5th theatre festival starts tomorrow in NE Syria

The 5th of the annual Martyr Yekta Herekol Theatre Festival in North-East Syria will start tomorrow with the motto "The Scream of Waşokanî”. This year’s festival’s main theme is common life, resistance, and struggle.

ROJDA SEYIDXAN

Qamishlo- The Democratic Culture Movement and the Festival Cultural Committee have organized the Martyr Yekta Herekol Theatre Festival for five years. The motto of the 5th theatre festival to start tomorrow is “The Scream of Waşokanî”. The festival will host nine theater groups and it will be held between March 27 and April 4. The festival will be held at the Mihemed Şexo Culture and Art Center in Qamishlo city of North-East Syria.

“We have been preparing for six months”

Sarya Gulan is a theatre director and player. She is also a member of the festival committee member and she gave information about the festival. “We have been preparing for the festival for six months. A total of 26 groups from North-East Syria applied us to participate in the festival. However, only nine of them were selected and accepted to participate in the festival. The festival will be held between March 27 and April 4.”

“Many theatre groups and players applied”

Stating that many theatre groups and players applied them to participate in the festival, Sarya Gulan said, “But they couldn’t come to Rojava due to the Covid-19 pandemic. We aimed to unite four parts of Kurdistan together.”

“The Scream of Waşokanî”

Sarya Gulan also talked about the motto of this year’s festival and she said, “We wanted to dedicate the festival to people living in occupied Serêkaniyê (Ras al-Ain), that’s why we decided to use the motto, “The Scream of Waşokanî”. Last year, the motto of the 4th theatre festival was “Return to Afrin” to dedicate the festival to people of Afrin.”

“The theme of the festival is resistance and struggle”

Sarya Gulan underlined that despite the ongoing war and difficult living conditions in North-East Syria, they tried to reinforce the common life culture of people through culture and art and to keep their culture alive, ”Our art’s theme is resistance and struggle. The theater performances will be in Kurdish and Arabic. Our aim is to give chance to people to reflect their culture and theatre performances in their own language.”