LONDON: More than 20 acts have withdrawn from the 2022 Sydney Festival to boycott a sponsorship deal by the Israeli Embassy in Australia’s capital Canberra.
The acts withdrew two days before the festival was scheduled to begin on Thursday. They include comedian Nazeem Hussain, visual artist Khaled Sabsabi, and a host of Australian and international artists, musicians and poets.
Nazeem Hussain withdrew two days before the festival was scheduled to begin on Thursday. (@nazeem_hussain)
Others have agreed to continue their participation in the festival but to forego receiving any funding.
The Belvoir St Theatre said it had a “long and fruitful relationship” with the festival but could not accept funding because Palestinians cannot participate with “cultural safety.”
The controversy relates to a decision by the festival organizers to forge ahead with a Sydney Dance Co. production of Decadance, a work created by Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin and Tel Aviv’s Batsheva Dance Co., whose participation in the festival is being funded by a $20,000 grant from the Israeli Embassy.
Another artist to have withdrawn, Marcus Whale, tweeted: “To clarify, yes, I am boycotting Sydney Festival 2022. The Israeli Embassy, a star sponsor of Sydfest 2022, collaborates with Western cultural institutions to paint Israel as a liberal democracy on one hand while enforcing brutal occupation and apartheid with the other. No more.”
According to a statement released in December by the Palestinian Justice Movement Sydney, the embassy’s sponsorship deal was agreed in May 2021 — the same month Israeli bombings killed hundreds of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
The statement said: “Palestine advocates call on all opponents of apartheid to boycott the 2022 Sydney Festival. By partnering with Israel, Sydney festival will … contribute to the normalisation of an apartheid state.
