Hello
We are bringing a proud production to Glasgow as part of Celtic Connections, on 25th Jan 2025. Bethlehem Calling tells the story of young teenagers growing up in the West Bank during the time of the 2nd Intifada, alongside present-day testimony from current students and those same women, two decades on. In doing so, Bethlehem Calling champions young people of both nations, and tells a vital story for our time; bringing the Bethlehem teenagers’ experiences to Glasgow through the performance of their diaries and music.
Bethlehem Calling will incorporate verbatim performance into a music gig to tell of the first-hand experiences of teenage Palestinian girls navigating life in Bethlehem. The music will be created by Paul Thomson and some of Scotland’s finest emerging musicians, Lewis Cook (Free Love), Chizu Anucha, and Firas Khnaisser.
Other key collaborators are the Palestinian Arab Orthodox Scout pipers of Beit Jala, who grew up in the same region where the Bethlehem Diaries originate. The pipers’ connection to Scotland dates back to their formation in 1924, when they learned how to play Scottish pipes from the Scots Guards stationed there at the time. Over time the Beit Jala pipers developed a sound and style that draws from both the music of the region and from Scotland, to create something uniquely Palestinian and new to most Scottish audiences. Bethlehem Calling highlights the wide impact of Scots on world music – and, in return, its impact on the sounds of Bethlehem.
Far from being a concert with verbatim theatre tagged on, Bethlehem Calling promises a polyphony of musical and theatrical artistic exchange embodying the recent life stories of young Palestinian women. The result will be a giant international jigsaw puzzle with the creative leads, actors and musicians based in Scotland, Ireland and Palestine all working remotely on their various parts before coming together in January, in Glasgow, to piece the puzzle together for the performance on 25 January at Tramway.
A unique collaboration, interweaving Scottish/Palestinian voices and music, Bethlehem Calling may be the most ambitious project the creative team have ever embarked upon. The project has the ethos of Celtic Connections at its heart, providing a rich learning opportunity for all the musicians and actors, drawing on the diaspora of traditional and modern Scottish/Palestinian music and sounds and exploring how this has changed over time across oceans through a collaborative new composition and final performance.
While Bethlehem Calling will not shy away from addressing the impact of war on young people, it is also a project driven by hope, connection, and solidarity. The hope is that it will be the start of
a journey of international collaboration for these talented young artists, and that they can continue making work together in the future.
We are asking for you to work with us to bring the vital voices of the young Palestinian women and pipers to the Glasgow stage; and to document and share this historic cultural moment with the teenagers who wrote the diaries, their community and beyond.
Funds will be used for documenting and recording and postproduction of the show's music for fundraising for Palestinian cultural arts and educational causes.