Atelier Levant - Hijra Tour

Hijra

Photo by Maurice Gemmeke

Themes

Immigration | Social pressure | Family

Languages

Dutch | Arabic

Duration

30 min

Hijra is a poetic and musical emigration journey in search of a new homeland. A land where dreams root, grow, and are harvested. It is a journey to a land beyond the mountains. The past and the heart are left behind.

هجرة هي رحلة هجرة شعرية وموسيقية بحثًا عن وطن جديد. بلد حيث يمكن للأحلام أن تنبت وتنمو وتُحصد. إنها رحلة إلى بلاد وراء الجبال، حيث يُترك الماضي خلف وحيث لا يوجد الحنين للوطن

Hijra is a poetic and musical migration journey, searching for words that can weave a story on Eastern melodies. A journey from the Middle East to the West, the 'paradise beyond the mountains.' The grass always seems greener on the other side. All your life, you've heard stories about life beyond the mountains; those stories have become your dreams. You decide to go on a journey there, hoping to find this place and call it your homeland. To build a better future and hopefully ensure that your children can continue your story. The journey is not as smooth as the stories tell. Along the way, you are confronted with social, cultural, and political differences. Additionally, you fall ill, homesick. Not everything is as it seems. Indeed, the grass seems greener on the other side. Despite the challenges, you keep going, for your children, but you hope to return to your homeland someday.

Living in the West is a weight inherited from your parents. Every day, that life becomes heavier until it becomes unbearable. Are you living a life for yourself or for your parents? You find yourself in a between position between your parents, yourself, social expectations, and your future.

With the thought that you might one day return to the homeland, the first-generation immigrants from the Middle East may struggle to feel at home in the Netherlands or in the West, while their parents moved here precisely to create a better life. The performance discusses the fact that you're always searching for a better future in the West, and once you have it, you long for the homeland you left behind. As first-generation immigrants, you must be grateful for what you have, pursue a career, preserve culture and faith, all while experiencing the pressure from your parents and family. It's an intermediate position from which you'll never escape and one that every immigrant carries within them. The performance is a journey of every immigrant; after all, we're all immigrants in life seeking a better future. It can become a lonely journey amidst all these people."

Team

Script & performance: Oudail el Omari

Directing: Abdel Karim el Baz & Eline Riff Roozeboom

Production: Robin Pocornie & Emma Broholm & Manal Azizi

Decor & light: Odai Krede

Costume design: Athitaya Sokklang

Sounddesign & music: Fares Wehbe

Photography & Film: Musa Leenen

Tour

Delft Fringe Festival

28 May 2024

30 May 2024