Anyone who has ever relocated to a new country, and encountered the logistics and emotional upheaval that generally entails, will know it ain’t easy taking in, and taking on, new cultural codes, not to mention language issues. That conundrum can be far more challenging when the newcomers in question are clearly not from “here.”
Members of the Ethiopian community, including those born here, have had to tussle with that on a day to day basis since their get-go.
Nani Bruk was not born here, but she was hardly knee high to an Israeli grasshopper when she made aliyah with her family, completing the arduous journey at the tender age of two. Growing up in a community with social mores, lifestyle and traditional practices that contrasted sharply with what she saw around her, in mainstream Israeli society Bruk was keen to fit in, and to shed her familial backdrop which she saw as extraneous, and hindering her efforts to become a full-fledged “Israeli.”
It was only some years later, when already a seasoned actress, that the now 32-year-old Haifa resident says she realized she needed to bring all of herself to her craft, including her Beta Israel heritage, and naturally into her everyday life.
That comes across in the Sand Stories show currently running at Confederation House. The next show is on June 30 at 8:30 p.m., with subsequent performances lined up for Beersheba (Fringe Theater, July 7, 8:30 p.m.) and Tel Aviv (Inbal Theater, July 12, 8:30 p.m.), courtesy of the Hullegeb Theater company. “Hullegeb means openness,” says Bruk. “That is a fundamental part of what we do, and who we are.”
The play, devised by veteran director and educator Moshe Malka, who also founded Hullegeb, is a wordless offering which employs a range of theatrical skills and means of imparting storylines, including dance, movement and animation. The cast also includes another Ethiopian Israeli actor Samrat Haylu, and Paz Magen. The video art and animation work was created by Meshi Shor Atar, with Adi Hayyat providing the musical backdrop to the thespian rendition.
The work feeds off a sort of tabula rasa foundation which appears tailor made for conveying some of what the Israeli-Ethiopian community is all about, and helping to enlighten the rest of us about some of its history, and the time-honored cultural treasures Israelis with Ethiopian roots have to share with us.
The Hullegeb Theater has been portraying the sensibilities, emotions and experiences of the Ethiopian community in Israel for quite some time now. “It all started a long time ago,” he recalls, “more than 20 years now,” says Malka, the company founder and perennial artistic director. He was asked by a teacher at the School of Visual Theater to consider taking a bunch of Ethiopian actors under his experienced wing. It was, he says, a good fit on several levels. “I began working with them and we struck up a very strong connection. I worked on things like universality, foreignness, how to forge relationships and trying to acclimatize. All of that spoke to them.” Considering the social standing of Israeli Ethiopians at the time, and the gulf between their traditional lifestyle and the ways of mainstream Israeli society, that was just what the doctor ordered.
Malka’s theatrical method, which takes in movement and clowning, and which he calls Zits, helps the actors to convey their messages and baggage in a manner which anyone can understand, regardless of any linguistic or cultural discrepancies.
That is core to Sand Stories, with the verbal communication element a moot – in fact, mute – point. “Have you ever seen children playing in the sand?” Bruk shoots back at me – sweetly it must be said – when I ask her about the significance of the grainy substance to the performance. “There is something pure and virginal about it when we touch it. We start creating whole worlds in this little thing. For me, there is something about sand which connects you with roots, with solid ground. In this show the sand connects you with that.”
SAND STORIES is playing at an auspicious juncture for the Ethiopian Israeli community, as its members mark the 30th anniversary of Operation Solomon, when over 14,000 Ethiopian Jews were airlifted to Israel in the space of 36 hours.
That landmark occasion is particularly poignant for Bruk – her given name means “little mother” in Amharic - and Haylu. “We both came on aliyah on Operation Solomon,” she explains.
As many of their contemporaries from the community, both Bruk and Haylu endured their fair share of challenges, as they sought to find their place in their new home. That may have been a factor in the choice of the sandy underpinning, and Bruk says the thematic rock debris harks back to her country of birth, and the relative innocence of their traditional lifestyle. “I remember my father telling us stories. If he wanted to tell us off for doing something, he wouldn’t admonish us directly. He would relate a parable. The rural tradition and, particularly, the Jewish approach were full of stories, including from the Bible. If you want to impart something you have to turn it into something tangible, and stories help with that.”
The play certainly spins a compelling yarn. “It tells the story of a little girl who creates a world. She tries to create something complete. Sometimes it works and other times it doesn’t. Then suddenly, the world she creates comes alive, and when that happens she tries to make it perfect.”
Haylu feels the format leaves performers and spectators alike with plenty of room for maneuver. “There is a platform for creation and imagination,” she notes, adding that working without written dialogue offers generous creative domains. “Yes, there is the tradition of storytelling, but there is also the basic language of the theater. And there is movement. Theater does not necessarily have to be about the textual side. There are all sorts of ways of telling a story. There are different tools to use, which are not different from the medium of a book.” Haylu brings considerable cross-disciplinary training to the current fray, having studied and worked in theater, movement, dance, video art and clowning over the years, largely as an independent, solo, artist.
And it is not just the performers who can weave their storytelling magic using a range of professional tools. Haylu says the members of the audience can also use their own imagination to read into the visual presentation, and bring their own understanding and personal baggage to the onstage action.
Haylu says her professional interface with Malka has been very rewarding. “When you come across a director who says, OK you’re used to working on your own, but how about fitting into a team?” It worked out just fine. “It is wonderful to work under such an understanding and accommodating director. He really pushes us into new areas. I feel I am learning all the time.”
Malka’s Zits method sits well with Haylu. “This language, which is a combination of a lot of work with movement, it incorporates nuances which, normally, without using voices, are very difficult to render, that is magical, and necessitates a lot of work on the stage. But it involves, basically, clowning skills which I have. That is a special concept.”
At the end of the day, stated artistic and cultural intent notwithstanding – that of imparting a sense of an Israeli Ethiopian fusion – all concerned are looking to present their audience with a high quality work of art, with a story and message, without focusing on the appearance or any ethnic baggage that may, possibly, inform the actors’ mode of work. “I don’t look at the cultural aspects,” Malka explains. “I relate to my own personal approach, which is as extensive as possible. I endeavor to generate a situation whereby the members of the audience do not relate to the color of the actors’ skin. Sand Stories addresses themes like love, a flower and all sorts of poetic things. The actors take that on board. They don’t relate to things like deprivation, discrimination and such.”
Zits, Malka points out, is not oriented toward helping Ethiopian Israelis per se. “Not all Ethiopians can or want to work with me. Hullegeb has a unique language, not necessarily an Ethiopian Israeli theatrical language. It leaves actors a lot of room to work with.” Malka says it is about the art form, and not about any particular ethnic group or cultural heritage. “I am not looking to help the community as such. I want to take the actors that want to work with me, and to generate artistic content with them. If that helps the community that’s fine. If it helps people in general that’s great. If it helps the universe as a whole that’s brilliant. I don’t think in terms of them and us, black and white and all that. This is about the theater, and telling a story.”
And a pretty emotive one it is too.
For tickets and more information: www.confederationhouse.org/page_17541