Resilience in Damascus: Singing for Peace

Syrians are suffering under ISIS. Fear of bombing has stopped people from gathering in large numbers on the streets. Now, with the intensification of conflict, the air-strikes by the US and Canada and the recent beheadings by ISIS, public gatherings are even more dangerous. Yet street performers continue to go into the streets bringing people together.

The smiles on the faces of the people illustrates the power of the arts to remind people of their lives outside conflict. I am so impressed by the courage and resilience of these performers.

An arts and Peacebuilding project in Bahrain

The combination of imagination and action is powerful and can be transformative. What follows is a project taken up by a group of young Bahrainian men and women to provide opportunities for renewed tolerance and understandings of each other. It is the story of ULAFA'A, the team of individuals and the process.

They initiated everything from Free Hugs, to collaborative notebooks.

The project was presented at Brandeis University in 2013.

Theatre and Peacebuilding: Arts and Politics

This trailer of a larger project directed by Allison Lund explores the use of theatre as a medium through which people work together to heal community and peace build. It reflects international projects by artists and theatre directors in Cambodia, Australia, Argentina and Uganda. These are new forms of theatre created by people within a community. It raises artistic and peacebuilding dilemmas such as can theatre be used for political purposes and, in doing so, is the aesthetic quality compromised as there is little time to digest the process?

This video, and the projects it portrays is inspiring.