Translator: Huimin Ni Reviewer: Rhonda Jacobs
Hope still exists in this life,
and dreams can be true
if we believe and fight for what we believe in.
I want to share with you a story about a child
who was born in a camp for Palestinian refugees in Syria in 1990.
He always heard the word 'refugee'
without even knowing what that word means.
This child's only dream was to know what is out there
behind the entrance of the camp.
So life went by, this hard life,
and then he attended the camp school.
And there he discovered that he was a talented student.
There was one gift which was found to be grateful to, and that was singing.
He was that good at it,
so he got chosen with his brother
to perform at the school end of the year celebration
in the city center of Damascus.
And that was the first time that he got out of the camp.
So he was impressed by the city and the beautiful buildings of Damascus.
They were so big for his small eyes.
After his singing performance,
that was the turn for six young girls
who were moving on the notes of classical music in a beautiful way.
He was fascinated by their movement, so he started to move like them,
overwhelmed with the feeling that those beautiful and elegant girls gave to him.
Back home in the refugee camp,
he still carry this feeling with him.
So he start to practice on those movements alone in his room, secretly,
until his mother found out about him, and she saw him practicing,
and she told him, 'stretch your knee'.
And then she said,
'what you are doing was dance.'
So the mother decided to support her son
to become a dancer instead of being refugee.
So when he turned 16 years old,
he went to the main dance company in Syria.
And after one year, his mother was there for him watching him dancing
on the Royal Roman Theatre of Palmyra,
her hometown.
While that theater was still there,
it was beautiful theatre.
After, it got destroyed by ISIS
on January 2017.
While the mother was a great supporter for her son,
his father had a completely different opinion about him.
He didn't want him to be a dancer,
because in Arabian traditional society
dance was considered as a shameful act for men.
So the father tried all you can imagine to stop him.
He was beating him,
he burned his dance clothes,
he burned his books,
he locked him in the house saying, 'even study or dance'.
And the boy's answer was,
'even dance or die.'
Things kept going worse and worse
up to the moment when the son and his mother
had to leave the family house because she got divorced,
but she kept continuing supporting
everything for her son,
so he could be a man dancer in the company,
and he could continue his studies
in the Higher Institute for Theatrical Art in Syria,
so he could work and support his family and make a living out of dance.
In 2011,
the war starts in Syria.
Their house was bombed and destroyed,
five members of his family being killed,
his brother was sent to the jail.
They had no place to live,
so the mother decided to go to Palmyra.
But the boy he wanted to continue his studies,
so he stayed in Damascus,
living in a tent on the roof for two and half months
until they find a place to stay all together
while Damascus was falling apart,
and houses were collapsing around them.
Darkness and cold.
Hunger and fear.
Bombs and death.
In the middle of all that,
there was one light,
that was the candle in the son's heart,
the candle of hope,
that made him keep dancing and practicing everywhere,
on the roof,
in the streets,
underground,
every chance he got or everywhere he could,
he danced.
And also, he wanted to give dance classes for orphan kids
who lost their parents because of the war,
hoping that dance can make them stronger,
and at least make them forget about the war.
And that caused him to be followed and threatened by ISIS.
They wanted to cut his head,
because dance is an evolution of freedom against darkness.
But his shout of freedom couldn't be stopped,
and he wanted to demonstrate this for those who wanted him killed,
so he decided to get a tattoo on his neck which is written,
'Dance Or Die'.
He kept dancing and teaching, stronger and stronger,
until he had graduated from his studies.
At that moment,
he was obligated to join the army for at least five years,
and he had only three months to prepare himself.
So he was using this time to spend it with the family,
maybe it will be the last time they see each other.
Before few weeks of him going to the army,
a Dutch journalist went to Syria
and made documentary about his life.
And then he got the chance to dance on the Roman Theatre again in Palmyra,
the theater where ISIS killed a lot of people.
He danced there
to send them a message, and his message was,
'this theatre is for art, it is not for killing people.'
The documentary went vital,
and the Dutch National Ballet, they found out about him.
So they wanted to send him an invitation to fly to Amsterdam,
but he had no passport, no official nationality,
so they could make it by student visa,
that he could continue his studies
and improve himself as a dancer.
But he refused to leave his mother and brothers in the middle of the war,
but his mother packed his luggage, and pushed him into the car,
and say to him, 'Go follow your dream, make me proud of you.
We will be fine here. You are our hope.'
(Applause)
So he left his heart with his mother
and arrived in Europe to become a successful dancer,
sharing his message of peace and freedom everywhere.
And he became a voice for Syrian people,
especially the kids,
who are thrown here and there in the refugee camps
with a future nobody knows about.
He is still sharing his passion everywhere in Europe.
This little boy
is me.
(Applause)
Being a refugee doesn't mean that you cannot be an artist.
And as Jonathan Larson said,
'the opposite of war is not peace,
it's creation.'
And for me to be able to create a piece of art
in the middle of the war,
it's a blessing; I would carry it with me all my life
(Music)
(Music ends)
(Applause) (Cheers)