Creative People for Peace: I will dance with those oak trees as long as’

Members of Slovo Theater Group return as part of a new initiative that works with artists from cultures in crisis due to political conflict and/or ecological disasters.

Inspired by the culture of the Kurdistan region in Turkey, ‘I will dance with those oak trees as long as’ takes us on a poetic voyage to explore what displacement can do to the human heart.

I will dance with those oak trees as long as

I need a street
Empty of bloodstains,
A street that has never seen
Or known terror.
Let it be flawless, let it be flawless, flawless
Like the sex of these girls that are killed unjustly
Let it be long, let it be long, long,
Like their agony.

—Kajal Ahmad

In March of 1988 in Halabja, Iraq, Saddam Hussein’s regime committed an atrocious genocide of Kurdish peoples through the use of chemical weapons. Set in a carpet store at this time, I will dance with those oak trees as long as takes us on a poetic voyage into the life of three Kurdish women, inspired by the poetry of Kajal Ahmad and the characters Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and Ninsun from the world’s most ancient epic poem: Gilgamesh. Carpets, chairs, and strings create the environment in which two actresses interpret the three different women and how they react to a violent and unstable outside world. Accompanied by soundscapes inspired by traditional Kurdish music, this international duo uses objects, puppets, and a multilayered world of reality, dreams, memories, and visions to explore the question of what it means to be a hero when you have no other choice.

• Performed by: Audrey Rose Dégez, Daria Holovchanska
• Producer, Playwright, & Director: Audrey Rose Dégez
• Puppet Master, Lighting & Sound Designer, Movement & Object Director: Daria Holovchanska
• Stage Manager: Berivan Alothman
• Produced by: CP4P International Productions

Creative People for Peace (CP4P International Productions) develops and tours new, original theatrical works with artists from cultures in crisis due to political conflict and/or ecological disasters. In all aspects of their work, CP4P  seeks to engage refugee communities, from offering trauma-informed storytelling workshops and masterclasses to providing sliding scale or free admission to performances and hiring directly from the refugee community.

CP4P’s most recent project was Slovo. Theater Group, a unique artistic residency founded in April 2022 to promote Ukrainian culture abroad that included founder Audrey Rose Degez and four actresses from Kharkiv, Ukraine.