Expressive Arts Refuge

January 30, 2020

When we met in 2016, they were recovering from winter at the tent city of Calais Jungle in northern France. Now they live in flats in France or England. They have jobs. One has a girlfriend. Another, a baby. All of them speak and walk with more ease.

Over the holiday, I visited with four refugee friends who fled Syria, Iraq, Sudan, and Iran.  Here is Yasser after we beat out a little body music together.

They made time for me, offered me a place a stay. They spoke my language though I might have bothered to learn theirs. But I am American, and one of many privileges I enjoy is the expectation that others will switch to English to accommodate me. I don’t feel good about this but it is, nonetheless, true.

I returned to California just in time to hear Jerusalem Youth Chorus perform at SF City Hall. Last summer, EAR partnered with Jerusalem Youth Chorus to teach music at Jerusalem Singing Camp. For two weeks, twenty-two Palestinian, Israeli Jewish and Armenian teens sang and engaged in dialogue. In Jerusalem, this is radical. Oakland’s Austin Willacy brought arrangements and a magical way of engaging youth. Micah Hendler, director of Jerusalem Youth Chorus, organized the camp with his amazing staff. Moira Smiley graced the camp with her gorgeous voice and presence. She and Austin folded the youth into a performance. Our wonderful Armenian hosts at the Armenian Benevolent Society opened their space and hearts. Hani Kreitem, the premiere Palestinian choral director in Jerusalem, and Jared Michaud, got the youth singing.
Several of the alum from Jerusalem Youth Chorus assisted at Jerusalem Summer Camp in August 2019. They mentored the incoming youth. Imagine my joy to watch the professional touring ensemble of alum from JYC in SF.

Your donations enable us to expose more youth in Jerusalem to another way of being together. https://www.gofundme.com/y5dse2ak/donate

August 24, 2019

On August 18, twenty-two Armenian, Palestinian and Jewish youth met at the Armenian Benevolent Union in the old city of Jerusalem. Most were shy. They sang, beatboxed, and dialogued.

By day five, they were laughing, smiling, arm wrestling, and sharing rhythm games. They learned eight songs in Arabic, Hebrew, English, Armenian, and Zulu. Jerusalem Youth Chorus director Micah Hendler’s brilliant mashup in Hebrew and Arabic was a favorite. The four senior music educators (Palestinian, Jewish, and American) wrote and taught three-part arrangements. Talented young Palestinian and Jewish staff showed amazing sensitivity.

Here in Jerusalem, these youth live segregated lives. They’ll spend the next week writing songs in small groups, expressing what matters to them, navigating sticky feelings. Professional facilitators will guide them toward skillful ways to communicate.

I am honored to witness this remarkable bridging of communities, and look forward to the deepening process in our last week of summer camp.

Jerusalem Singing Camp will perform on August 28^th 7:00pm at the Armenian Benevolent Union on Ararat St in the Armenian quarter of the old city of Jerusalem. Please send people.

June 12, 2019

Expressive Arts Refuge is ramping up to co-direct Jerusalem Singing Camp for Palestinian and Israeli Jewish teens. The camp will offer singing, body music, beatboxing, and facilitated dialogue to twenty teens from East and West Jerusalem and Shuafat refugee camp.

EAR is thrilled to be partnering this year with Jerusalem Youth Chorus. Micah Hendler, founding director of Jerusalem Youth Chorus, has been conducting and touring a year-round chorus of Palestinian and Israeli Jewish teens since 2012. He is a Forbes 30 Under 30.

Jerusalem Singing Camp music educators are EAR director Betsy Blakeslee, Jerusalem Youth Chorus directors Micah Hendler and Hani Kreitem, and Austin Willacy (director ‘Til Dawn and Thrive Choir). Austin brings years of facilitation through Yes! youth leadership. Hani is the premiere Palestinian choral director in Jerusalem, bringing familiarity with both Arabic and western singing styles. Betsy has been taking teams of music educators and singers to teach music in refugee camps since 2016. Jared Michaud, a music graduate student at Yale will join the teaching team as a fellow.

Thank you to all our generous donors on gofundme. You can also make a tex-deductible donation at Seeds of Peace. Funds will pay translators, coordinators, and professional facilitators of dialogue. They will also subsidize a Palestinian conducting fellow.

January 26, 2019

EAR is excited to partner with Jerusalem Youth Chorus to run its signature music program for youth in August, 2019. We are planning a two-week singing summer camp for twenty Palestinian and Israeli Jewish teens in Jerusalem. The camp will include choral and body music, professionally facilitated dialogue, and a final performance. Each member of the EAR teaching team is entirely self-funding, and will mentor a Palestinian conducting fellow. The tentative EAR line-up is Moira Smiley, Austin Willacy, Betsy Blakeslee, and Ayo Awosika.

Jerusalem Youth Chorus runs a year-round chorus for Palestinian and Israeli Jewish teens. JYC tours internationally and has appeared on Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show. EAR has been running summer music programs for refugee youth in France, Greece and Lebanon.

Come to a Bay Area Benefit, Concert for Jerusalem Youth, on April 14th 7:00-9:00pm. Lake Merritt Methodist Church, 1330 Lakeshore Ave, Oakland. Featured performer is Moira Smiley.  Cantor Linda Hirschhorn, Worldsong and World Harmony Chorus also perform. Ticket sales fund the cost of JYC staff who will translate, facilitate dialogue, and coordinate the program.

Donate here

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August 8, 2018

Khalim and his classmates from Syria live in Bourj el Shemali. Khalim is one of the new wave of refugees to arrive in this seventy-year-old refugee camp in southern Lebanon.

He has good rhythm, this boy who learned mouth pops on his first try and never misses a chance to strafe them.

Like most of our music students, he alternates between focus and distraction. It is no wonder. His neighborhood has virtually no green space, and the narrow alleys that connect his apartment to the Cultural Center where we teach are shared by motorcyclists, curious children, mothers who smile at our hellos in Arabic, fathers walking to work, and trash. Lots of it. UNRWA provides garbage removal, spotty electricity, and running water which, like taps throughout Lebanon, doesn’t deliver potable water. Hence, thousands of plastic water bottles reflecting sunlight, then growing opaque with dirt.

The Lebanese government forbids residents from bringing building supplies into the camp. They don’t want it to grow. The country is poor and reluctant to invest in its Palestinian community.

Nonetheless, families do grow, and Syrians arrive.

As we walk through camp, we listen for wildlife. Apart from alley cats and a rooster, we hear none. In a Palestinian home in the camp, we enjoy hookah under a pair of caged birds. The sound is as close to one from nature as Khalim will hear. The son of our hosts helps African refugees in Italy, their daughter volunteers with BAS — our partner NGO.

People are shaped by context. So we are thrilled to watch Khalim take LEAP’s violin class, draw, and shake out tension when Ali, a BAS volunteer from the camp, beats out a rhythm. And sing with abandon a song about expressing oneself.

August 3, 2018

Each day, they appear in yellow T-shirts with blue doves of peace, mirror to our blue shirts with the same logo. They range in age from six to fifteen, in color from dark to fair, in musical ability from agile to plodding.  As their new music teachers smile at them, they watch –- curious, eager to learn songs, breaking into shy or broad smiles.

We stand in a circle – students, the Expressive Arts Refuge team, co-teachers and assistants from EAR’s partner organizations. It is the humid heat of summer in southern Lebanon, and there is virtually no AC in the building where we hold daily music classes. With exquisite timing, Sydney moves from focused learning to rhythm game and back. Tawfic leads warm-ups and translates, Tami provides her warm container for rowdy boys, coaxes them back into the learning circle. I teach songs, then stand back a little, assessing what is happening and how we can improve it.

All of a sudden, it is day four, and our students are singing three songs, with crisp rhythm and honed listening skills. The older ones, in middle school, read the Latin alphabet and puzzle out new English words in song lyrics on a white board.

Later, we return to our rented EAR house in Tyre, swim in the Mediterranean, and each member of the EAR team, seasoned in teaching music to refugee or disenfranchised youth, shares observations and suggestions for improving what we do. How to incorporate a deaf boy while preventing him from disrupting class? How to finesse class management? How to prepare youth for their performance on August 10?EAR’s partner organization LEAP (Learning for the Empowerment and Advancement of Palestinians) is in its tenth year of running English and arts programs at ten Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. This year, LEAP’s Project Music boasts 126 students spread across six daily music classes. EAR also partners with Beit Atfal Assamoud whose older teen and adult musicians live in the camp, and teach guitar and oud.

Project Music serves the youth of Bourj el Shemali, designated a refugee settlement by the UN in 1949. Now home to 23,000 Palestinians who are not afforded basic rights in Lebanon, it continues to be administered by UNRWA. All but the recent arrivals from Syria were born in the camp, to parents also born in the camp. As we walk through it, children emerge from cramped apartments to play in narrow alleys. It is a privilege to expand their play to include musical education with a great team and beautiful kids!

July 24, 2018

Each summer, Expressive Arts Refuge partners with an organization embedded in a refugee camp. This year, LEAP (Learning for the Empowerment and Advancement of Palestinians) is teaching English and music to 150 children in two camps in southern Lebanon. LEAP’s language immersion program prepares youth for a proficiency exam that will enable them to attend a Lebanese high school.

LEAP’s Project Music is teaching them Arabic songs. EAR will add songs in English and other languages. LEAP teaches percussion, recorder, violin and oud. EAR teaches vocal harmony, listening skills, and body music. Teachers from both LEAP and EAR teach in English and translate into Arabic, so the children learn English during music class.

Collaborations enrich a program. EAR partnered with Caritas and Refugee Youth Center in Calais Jungle, France. At Skaramagas camp in Athens, we worked with a refugee-led school. EAR and World Harmony Chorus share a director, Betsy Blakeslee. WHC, with Aswat ­­­–– San Francisco’s premiere Arabic Music Ensemble –– raised $21,000 in June to pay a year-round music teacher for the youth of the camps where LEAP and EAR conduct Project Music. EAR is excited to join LEAP at the end of this week, preparing the youth of Bourj el Shamali camp for a concert. Meanwhile, we share repertoire, and add to one another’s arrangements.

If you wish to donate, all funds go directly to support the music program – buying instruments, a speaker, accessories for instruments. EAR volunteers are all self-funding.