Farha of Canaan Fair Trade. “People want to know: “Where is this oil coming from? Whose life is it changing?”
The changes are visible in Nus Jubail, a village crowded with olives and pines, its 400 residents in houses with blue doors and rooftops sheltered by grape arbors. A decade ago, most residents pressed their oil for personal use. Little was sold commercially and prices were low, said Khader, the farmer.
Around 2004, agricultural activists formed the Palestinian Fair Trade Association, seeking out farmers across the West Bank. They persuaded Khader to establish an organic cooperative of five farmers, allowing them to collectively press their olives and sell better-priced oil.
During the three-year conversion process, Khader and his colleagues were taught to grow olives without chemicals, pruning and plowing instead of using herbicides and fermenting sheep droppings into fertilizer. Once certified, Khader and his partners sold their oil above market prices, attracting other recruits. Now 18 of the village’s 30 farmers are organic.
This year, organic oil is selling for about $5.40 a liter—a dollar higher than conventional oil, said Abu Farha of Canaan Fair Trade, which purchases much of the oil. Other independent farmers are selling directly to consumers for $9 a liter, far above market price.
Farmers are going organic on other products, such as maftoul, a chewy sun-dried staple resembling couscous, as well as dried almonds and a spicy herb mix called hyssop.
But high-end oil is key.
In Whole Foods supermarkets in New York and New Jersey, it’s sold under the “Alter Eco” brand, Abu Farha said. It’s in Sainsbury’s in Britain, and in boutique shops globally through Canaan and other distributers. Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap, a popular organic, fair traded vegan soap, sources 95 percent of its oil—some 165 tons—from Palestinian growers, the soap company said.
Even so, challenges abound. Palestinian oil production is irregular because they can’t irrigate their crops and export costs are still high. Abu Farha of Canaan said some farmers have cheated by mixing conventional oil into their products.
Still, the move toward organic, sustainable farming is an important, elegant fight.
“I don’t throw rocks,” said farmer Khader, referring to young men who frequently hurl stones during demonstrations. He pointed to his rock-built terraces. “I use them to build our future.”
This article appeared in http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_21962774/palestinian-farmers-turn-organic-farming
Details Published on Monday, 05 November 2012 08:46
PNN
Thirsting for Justice Campaign said in a press release that during November 2012, the Ride for Water Justice! is taking place in communities impacted by Israel’s illegal appropriations of Palestinian water resources.
The Ride includes guided walks, Playback Theatre performances, and community discussions about water apartheid and the broader struggle for freedom and justice in occupied Palestine. Audience members share autobiographical accounts and watch as a team of actors and musicians instantly transform these accounts into improvised theatre pieces. Playback Theatre provides opportunity for education, advocacy and community building.
The Ride started on Friday, November 2, in the village of Faquaa (in the Jenin district), one of many Palestinian communities impacted by Israel’s illegal appropriations of Palestinian water resources.
In the next Fridays, Palestinian and international activists, students, journalists, artists and the wider public are invited to join any or all of the Ride for Water Justice events:
November 9th: Attuwani, South Hebron Hills
November 16th: Al Hadidiya, Jordan Valley
November 23rd: Gaza via Video Conference
This four time event is organized by the Freedom Bus and EWASH’s West Bank local partner Juzoor.
The Freedom Bus is an initiative of The Freedom Theatre that uses interactive theatre and cultural activism to bear witness, raise awareness and build alliances throughout occupied Palestine and beyond.
Juzoor for Health and Social Development is a Palestinian non-governmental organization based in Jerusalem working at the national level, dedicated to improving the health and well-being of Palestinian families and promoting health as a basic human right.
The Emergency Water, Sanitation and Hygiene group (EWASH) is a coalition of almost 30 organisations working in the water and sanitation sector in the occupied Palestinian territory.
The Freedom Theatre: http://www.thefreedomtheatre.org/
Thirsting for Justice Campaign: http://www.thirstingforjustice.org/new
Juzoor: http://www.juzoor.org/portal
For further information about the event, visit
https://www.facebook.com/events/429492253776932/?ref=ts&fref=ts
November 08, 2012
Agence France-Presse
Mohammed Jakhbir leans back, braces himself, and then leaps off the roof of a Khan Yunis hospital building, flipping backwards before landing on the next roof over. He whoops with delight at performing the dangerous feat, his favorite of the moves he practices with his team — the first parkour group in the Gaza Strip.
Parkour, also known as free running, is an extreme sport that involves getting around or over urban obstacles as quickly as possible, using a combination of running, jumping, and gymnastic moves including rolls and vaults.
Practitioners leap from roof to roof, run up the side of buildings until they flip backwards, vault over park benches, or cartwheel along walls.
In Gaza, it’s still a novelty, and as Jakhbir and four members of his 12-man crew demonstrate their skills in the grounds of the southern city’s Nasser hospital, a crowd of patients and doctors look on, some filming with their cell phones.
“He’s like Spiderman!” says one onlooker as 23-year-old Jakhbir runs up a wall, seemingly defying gravity as he scales the facade.
As the crowd grows, the team decides to move to a quieter spot. Their practice sessions are occasionally interrupted when onlookers call the police to complain, and they prefer to avoid having to make a run for it.
“When we first started practicing, we could do it anywhere. But gradually we found people would complain and the police would come. It became a game, we’d practice until they arrived and then run awa
y,” Jakhbir said with a laugh.
He’s been practicing parkour for seven years, ever since his friend Abdullah showed him a documentary called “Jump London.” It instantly appealed to them.
“We would watch clips and try to imitate the moves that we saw. Gradually we started to make our own clips,” he says.
“Now sometimes people even request that we make clips to show them certain moves. It’s been a long journey for us, seven years, but now we have a real team.”
Jihad Abu Sultan, 24, joined the team four years ago after seeing some of Jakhbir’s clips on YouTube.
He had a background in both kickboxing and kung-fu, but saw something different in parkour.
“It uses physical strength more than any other sport … I was so impressed by it, especially the jumping involved,” he says.
One of Abu Sultan’s specialities is a move in which he flips his body in a full circle with one hand resting on a wall for him to pivot around.
He’s also an accomplished tumbler, throwing himself along the ground in a series of handsprings, rolls and twists.
“Parkour teaches us to overcome obstacles,” he says. “It makes me feel free, it makes me feel my body is strong, that I can overcome anything.”
But practicing parkour in Gaza hasn’t been easy.
At times they’ve had to shift practice locations because the areas have been targeted by Israeli air strikes. And both Abu Sultan and Jakhbir have battled disapproval from their families.
“At first, my parents forbade it,” admits Abu Sultan.
“They tried to stop me, especially after I was injured, but they couldn’t. It’s in my blood.”
Jakhbir’s parents told him to stop practicing parkour and find a job. He graduated with a degree in multimedia from Gaza’s Islamic University, but has been largely unemployed ever since.
“They told me there was no future to it,” he says with frustration.
“They need to understand that sport is something very important. Athletes can raise Palestine’s name throughout the world.”
Jakhbir and other Gaza Parkour members did just that earlier this year, when an Italian group called Unione Italiana Sport Per Tutti invited them to Italy.
“They were able to make our biggest dream come true, which was to get past the biggest obstacle of all — the Israeli checkpoint — and travel abroad,” Jakhbir says.
The trip took them to Rome and four other Italian cities, where they met with other enthusiasts, showing off their skills and learning a few new ones.
“We talked to people about our lives in Gaza, that we’re living under a siege, and in a continually tense situation. We face financial, social and political obstacles,” Jakhbir recalls.
They’ve spray painted “Gaza Parkour forever” on some of the walls, but they acknowledge an uncertain future.
Jakhbir and Abu Sultan say they’d like to continue parkour professionally, and are hoping to eventually win either local or international support that would allow them to commit to the sport full-time.
“Parkour teaches us we can overcome our problems even if we fail once or twice,” says Jakhbir. “We have to try and we can achieve our goals in life.”
This article appeared in Jakarta Globe
By REUTERS
GAZA
It was once the Jewish settlement of Netzarim, but now the site has been turned into the Gaza Strip’s first ever paintball park.
The arrival of the strategic action game in Gaza is offering Palestinian youths a chance to try something new.
But bringing the relevant equipment and protective clothing into the blockaded territory was no small achievement: everything had to be smuggled in through one of the 1000-metre (yard) underground tunnels that link Gaza with Egypt.
“We brought it over via a very hard route, via the tunnels from Egypt, so that we can play games that are played all over the world, so that the youth of Gaza can play games that are played around the world. This is a peaceful game and it’s really, really fun. There’s no danger whatsoever,” said paintball referee Rami Eid.
Palestinian youths have been teaming up for a chance to play the new game, which involves hiding behind positions laid out in a field, before jumping out to spray competitors with balls of colored paint.
“We came to play paintball today. It’s the first time I’ve played it and it’s a really fun game, a really nice game. We were a big group but it’s a nice game with suspense, preparation, action and war. Young men like us like these kinds of games. It’s a nice game and we’ve enjoyed it a lot,” said participant Ahmad Abu Ryaleh.
Paintball has become increasingly popular around the world in recent years, with national teams going head-to-head in regional and world tournaments.
Enthusiasts say it is a game of skill and team-work – something Gaza’s new participants are just discovering.
“I am really happy, I hope there will be more things like this because it is better for young people to use up their energy playing these games, rather than getting up to no good somewhere else,” said Abu Ryaleh.
But with an entrance fee of 10 shekels ($2.5), 50 shekels ($12.8) to rent the paintball field and 30 shekels ($7.6) for 50 paintballs, the experience is beyond the reach of most Gazans.
A recent U.N. report said tougher Israeli policies and settlement expansion were pushing all Palestinian territories deeper into poverty.
Amid persistently high unemployment, one in two Palestinians was now classified as ‘poor’, the UNCTAD report said.
Locals say the croc has evaded captors for two years, has slaughtered farm animals.
By Philip Caulfield New York Daily News
November 4, 2012
A crocodile lurking in the sewers has been terrorizing locals in small city in the northern Gaza Strip, according to a report.
Rajab al-Ankah, head of the Northern Gaza Sewage Station in Beit Lahia, said the five-and-a-half foot sewer croc most likely escaped from a nearby zoo as a baby and has avoided capture for more than two years, Al Arabiya news reported.
“The nets were set up to capture the crocodile, but it managed to escape,” he told the network.
“The slippery ground in the area around the swamps near Beit Lahia in northern Gaza made the escape easier and the crocodile disappeared once more.”
Local in Beit Lahia, in northern Gaza, said the croc slaughtered a farmer’s two goats that were grazing too close to the sewers.
The beast slips out of the sewage basins to hunt for food, and scurries back underground, evading captors, Ankah said.
“It came as a baby and now it is huge and the more it grows the more dangerous it becomes for the residents of the area and their livestock,” Ankah told the network.
Residents are hoping to catch the croc before it attacks a person, the network said.
By REUTERS
WEST BANK
Sunday, 04 November 2012
Palestinian artists showcased their art work at West Bank’s Qalandia International Festival on Thursday framed as part of a creative reaction to the Israeli barrier that separates Palestinian villages from each other.
Israel has said the barrier, a mix of electronic fences and walls that encroaches on West Bank territory, is meant to keep suicide bombers out of its cities.
Palestinians call the barrier — whose course encompasses Israeli settlements in the West Bank — a disguised move to annex or fragment territory Palestinians seek for a viable state.
The International court of Justice declared the planned 600-km (370-mile) barrier, more than half of which is completed, illegal but Israel has ignored the non-binding ruling.
Qalandia International Festival Art Director, Jack Persekian, said it was an important way for Palestinians to channel their emotional reactions to the barrier.
“The wall and the road that was constructed recently connect the Israeli settlements together and separate the Palestinian villages from each other. The reaction to this separation was a cultural festival. It is an important and a good reaction — it shows a positive, artistic and cultural spirit in a painful situation that should be stopped,” he said.
The festival, which showcases Palestinian contemporary art projects, performances, films, and other cultural activities, kicked off on Thursday at Qalandia village northern of Jerusalem and ends on November 15.
According to the festival’s organizers, over 50 local and International artists came together for the launch of Qalandia International, ‘a milestone contemporary art event’.
Palestinian artist Khaled Jarar screened his 2 minutes film at the festival. His film, too, addresses barrier issues and Palestinians’ reactions to it.
“I went to the wall and I cut out some pieces of it. I smashed them then I mixed them with cement and water and I made a ball which children play with. My message is that the wall is an ugly thing, so we should seek out ways in which to use it and the occupation for our benefit,” he told Reuters television.
The festival was organized by seven Palestinian institutions- Riwaq, Al Ma’mal Foundation for Contemporary Art, A. M. Qattan Foundation, Palestinian Art Court – Al Hoash, International Art Academy – Palestine, Sakakini Cultural Centre and the House of Culture Arts – Nazareth.
Palestinian band ‘Dar Qandeel’ performed traditional and modern music at the festival’s opening ceremony and people from various Palestinian villages and cities as well as Internationals came to attend.
Yara Bayoumi, a visitor at the festival, said the cooperation involved in hosting such a festival was wonderful.
“The festival is very nice. It is the first of its kind in Palestine. It is the first time seven organizations have worked together to organize such a festival. I hope it will have a good effect, and put Palestine in the world’s contemporary art,” she said.
The festival is expected to tour Jerusalem and other West Bank cities.
This article appeared in http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/11/04/247588.html
By Zoë Miller
Columbia Daily Spectator
Published October 1, 2012
The Manhattan Shakespeare Project’s current venture is centered on the creation of original theatrical pieces that will incorporate Shakespeare’s sonnets and Palestinian youth songs.
For the all-female Shakespeare company Manhattan Shakespeare Project, all the world really is a stage for cross-cultural communication. MSP’s newest project, “Shakespeare For A New World: The Palestinian Voice,” is centered on the creation of original theatrical pieces that will incorporate Shakespeare’s sonnets and Palestinian youth songs. Teaching artists Sarah Eismann, SoA ’12, and Jensen Olaya, SoA ’12, will travel to Palestine in late November, accompanied by documentary film director Lena Rudnick, SoA directing candidate, to work with students at the Drama Academy Ramallah and the Jenin refugee camp’s Freedom Theatre.
Eismann said that although “Shakespeare For A New World” and MSP are not political entities, projects “have the potential for having political undertones” by nature of the fact that MSP is an all-female company traveling to a region often associated with more rigid patriarchy. But the purpose of “Shakespeare For A New World,” above all else, is for Eismann and Olaya to work with the students at the Drama Academy Ramallah to create theater and art. Due to their geographical location, the Palestinian theater students are extremely isolated. The project will “help get their voice outside of the borders of Palestine,” Eismann said.
The concept of “Shakespeare For A New World” emerged after Eismann performed in an international production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” that took place in 2011 at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Germany. The “Midsummer” cast was comprised of acting students from Folkwang, in addition to students from Columbia, the Drama Academy Ramallah, the Shanghai Theatre Academy, and the Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu. Eismann said that she was inspired by the beauty of “a Palestinian Helena working with a Romanian Demetrius.” Shakespeare’s words, she realized, could effectively cut across cultural and linguistic barriers. “We found our common world. We found our common language,” she said.
The Folkwang production, Eismann said, led to an epiphany. “If only the world could work this way, we would have no problems,” she said. “It wouldn’t be me against you—it would be what was on that stage.”
Eismann was thrilled when the Drama Academy Ramallah’s director invited her to teach the “Shakespeare For A New World” workshops and make this vision of “a completely united, holistic, humanistic world” more of a reality—at least in theater.
As time went on, the project gained momentum and “exploded into this very idealistic, very grandiose plan.” The intense, six-hours-a-day workshops will include not only actors from the Academy but also teenagers at the Jenin refugee camp, which is one of the oldest, most devastated refugee camps in Palestine. With the help of a team including Rudnick, these workshops and the performances that result from them will be filmed.
In the next five years, Eismann hopes to take the methodology that the MSP team learns from the Ramallah and Jenin workshops and bring it to high school students in New York.
The end goal, she said, is to get diverse communities across the globe to learn about each other, “to use Shakespeare to talk, to create theater, to create peace.”
arts@columbiaspectator.com
This article appeared in Colubmia Spectator
by Sara Hussein
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories, Oct 29, 2012 (AFP) – Abu Ahmed looks out over a sea of grey, empty Gaza rooftops, and smiles as he looks back at the lush greenery sprouting in tubs and pipes on top of his apartment building.
He is part of a United Nations agency project to introduce cutting-edge urban agriculture to Gaza City, teaching Palestinians to farm without soil in the space available to them in one of the world’s most densely populated places.
Most of his rooftop is given over to an aquaponic system, which produces food by linking fish tanks of tilapia with gravel-filled planters.
The integrated system feeds the water from the fish tanks into the plant beds, where Abu Ahmed’s crops — lettuce, peppers, broccoli, celery and herbs — are fertilised by waste produced by the tilapia.
As the water trickles through the gravel, the plants absorb nutrients from the fish waste, cleaning the water, which then replenishes the tanks.
“The idea really was to help the poorest people in Gaza be able to grow some of their own food, and healthy food, grown without pesticides,” explains Mohammed El Shatali, the project’s deputy manager.
For Abu Ahmed, the project has been a major success.
Not only is he using the integrated aquaponic system, he had also set up his own subsidiary hydroponic system, growing additional crops in plastic pipes that are fed by the same water that runs through the aquaponic system.
“I had a bit of experience with agriculture and farming before, but nothing like this,” he says, examining the leaves of a celery plant.
Thanks to the project, the 51-year-old has been able to feed his 13-member family fresh vegetables and fish throughout the summer.
“The fish taste great, although I’m trying not to eat too many of them because I’m breeding new ones so I won’t have to buy more.”
There have also been other benefits from the system, he says, explaining that it cools the apartments below by providing shade.
“It’s great for the children. Nowadays they don’t see farming, they barely see trees or plants. It’s great for them to see this because it gets them interested in growing and planting things.”
Gaza’s 1.6 million residents live on just 360 square kilometres (140 square miles) of land, and much of that is off limits because Israel maintains a 300-metre (yard) deep exclusion zone along the length of the border fence.
Power cuts threaten fish
In Gaza’s main towns and cities, empty land is being eaten up by the construction of multi-storey apartment buildings, leaving little space for agriculture.
The challenges prompted the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) to look for new ways to maximise crop production in tiny spaces.
In Gaza City’s Zeitun neighbourhood, 34-year-old Eman Nofal tends crops in a small yard next to her apartment. Peppers have been her biggest success this year, and both sweet and spicy red peppers dot the greenery in her planters.
Nofal’s husband was killed in fighting between rival Palestinian groups Fatah and Hamas in 2006, leaving her the sole provider for their four children.
When she heard about the project, she thought it could ease the cost of feeding her family.
“It’s been great. It’s really easy, the children even help me maintain the plants,” she says, acknowledging that the concept was somewhat alien at first.
“All our lives, we learnt that farming meant growing things in the ground, in soil, so it was strange to hear it was possible to grow in water and gravel, but I love the idea.”
Nofal says the project also gives her pleasure.
“Just the way it looks is really nice. Sometimes I come out here just to enjoy the greenery and to watch the fish play with each other. It relaxes me.”
The project has faced setbacks, including the Gaza-specific challenge of power cuts of up to 12 hours a day, which shut down the pumps that transfer water between the fish tanks and plant beds.
“Electricity has been one of the most difficult challenges,” says Chris Somerville, an urban agriculture consultant with the FAO.
“At 30 degrees centigrade (86 Fahrenheit), the capacity of the water to hold oxygen reduces, and during the summer many of the beneficiaries had fish die.”
New participants will receive a battery-powered pump to tide them over during power cuts, and the FAO is experimenting with fibres that could be used in hydroponic systems to retain moisture when power cuts stop the water flow.
Initially, the project also had to overcome a certain level of scepticism, Somerville says.
“To tell agrarian societies that you’re going to grow plants without soil can sometimes be a bit of a jump,” he laughs.
But the project has been so successful that the next cycle will expand from 15 aquaponic participants to around 80, with another 80 homes operating hydroponic systems.
It will be the first time the FAO has implemented aquaponics on this scale, and the agency is now looking at implementing the project elsewhere in the world.
“To be able to take this Gaza model and bring it to other countries would really be a massive achievement,” Somerville says.
This article appeared in http://www.mysinchew.com/node/79207?tid=10
Al Jazeera
Rim Banna has given melodic interpretations to the suffering of Palestinians and their defiant hopes and aspirations.
| Between October 3 and 7, I was part of a wide-ranging celebration of Palestinian arts and culture in Milano, Italy.
The Philastiniat festival of Palestinian film, literature, theatre, folklore, music, dance and poetry opened in various locations in Milan to the enthusiastic reception of the city officials, the Palestinian community and their European friends and families. Distinguished guests ranged from writers Suad Amiry and Salman Natur, film directors Michel Khleifi, photographer Rula Halawani, singer-activist Rim Banna, poet Zuhair Abu Shayeb, writer-journalist Akram Musallam and poets Nasr Jamil and Asmaa Azaizeh, and many others. At the heart of the festival, which included performances, poetry readings and film series, was also a tribute to the late Palestinian scholar and public intellectual Edward W Said (1935-203). A conference on Said was held on October 5 at Palazzo Marino – Sala Alessi – Piazza Della Scala – right across from the historic Scala opera house. Younger and more senior scholars from various universities in Italy exchanged ideas on the significance of Edward Said’s legacy. The panelists included: Wasim Dahmash (Università degli Studi di Cagliari), Paolo Branca (Università Cattolica, Milano), Marco Gatto (Università della Calabria), Mauro Pala (Università di Cagliari) and Mariantonietta Saracino (Università Sapienza, Roma). Rim Banna Particularly memorable in this event was the featuring of Palestinian singer Rim Banna in the very last night of Philastiniat. Born (1966) and raised in Nazareth, and educated in the Higher Music Conservatory in Moscow, Rim Banna is a Palestinian singer and composer who was initially celebrated for her endearing renditions of old Palestinian folk songs. She has now emerged as a major voice in Palestinian music of resistance, giving melodic interpretations to the suffering of her people and their defiant hopes and aspirations. In pain and suffering, defiance and struggle, confidence and pride, Palestine sings in Rim Banna. Listening to Rim Banna (here is a sample from her album “Maraya’ al-Ruh” – The Mirrors of My Soul) is an experience in living through the trials and tribulations of Palestinians, as their newborns are sung to by the lullabies of their resistance, their youngsters are point blank shot dead by Israeli soldiers and settlers alike, and as their heroes are loved and admired for their resistance. Rim Banna sings love songs for towering Palestinian men and women, bearing witness to their people’s struggles, raising and protecting their children against a vicious killing machine that has occupied their homeland – and the result is the creation of a repertoire of folkloric and contemporary songs that have now blended into each other to become the common staple of Palestinian lives and resistances. From her renditions of Palestinian lullabies to her lovingly flirtatious “Mash’al”, to her “Tayr Hawa” – Fly Love, Rim Banna’s ballads of Palestine have become integral to her people’s stories of struggles and resistance. In beautiful and yet heart-wrenching songs like “Sarah“, Rim Banna transforms the brutal murder of young Palestinian children by Israeli army or their obscene settlers into unforgettable ballad, contemporary folksongs of her people. As in the cases with jazz, blues, or ragtime, Rim Banna’s ballads derive their power from their deep-rooted connections to her people’s struggles. Listening to and watching Rim Banna perform, you can hear Umm Kulthum in Egypt, Edith Piaf in France, Joan Baez in the US, or Mercedes Sosa in Argentina. In her voice and in her songs, she has wed the stories of her people to defiant joys of people around the globe. It is as if it has been the fate of Palestinians in their heart and soul to travel around the world and in the best and the most beautiful everywhere, find a way to tell and share their stories. They say that the United States is the most powerful country on planet earth and when the Israeli Prime Minister goes to the US congress to deliver yet another vulgar and inane speech, there are so many standing ovations for him by the even more vulgar and inane members of the US congress that they probably spent more time on their feet applauding their Israeli benefactor than seating on their chairs thinking of their duties to the people who had elected them. But what has AIPAC really bought for Israel with such obscene display of power – turning the democratic institution of a nation into the Joker-Jack-in-the-Box of a bankrupt ideology – when with one single, beautiful and powerful song, Rim Banna can make the whole world rise up and sing with Palestine? Hamid Dabashi is Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York. Among his books is his edited volume, Dreams of a Nation: On Palestinian Cinema(2006). The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy. |
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Al Jazeera
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GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — The circus came to Gaza on Friday, accompanied by blaring music, juggling clowns and fire blowers — but getting it there required its own high-wire act.
No women performers were included for fear of offending conservative Palestinians and the Gaza Strip’s militant Hamas rulers, and the circus’ lone lion and tiger were left behind because of the high cost of transporting them legally into Gaza.
The Egyptian National Circus put on its first show of a month-long visit to the impoverished coastal territory on Friday, a sign of warmer relations between Hamas and post-revolution Egypt, which is governed by the Islamic group’s ideological parent, the Muslim Brotherhood.
Although it’s not state-sponsored, the Egyptian circus could only come because the country’s government loosened restrictions on the flow of passengers in and out of Gaza. More foreigners now enter Gaza, including the ruler of the resource-rich Gulf state Qatar earlier this week.
Once in Gaza, the Egyptians’ faced an unusual situation — most Palestinians here don’t know what a circus is.
“I think it’s going to be really surprising for most people,” said Riwa Awwad, 19, ahead of the opening night.
“Gazans are famous for not liking anything and I think they’ll do the impossible to entertain us,” said Awwad, who came with her extended family to the fairground on Friday.
In an ironic twist, the cheery circus with its flashing lights was held on the grounds of a notorious security prison that was destroyed during an Israeli offensive four years ago.
For the Gazans fortunate enough to see the opening show, it was a welcome relief from conflict and despair. The fairgrounds were packed with excited children in new cloths, women in glittery headscarves, others in black face veils, and men in suits and freshly pressed shirts. Families snacked on pumpkin seeds.
They hollered and cheered as a tight-rope walker wiggled his hips and belly-danced on a thread suspended above the ground. A performer hurled silver knives around volunteers. A red-clad fire blower shot whooshing, yellow licks of flame out of his mouth. Two clowns dressed in yellow-and-blue bumbled and fumbled as they tried to juggle, delighting children.
It took months to arrange the visit to the impoverished territory, where 1.6 million people live in a 25 mile-long sliver wedged between Israel and Egypt and face a punishing blockade imposed after Hamas seized control in 2007.
Aside from a circus’ brief visit in the 1990s, there’s never been anything like it since Israel captured the strip from Egypt in 1967. Israeli forces and settlers withdrew in 2005.
Businessman Mohammed Faris said he remembered seeing the circus under Egyptian rule in the 1950s, when Gaza was still a liberal place with casinos and bars. He said he recalled as a child seeing men walking on nails and female acrobats flying across stage.
“It was men and women – pretty women,” he said.
Not this time around.
Organizer Mohammed Silmi said female performers had to stay behind because the circus was worried that leaping ladies in tights would offend Gazans.
He said Hamas didn’t explicitly ban women but he was asked to abide by Gaza’s “traditions” when he petitioned to get the circus to come.
In practice, the circus wiggled a little around the no-women rule. At one point a man in drag, sporting a brown wig and red dress, sang and danced with Bunduk the clown.
After Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007, Israel and Egypt imposed a blockade that aimed to weaken the militants who seek Israel’s destruction.
Under international pressure, it was loosened after Israel raided a blockade-defying boat and killing nine Turkish activists aboard in 2009. Key restrictions still remain on exports and importing raw materials.
All the circus equipment came through the Rafah border crossing, but expensive fees and cumbersome paperwork kept the circus from bringing lions, tigers and horses across the border.
Gaza’s makeshift zoos and other merchants often bypass that problem by hauling animals through smuggling tunnels linking the territory to Egypt. In one famous scene captured on film, Gazans used a crane to lift a camel over the border fence as the animal twitched in the air in agony.
Animal welfare aside, Gaza’s main zoo recently turned to improvised taxidermy to keep its deceased animals on exhibit.
The area also continues to be violent. As circus technicians were setting up their tent earlier this week, Palestinian militants were fighting Israeli forces in tit-for-tat rounds of rocket fire and retaliatory airstrikes.
Egyptian technician Khalil Gomaa, 55, jolted upon every crashing boom. He told his children he was in Jordan so they wouldn’t be worried. “But I’m worried,” he said.
But the circus’ biggest challenge may be packing the 1,000-seater tent for the month-long visit.
A series of Palestinians interviewed didn’t know what a circus was, and the tickets — ranging from $5-$10 seats — are too expensive for most of Gaza’s traditionally large families.
Some 40 percent of Gazans live on less than $2 a day, a third are unemployed and most need U.N. donated food.
They include the mother of eight, Sabrine Baoud, and her unemployed husband. After the circus was explained to her, Baoud, 35, said she was glad her children didn’t know anything about it.
They’d never be able to afford to go.
Copyright © 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Tales of a City by the Sea 
