...the L word...

"...the L word..."

"...the bass can kill you..."

"...just like Beirut..."

...just a few phrases that echo from Urban Theatre Project's new production, (not) exploring 'the C word', opening in November 2008: 

stories of love and hate 

How many articles, short films, theatre works, books have been produced since December 2005? How many meetings, seminars, symposia, conferences?

UTP's new work is beautifully restrained through the passage of time, experience and patience, in the almost three year aftermath. I rejoice in the absence of some all too common nouns, verbs and icons, within the show's story-streams and synchronicities.

Although it is very different from some theatre productions of the recent past  (1)  [the shows of the funding-that-we-had-to-have], stories of love and hate still feels the need to invoke elements of the now-legendary violence, through verbatim stories of witnesses.  Lest We Forget?  While such theatre is bearing human witness, why do i have to relive that nauseous pain of the long summer of 2005/6?  (2)

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(1) Community performance 101: compare and contrast the following:

a. A pseudo-epic number performed at the Opera House; a so-called co-production by two youth theatre companies, one White City and one Brown South-West.

b. An outdoor number in a southern plaza, that had promised cities carved of ice, yet offered a cool fantasy on different tribes, where almost no spoken language eluded the cliches of the season.

c. This current number, editing and crafting 65 interviews, requiring the four actors to swallow the sounds, pauses and stammers - (swallow the violence?) - then, like human PA's, channel out for our listening.

d. Other numbers, that i consciously avoided, that displayed lines in the sand, various flags and life-saving caps. 

(2) I have always had discomfort about simulated torture and violence in theatre, never relaxed with those 1980s genres... my boringly incessant questions of who is speaking? ...writing? ...who is listening? ...who is hurting whom? But, that's another story, eh.

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Although i did have expectations of a certain level of intimacy in the new UTP production (facilitated by the headphone performance technique, which makes the actors appear as if they are lyrically channelling personal stories of the interviewees), stories of love and hate touched my heart in unexpected ways - in love and in sadness - within some of its subconscious layers and internal linkages, possibly even unintentional through the artistic direction.

Reflections of both the young surfers and the elderly swimmers invoke an everyday spirituality, a Rumi-like Love relationship of the Human Body to the Greater Ocean, linking my minds-eye further south-west, down the Hume Highway to Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, to Phil George's surfboards painted with diverse and intricate Islamic designs (Borderlands exhibition 2008/9).

I think about our Sydney suburban relationships to land and sea, a combination of class, acquired wealth or generational good luck, providing much-valued access to 'The Water'. My immediate family lived in Kingsford and Cronulla in the first three years of my life, before moving to (north) western Sydney (away from their many Lebanese networks in Redfern). My Mother (tow'l amr'ha) still lives in that same house since 1961. Apart from the backyard in that house, my favourite places in Sydney have always required treks much further east.

stories of love and hate shares a few current-generation stories from the south western side, where Localised Love in Punchbowl is expressed through knowing Your Neighbourhood, Your Car, Your Mall. However, most people do feel a sense of their own humanity in being near the water. I love how the sea breathes, eternally in and out. And though it is moving water, the Burramatta River is just not the same. 

Inside another layer in my mind, i remember the imposed claustrophobia in Ramallah, in the West Bank, where the Israeli Military Occupation of Palestine made the sea inaccessible, a million miles away, and not the proverbial stone's-throw-away that it really was. But i am not making comparisons here. 

To be honest, one of the (minor) characters in the show who unexpectedly moved me, was 'the Arab Father' (tow'l amr'hu). Here lays an inner tragedy, hidden within this show. His relationship with Lebanon. His relationship with his son.  

The L Word.

Not the cult American TV series about glossy lean lesbians. 

The L Word.

Lebanese. Lebanon. Leb.

The very word 'Lebanon', what has it become?

The very word 'Lebanese', what has it become?

Here, for us.

Within us. About us.

Such love and belief.

Such nausea and filth.

Simultaneous. 

Parallel universes.

The Arab Father inhabits past and present.

Simultaneously. No problem.

Love and Hate?

Is this about how we need to learn to love ourselves, as Ghassan Hage has been speaking in recent years, as Racism and Whiteness has taught us to hate our very selves? (And this is not just metaphorical... a half a century, and this racialized body is still not relaxed at the beach.)

Lebanese.

The dirtiest word in NSW over the last ten years.

Not just post-Cronulla. (The C-word, not a TV series.)

I remember in 1998, Premier B. Carr with his Daily Telegraph pin-up, wannabe-crim-kids, bought off with free pizza. He solidified the vernacular of demonizing 'The L Word'. (And 'Gangs'.) He led the wave of the racialization of crime. He rode the wave of the criminalization of 'ethnicity'. 

We had to use our L word in a different way now, after having coined and popularised the term 'Arab Australian' during the Islamaphobic race-war-at-home, during the First Gulf War of 1991. 

Some of us were of the Lebanese not denying our Arabness, now needing to reclaim our Lebaneseness. 

1975. 1982. 1991. 2001.

December 2005... to name but a few loaded years.

(Some numbers develop their own heavy weight. Ask any Palestinian: 1948? 1967?)

How many articles, films, theatre works, books have been produced? How many meetings, seminars, symposia, conferences?

These days, my long-term memory is better than my short-term memory.

Anne Monsour has written about racialization and criminalization of 'Syrian / Lebanese' before and after Australian Federation. Since the late 1800s there have been generations and massive diversities of Arabs in Australia. stories of love and hate only reflects one of those moments, and does not pretend otherwise. But yep, legislated as 'Aliens' in 1901, at the turn of the C.

But back to 'the Arab Father' in stories of love and hate.

What if my own Father (Allah yer'hamu) could channel into my headphones from The Other Side? What would he say about what has become of our own, our private L Word?

He emigrated in 1950, never to return. One generation later he laughed at my adult attempts at re-learning Arabic, many schizophrenic years after my home language had become poisoned and swallowed. He reminded me that we had laughed at his English. 

Then almost half a century after he had departed, i wanted him to travel to Lebanon with me, for my very first visit (after doing time in Palestine). He said: "Inti rouh'ee bi mahal'ee..." (You go in my place...). I was conscious that i felt blank at the time of that much-awaited first landing. 

Maybe it was better for him that he passed over to The Other Side in 1999? So many racialized landmarks since then, in our own backyard and beyond.

The L Word.

He was My Lebanon. 

Mythical and tangible.

Stories of Love and Sadness.

Hey, do you wanna see photos of me and my Bob(a) on Cronulla Beach when i was three years old?

this business of self...

i woke from a dream,

her voice still clearly in my head:

i think this business of self.

is being.

and self criticism.

not being existentialist nor essentialist.

but being, in agency.

centre through decentre.

3weeks ago, i quietly went alone to Black2BLAK2

nsw aboriginal visual arts conference

campbelltown arts centre

djon mundine speaking in opening

opened the intended meaning of Black2BLAK2

and i paraphrase again, as i have been consistently doing in the last 3weeks:

all the people speaking during this conference are aboriginal.

all questions and comments from the floor are to come from aboriginal people.

this is our chance to explain our selves to our selves.

if you are not aboriginal, you can listen.

in plain english - 'shut the fuck up'.

i don't think anything is lost in translation here.

it was so ordinary. 

so calm. so colloquial. 

spoken in such an understated way, that it completely normalized the claiming of space and the right to do so, with such casual ease.

yet the space was open.

reality check.

reality check to smooth out the knots.

slow the running round in circles. 

the jumping through metaphorical hoops.  

i think it was the voice of a large brown woman, saying to me in the early hours, inbetween asleep and awake: 

i think this business of self.

is being.

and self criticism.

... spitting distance?!

the morning after attending a public forum entitled:
‘opening our theatres to ethnic stories and players’


***###%%%@@@@???!!!???!!!
shou??!!

who is asking the question?
who is considering doing the opening? on whose terms?
whose theatres are ‘our’ theatres?
who are ‘ethnics’? and what does that word mean again?!?
etc etc etc

although these days i am not actively / consistently engaged in performance making (apart from another recent gig with auburn poets and writers for sydney writers festival 2008) - and although my voice is no longer my voice (it will take a long time before i grow up and become a writer...) i realize that most of the sistas and brothas are not primarily performers or performance makers.

i always get unsettled at events like last night, though now thankfully to a lesser degree. i usually feel like a mad woman in a vacuum, who no-one responds to (or who gets patronizingly placated). i think the last time i had to speak about 'our stuff' at a so-called mainstream (white) event, was at a performing centres’ national conference in 2006 held at the wharf in sydney, which ended up being just after the massive israeli invasion of lebanon AND on the very same day of the opening of the T'FOUH… exhibition at mori gallery (which i also had to speak at). did I feel like the weirdo majnouni on that panel on that day or what??? ouffffff!!!!

... so you wake up and think to yourself, is it worth engaging with those same-old same-old frameworks and boring-binary questions? is it worth the effort of writing semi-coherent responses to be possibly included in their publications (as i was encouraged in foyer talk?)

then the morning after - a baraki - i get a great email from fatoum and i immediately and decisively stop wondering: NAH! NO WAY!

i see the publicity for 'in spitting distance' for the first time (by palestinian writer taher najib, to be performed in arabic at the sydney opera house - yay!) and my heart leaps and i think:

yeah, performance in all its forms IS still important to me...

yeah, these are the kinds of stories i do wanna hear...
from the storytellers that i do wanna listen to...
hopefully to be experienced with the people i wanna share the listening with...

then the previous rhetorical questions dissolve, and i no longer care about the problems of almost-dead-white-mainstream-theatre (and cultural institutions in general) - they gotta work out their own stuff - especially if they are running out of their own stories and are keen to appropriate those of 'others'...

mmm, no need for gratefulness here...

which reminds me: at that forum last night, i felt so conscious that 'the sudanese' people in the audience were being spoken ‘about’, but they did not speak for themselves – but mind you, that is possibly a good tactic (that i could strategically learn), because then they are not uttering words from within the audience being set up by the rinso/omo interlocutors...

yeah, yeah, i know, we gotta keep organizing public discussions and cultural spaces in our own terms ... and, if we are feeling generous and hospitable (as we are culturally reputed to be), open up to all from the east, the north and the south, as well as from the west…

… and we do not have to feed them ok?!

Baris ila Burramatta ila Baris ila ...

Some of my internal dialogues during and after the presentation and discussion @

A tale of two cities: from Paris to Parramatta
Multiculturalism, community and cultural development: a transnational perspective.
Paula Abood @ Parramatta Artists Studios on 16 June 2008

• In a process of interviews and action research, ‘who’ is asking / posing the questions (regardless of a diversity of positioning and politics of interviewees)
• The very nature of ‘questions’ themselves as being like ‘gatekeepers’ to a first stage of discussion / communication (so what are the most effective questions? What is the most effective language or terminology?)
• In hearing about notions of ‘the republic’ and ‘the citizen’, I remember days and nights spent in discussion in a garage in Greenacre (south-west Sydney), where Arab anti-racism activists were trying to develop a group called ‘muwatin’ (citizen)
• In hearing about ‘secular fundamentalism’, I recall hearing Devleena G speak about secularism in India - that communalism there historically does not mean an absence of religion and shared cultural practices across all communities
• The context being researched (including the tensions of social / political / cultural dynamics) affects the body and mind and spirit of the researcher
• Are we looking for parallel worlds in contexts / communication / ideas / questions?
• The process of unfolding the layers and revealing the paradoxes…
• Can you only feel ‘at home’ with rhetoric / phrases / issues that you are familiar with?
• What are the implications on continuing public focus on young men only (Arab / Maghrebi / Lebanese / Muslim) – what about the banaat?
• If spontaneous grassroots cultural production is most effective in post-crisis / post-trauma – what are implications for us in our habits of state funding systems and policies?
• Why Paris and not Detroit? Parallel worlds (not) of communication and dialogue? [Especially as one objective of this Paris residency was to investigate the nature / effectiveness of CCD projects post-revolts of October 2005]. What does it mean to engage in international exchange (especially in this globalised era of internet and new media) where often the very bases of communication are difficult?

In asking why Paris? (as opposed to locating other more parallel contexts eg. Canada, USA, etc), I think more about the way I asked this question:
What is our ‘thing’ about Paris?
Is it an Arab thing?
Is it a Lebanese thing?
The postcolonial fascination?

So I reflect on how I tend to block out the whole thing of Europeanisation of Arab world / cultures – the colonial and the postcolonial ties that bind - (Britain and Palestine; France and Lebanon) – that perhaps if I did open up to a greater understanding of the internalised colonial histories of the political / social / cultural dynamics, then maybe I would develop a better understanding of what makes the Lebanese SO Lebanese, of what historically / socially / politically constructs the (political) Lebanese Christian conservative elements of Lebanese society, both in Lebanon, the Arab world, and more importantly for me, in Australia.
This is all relevant from social, cultural, political and historical perspectives – although I am not about to become a Francophile!?

After the session, Michael D talked of the pervasive phenomenon of early 20th century French Impressionism, entrenched in the arts of the ‘colonies’ and postcolonial worlds of Vietnam and also of the Arab World. Perhaps these forms and styles of visual arts are seen as universal, as European, as non-political, as contemporary, as neither specifically Arab nor Asian. (Is this possibly related to the work of a network of Iraqi artists in Sydney?)
This cultural and historical phenomenon is interesting, as it does cross over to the previous issue of the need to understand more deeply the colonial and the postcolonial and its influences within the diaspora as well as within the homelands.

When Paula talks of French newspapers having opinion pieces written by philosophers, I wonder why it is so difficult for me to write? (publishing / access issues aside)

I personally need to get out of the ‘hole’ that I have been in…
If the bio-conspiracy against my voice continues, I need to learn to write…

alissar
18 June 2008

...and now back to 3arabi-mapping

essentially what i want to do through 3arabi-mapping:

~ record conversations with 3arab artists, where they are reflecting on their own critical questions about their own work processes, within their own terms...

~ map out for ourselves, how 3arab arts networks have grown and diversified since 1991

~ collect some images and sounds of cultural productions since 1991, and have a directory of their community keeping places

~ reflect and write and publish

~ develop some foundations for a website / portal that can make accessible the body of 3arab contemporary arts in australia

current bio-conspiracy...

Alissar Chidiac has been engaged in community and cultural development work for almost 30 years. She has had a specific focus on contemporary Arab cultural and heritage work since 1991. She worked at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, 1998 to 2004, where she initiated a diversity of programmes, community partnerships and exhibitions through the wattan project.

Until recently she worked on cultural projects in Western Sydney with Auburn Community Development Network (ACDN). Alissar developed ACDN's major regional women's cultural project in 2005 / 2006, which culminated in a multimedia exhibition and public programmes: Inside Out - Muslim women exploring identities and creative expressions. In 2006 Alissar co-curated T'fouh... raw responses from Arab artists at the Mori Gallery in Sydney.

Currently Alissar is working on her Australia Council for the Arts Fellowship: 3arabi - mapping contemporary Arab Australian cultural production. Working partners in this community interactive project include UTS Shopfront and Information and Cultural Exchange. Alissar is also now facilitating /artistically directing Auburn Poets and Writers third multilingual performance for Sydney Writers Festival (2006-2008).

In some of her former lives she was a community theatre facilitator and performer (streets, festivals, cabarets, schools, theatres, fund-raisers and burned-out cathedrals). She is much quieter these days and the bio-conspiracy that effectively stole half of her voice is still under investigation...

alissar.chidiac@uts.edu.au

qalbee wat'r saoutee

qalbee wat'r saoutee...
my heart, the cords of my voice

listening with my eyes
and
speaking with my heart

khay! quietness...

khay!
quietness and silence...

can quietness
and silence
and withdrawal
be forms of resistance or social change?
is it possible that community cultural development work, as life work, can have slower approaches - so slow that there are long periods of quiet?

maybe i am emerging from four months of relative quietness.
but i have grown to love the mundane and the detail of the everyday...

yesterday morning
walking on the footpath
a leaf fell in front of me.
i saw that yellow leaf fall.

if i did not include my participation, in the last line, i am not necessarily there. (is this self-indulgence?)
can complex issues of agency and authorship in cultural production and social change be that simple?

quietness facilitates listening...

the collective 'we' have always had an eternal focus on 'speaking out'... eg. 'who is speaking'? and the struggle to speak 'in your own voice'.

i listened to old freire in the mid 70s and then the early 90s - models of education, action research and cultural action primarily require approaches of listening before development and action.

maybe 'who is listening?' becomes a significant shift in perspective.
mmm...
have i even been listening to myself?

kan ya makan...

kan ya makan... once upon a time...

i remember long ago as a child, working out for myself that 'time' (as we knew it) was something 'made up' by humans, to divide and to count...

'kan ya makan...' is actually not part of my own childhood. although my father did tell me ongoing stories about a girl named gigi and a dog and a swimming pool. how sydney suburban.

the arab art of storytelling (and joketelling) is something that i've experienced more as a grown-up, accumulating elements of a 2nd-hand arab experience.
an accumulation of 'arabness'.

hold on. i take back the bit about 2nd-hand (or 3rd- or 4th-hand).
arabness, as it lives and accumulates itself within the diaspora, is no more or no less arab, ma hayk?
so let me get back to 'time'...

if i lose my language do i lose my own sense of time?
or do i lose my father's time...?

boukra and manyana:
i like this joke about concepts of time and procrastination; it's the one about the dialogue between the arabic speaking person and the spanish speaking person.

the arab asks about the spanish 'manyana'?
manyana is a relaxed tomorrow, not definitely, and if not tomorrow then maybe the day after, and if all goes well, it might happen then...

the spanish speaker wants to know about the arabic 'boukra'?
boukra is a bit like manyana, but not as urgent...

A.I. on 'ghost flights'...

... my first thought on reading about the helicopter ride that Alissar took - and which she has no memory of, no evidence for - reminded me of the other 'ghost flights' that i've been thinking about lately. Those ghost flights are the more sinister kind - those that 'render' people to institutions of pain and potential death: torture houses, jails, death camps. Alissar's helicopter ride was a ghost flight not because public record of it has been expunged but because the passenger has no memory, no memorialised evidence of it. But this ghost flight 'rendered' her to an institution of pain, potential death, but thankfully also healing and recovery.

Question: can you ever really 'lose' time??
what does this mean?
is time only 'not-lost' when you have a tangible memory or evidence for it?

Alia