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Mixing both traditional and contemporary circus skills, using original music, doing theater, puppetry and clowning, the Olive Tree Circus presents a storytelling process that challenges and inspires its audiences to ask questions about the Palestinian/Israeli conflict and discover new ways of thinking about it. Based on our travels in Palestine in 2008, as well as the experience of Palestinian and Israeli activists, the Circus is a vehicle to explore questions that have come up for us and for other Americans about the existence of Israeli settlements, the extent of apartheid laws in Palestine and Israel, the US role in the conflict, and communal strategies for addressing the inequities in the situation. Not only does the Olive Tree Circus perform, it asks audiences to participate in the show. Audience members are asked to take roles to help resolve situations and, in the tradition of the Theater of the Oppressed, to rehearse their own liberation. The Olive Tree Circus entertains, but it also provides a creative means to speak to and about this critical issue in an effort to make a more peaceful, just and livable world. We are interested in performing our circus in support of the organizing being done by the Palestinian track at the social forum and in any other context that would be appropriate as part of the larger social forum. (We have had some conversations with members of the Palestinian organizing committee and received support for the proposal.) We believe that not only is this specific circus performance useful in dealing with issues of Israel and Palestine, but that using circus as a method of conversation or dialogue about social justice issues is a relevant and useful model for many issues and organizations. We are prepared to perform the show and follow it with discussion about both content and methods of construction.
