RCDF 2021 Brochure English

Furthermore, the Festival will organize many dance workshops, online and in person, as well as the Dance and Society Con- ference, which will discuss two themes: artist-audience relationship amid the pandemic, and the economic empowerment of cultural institutions and independent artists amid the pandemic. The Festival will also organize, for the first time, the Arab Youth Dance Forum, through an open online platform, to bring young dancers closer through an open dialogue on challenges facing them, and to discover means to facilitate communica- tion mechanisms among them, and for joint action, in the future. The Festival management will also support Palestinian individual dancers and dance companies, in a contribution from Sareyyet Ramallah, to empower them economically and restore the Festival as a space to express their thoughts, and to communicate with their fellow artists. Despite difficult circumstances, the Festival is organized with our full understanding of the difficult reality, and with our exces- sive concern for the health of our audience, our companies and our artists, by strictly following preventive health measures. The Festival is organized, this year, as part of celebrating Bethlehem as a capital of Arab Culture 2021. In 2020, many artists, who had a great impact on the dance world, have passed away, leaving us with their experiences which have taught us greatly. Those included Saliba Totah, one of the founders of Sareyyet Ramallah Folklore Dance Com- pany, Ayman Safieh, a dancer, teacher and choreographer who was a member of the Festival’s family, Mahmoud Reda, the founder of the Reda Dance Company in Egypt, the Tunisian choreographer Nejib Ben Khalfallah, and Dave Toole, the British dancer whom we were honoured to host at the Festival with Stopgap Dance Company. They passed, but their work and their experiences will always remain. This year, the Israeli occupation forces arrested dancer and choreographer Atta Khattab, a dancer with El-Funoun Popular Dance Troupe. On behalf of Palestinian dance companies and dancers, we salute him with the message “for freedom, you’ll always dance”. Freedom to Atta, and to all political prisoners in Israeli occupation prisons. Ramallah Contemporary Dance Festival is organized this year as a part of MASAHAT Dance Network, supported by the Pal- estinian Culture Fund/the Palestinian Ministry of Culture, in partnership with the Ramallah Municipality. Main sponsor is The Abdul Hameed Shoman Foundation/the Arab Bank arm for Cultural and Social Responsibility Department, with contributions from A. M. Qattan Foundation, Representative Office of Norway, and Swiss Arts Council – Prohelvetia, and in cooperation with Goethe-Institut Ramallah, More Than This Project, Citerne Beirut, and Shubbak festival: A Window on Contemporary Arab Culture in the United Kingdom, together with media coverage by Palestine Television, Al-Ghad TV, Al-Istiqlal Cultural Platform, Radio 24 FM, Raya Media Network, InterTech, and Romman Culture Magazine.