Music of Hanzala in Washington D.C.

In 1969, the Palestinian cartoonist Naji al-Ali began drawing a barefoot ten-year-old boy standing with his back to the viewer, hands clasped behind him. He called the child Hanzala and said he would not grow up until Palestine was free. Al-Ali was assassinated in London in 1987. Hanzala is still ten. HANZALA is a concert built around a 100 of al-Ali's drawings, animated and projected above a 9-piece ensemble playing twelve songs of childhood, freedom, and return that span 1948 to now. Woven through the music are poetry, archival footage of iconic figures for liberation and freedom. 

What'll happen in the room on October 18 will be hard to describe but easy to recognize. People who learned these songs from their grandparents will sit beside people hearing them for the first time. By the end, everyone will be singing. 

A portion of proceeds from this performance goes to Anera and The People's Forum. The rest pays the musicians, engineers, animators, and designers who made it, because work about dignity should be made with it!

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