Damascus-Sana
The theater and music directorate of the Ministry of Culture is working on the return of the Damascus Theater Festival by communicating with many Arab theater groups to present their performances in various governorates during the year 2020.
Imad Jalloul, director of theaters and music, said in an interview with SANA: “We have received communications from Arab theater and theater groups who want to return to the Damascus theater festival and expressed their willingness to present their performances in Syria in preparation for the return of the festival, and this is what we are working to accomplish during this year.” The Directorate of Theaters and Music produced during the year 2019 more Out of 100 theatrical performances, half are theatrical performances for adults and children, and the other half are for folkloric arts bands, musical evenings, and singing.
Jalloul pointed out that last year witnessed an increase in the number of shows produced by the Directorate over the previous two years, with a focus on quality in addition to quantity, so there were distinct theatrical performances that witnessed a huge public turnout and their presentation was extended to provide an opportunity for the public.
Jalloul pointed out that the audience of the Syrian theater enjoys culture and know-how and has a high critical sense, which requires the theater to respect this taste and to present performances worthy of the audience.
He added: "We presented theatrical performances for veteran and young directors in the field of folk arts. We sought to achieve justice by producing shows by presenting most of the active folk art teams. The Umayya Folk Art group had posts with different new shows from the previous as well as the Directorate's participation in most cultural festivals in the provinces."
On the children's shows, Jalloul mentioned that the Directorate of Theaters and Music concluded its activities last year with the Children's Theater Festival, which coincided with the fair holiday and presented plays for children and the family in most of the provinces for the branches of the Directorate or in cooperation with the directorates of culture and free of charge in line with the direction of the Ministry of Culture to enrich the theatrical movement of the child.
He emphasized the continuity of providing theatrical performances to children on weekends and official holidays, indicating that there is no longer what is called the theatrical season at the Directorate, but its performances are distributed throughout the months of the year, as well as the movement of performances between the governorates will continue to enrich the theatrical movement, exchange of experiences and provide the public with an opportunity to see what the national theater teams offer in Governorates, considering that this is a continuation of the idea of the mobile theater and creating a competitive situation among the theater.
Regarding the varied level of theatrical performances produced by the Directorate, Jalloul saw that this disparity is natural and in the end with the quantitative time the genre will be distinguished and distinct experiences will be devoted to the audience and the final word in evaluating the theatrical performances presented on our stage.
On the external participation of the Syrian theater, he stated that it is currently confined to festivals that bear the travel costs of the participating teams, and despite that, our theatrical performances were able through them to be respected and appreciated and to win several prizes, as well as the status of an exchange of important experiences that will be reflected in what is presented in Syria.
The project of supporting the youth theater project will continue, according to Jalloul, where the performances that their owners were unable to implement last year will be completed within the project grants while continuing to strive to provide a greater number of theatrical performances with a high artistic level and work to gradually increase the wages of artists from last year in line with the increase in wages generally.
He called on all seasoned and talented Syrian theater directors to work with the Directorate and present their projects and focus together on improving the quality of the offers.
At the end of his speech, Jalloul said: “We seek to have a new theater in Damascus that is in line with the increasing numbers of audiences that love theater, to present more theatrical performances with a high artistic level, and we hope that there will be external study missions in various specialties, especially the Puppet and Puppet Theater to keep pace with the development movement in this field.”
Muhammad Samir Tahan