The 1st Edition of the Dhofar International Theatre Festival in Oman – first post
This October (2024) I was fortunate to be invited to represent the UK on the jury panel for the Ensemble production at the first edition of the Dhofar International Theatre Festival (DITfest) taking place in the beautiful city of Salalah in Oman. It was 10 days of concentration, exhilaration, late nights, waiting, waiting, waiting fuelled by buckets full of Omani generosity and love. It was an exquisite experience.
The festival is part of a blossoming harvest of theatre action emerging from the Arab world taking place in Middle Eastern cultural centres on regular cycles throughout the year. In Europe we hear so much these days about ‘the trouble in the Middle East’. This phrase can have unfortunate repercussions for travelling, unity and the sharing of culture. It can preclude what’s happening on the ground, fuel unconscious bias and rob one of golden opportunities to build global cultural families and exchanges.
On this occasion in quietly peaceful Salalah not far from the border with Yemen, I witnessed the creativity of Palestinian, Lebanese and Jordanian artists fearful for their relatives as the missiles whizzed over their homes as demonstrated in the instagram posts they were sharing in the moment of these events as they were escalating. There were representatives from amongst 50 countries. You’ll see the countries by their flags in the film.
For this trip it was wonderful to experience the love, friendship, creativity, energy and determination to express their culture in a complex network of traditions and modes. The tracks or modes of performance included monodrama, duodrama, ensemble, public (we might call it commercial), children’s theatre, street theatre and every category of skill you could think of rewarded in prizes that would develop further work – ie cash, and accolades in terms of BAFTA style trophies and hefty cased certificates of participation. Platforming work in such a way not only honours creatives and producers alike but it raises the status of the small scale in ways unthinkable in the UK in my experience anyway.
Oman for the naive visitor is the place of Frankincense with all the connotations that word offers in camels and journeys of magi bearing gifts associated with my Sunday School days and 1960s Christmas celebrations when the biblical nativity took centre stage. Looking more closely though and getting over my nostalgia, what I witnessed in Oman 2024 was an example of high end community driven professionalism that combined art forms with little hierarchy of status where TV and film stars rubbed shoulders with social arts practitioners in an opulent building housing sport and entertainment for young people of the highest spec.
Not able to express fully in words I thought a visual might help. You know how it is when you can’t get a tune out of your head, well that’s what has been happening to me as I have edited this nine-minute film with the kind support of the media teams from DITfest and the management team who worked out of Egypt namely Mazen El Gharbawy and his academic colleague and wife Engy El Bestawy alongside the governmental cultural ambassadors formed from the Dhofar government hosting and financing the vibrant affair.
Rather than post the detail in one long article, I think it’s best enjoyed in snippets so here’s the first film.
It contains personal footage within the cleverly mediated snippets appearing regularly on Instagram (used with permission) crafted overnight by the media teams working full on for the duration. If you want to see more for yourself and not wait for my ramblings you can visit https://www.instagram.com/dit_fest/ and feast on the delights that were a pleasure for me between 1 and 10 October this year.
The next post will be about the various performances I saw.