Silk Road Rising's Artistic Director Speaks on Arab American Theatre Movement

posted on: Jun 25, 2013

In this video essay, Silk Road Rising Artistic Director Jamil Khoury envisions an Arab American theatre movement that is vibrant, visible, daring, and unafraid of its own power. Click below to watch!

Khoury says: “I belong to a community of Arab American theatre artists and theatre professionals. We work as individuals and we work as collectives. We love theatre and we love being Arab Americans. But are we a movement? We are, in that we’re working towards common goals of creating change: changing hearts, changing minds, and changing policies. We may be embryonic as movements go, but embryos have a way of growing.

“If we scare you or make you nervous, talk to us about it. “Arab” and “Muslim” are good words. They’re not bad words. We know that instinctively. We can help you. Trust me. Your patrons want to see Arab American plays. They may not say it. They may not even know it. But they do. I don’t know if you’ve caught the news at all in the past fifty years but it appears that Americans and Arabs need to understand each other a bit better. We need to be hearing each other. And Arab Americans know those conversations very well. We live it. Really. It’s in our DNA. Imagine all the stories we can tell!”

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