Shalom Sahbity Mission Statement
We believe that genuine transformations happen when people have a space for authentic and creative exchange of ideas and experiences. Our mission in Shalom Sahbity, is to bring a humanizing perspective to the Arab/Israeli conflict by looking at individual stories from all over the land. We aim to provoke audiences and participants to further dialogue about issues raised in our piece and to use comparative conflict analysis to further understand the complexities in conflict in general. Finally, we aim to provide a space for diverse groups to come together to share their own stories of culture and conflict through interactive creative education techniques.
Performance
Shalom Sahbity is a collage performance of storytelling, dialogue, movement, music and media, written and performed by Israeli-American, Simnia Singer-Sayada and Egyptian-American, Catherine Hanna. It tells their unique personal experiences of Middle Eastern culture and growing up as bi-cultural Americans. As they tell their stories through word and images, they incite a variety of themes and topics including: immigration, mixed cultural identity, race, family, language, motherhood, women’s self-image, religion, and tensions in relating to the news and media, among other topics.
The performance offers a variety of points at which a diverse audience could personally connect or be provoked to consider the distinctive circumstances of others. In the performance Simnia and Catherine also examine the Arab/Israeli conflict. The two grapple with the multi-dimensions of this historical, political, social, and familial conflict. It provokes a fresh new dialogue about the Middle East and the surprises found through friendship.
Education
Shalom Sahbity is a partnership that moves beyond performance into various educational and professional settings. Simnia and Catherine teach workshops and implement programming using educational theater, Forum Theater, and other creative avenues in order to uncover and stimulate dialogue around relevant topics to the group, particularly topics related to conflict transformation, empowerment of oppressed persons and multiculturalism.
