We sat down for an exclusive interview with Zena Agha – a Palestinian-Iraqi writer and poet and the author of Objects from April and May (2022). She is a member of the White Kite Collective.
‘We hunger. We thirst. We love’ is an evening of testimony, speeches, poetry and music dedicated to the enduring link between Palestinians and their land.
Stand with Palestinians: Messages from Gaza runs at Stratford East Theatre on Sat 8th November at 7pm – Tickets here.
As both a poet and performer, how do you navigate expressing grief, resilience, and resistance on stage at a time when Palestine is so heavily politicised in the cultural sector?
I don’t think of it as being on stage – the way the space is held, the deep engagement with the material and the collaborative nature of the second half mean that White Kite events feel like moments of community and kinship as opposed to ‘performances’ in the conventional sense. But of course navigating grief in these spaces comes with risks: it is both a form of resistance and a deeply vulnerable experience for the readers and the audience. It’s an affirmation of the importance of these testimonies and the long way yet to go. As for the politicisation, in one sense it is to be expected: the cultural sector is a battleground like any other, but finding and building these small corners for ourselves and in collaboration with artists, writers, poets and theatre-workers of all stripes has been an affirmative and exhilerating experience.
White Kite Collective has grown rapidly over two years — what have you learned about the power and limits of theatre as a space for political solidarity?
The way we’ve grown has meant that the performers, theatres, readings and audiences are continuously changing. In that sense, no two events White Kite Collective events have been the same. At the same time, putting together such a diverse and rigorous programme during relentless genocide has been demanding. The format of the evenings puts these unflinching texts – testimony, poetry, interviews, music – alongside the real-world experiences of the people in the space. It’s a combination that allows us dissolve the distance between performer and spectator and turns the onus of confronting genocide on everyone in the theatre and asks where will we/they go from here?
Your writing often explores memory and displacement — how does Stand with Palestinians expand or challenge those themes?
The readings and testimonies shared at the first White Kite event in November 2023 already feel like ancient history – so much has happened since then, both in Palestine and here. So we’re not only conduits of the texts but also memory-keepers, holding onto these histories of people living and dead. It’s a big responsibility and something we take seriously as part of the work: building and expanding upon this collective, shared memory of Palestinian life in a time of genocide.
Beyond performance, what kind of dialogue or change do you hope audiences carry with them after witnessing Messages from Gaza?
We hope that those who attend are able to think beyond the limits of what’s possible in achieving freedom for Palestine. The pieces are often political in the sense they go beyond the material needs of war and to the heart of what it means to be in a liberation struggle and the myriad ways we can and should support. But it’s also a beautiful moment of collective grief and joy – we are gaslit on a daily basis and these events are moments to pause, interrogate, feel deeply and think critically. All in the beautifully held space of a theatre and for one night only.