Concept and Choreography by Farah Saleh

Review by Aislinn McSharry

Summerhall – Techcube 0

A site of political discourse, Balfour Reparations tells a fictional future of British politics: thought-provoking and poignant, it is empowering, encouraging the audience to mobilise.  

Set in 2045, the audience becomes members of the “Balfour Reparations” committee, reflecting on the 20^th anniversary of an apology letter made by the British Government, to the Palestinian people in 2025. The audience are invited to read this apology aloud, one by one, section by section. This is repeated, to impress the enormity of this letter, with its promises for the UK to take accountability for its colonial legacy in Palestine, at the hands of former Prime Minister Arthur James Balfour (1902-1905). It also promises to implement legislation like “preventing UK business from trading arms with Israel”, and requiring all UK universities to “review, publicly disclose, and divest from companies that directly or indirectly profit from the illegal military occupation and colonisation of Palestine” – this felt particularly pertinent performed at Summerhall, former grounds of The University of Edinburgh.  

With the inclusion of speculative choreography, Farah Saleh accompanies the reading of his letter, physically expressing her response. She then shows a fictive series of events following these 2025 “Balfour Reparations”, showing its implementations until 2045; these are played alongside historical events, caused by Balfour, a hundred years prior. Examples include renaming a forest in Palestine “Balfour” in the 20^th Century; Since 2025, Saleh has renamed a “Balfour” forest in Scotland “Palestine”, as part of these fictive reparations. Provocative, ingenious, and emotive, we see a positive future, full of the necessary and appropriate change, mapped out before us – this positive aspect being something rarely depicted in creative arts.   

As a piece of political art, it forces audiences to confront truths about how much more the UK should be doing to support Palestine; as a piece of theatre however, it runs too short – specified as 60 minutes, it is considerably shorter than this. Especially with audience discussion making a large proportion of the lecture, it feels that more time could have been spent on the theatrical content.  

After the audience suggests further things that the UK could do as a part of these “Balfour Reparations”, our voices are recorded, amalgamated into a mashup of recordings, to which Saleh again performs, this time more emotionally charged than the last.  

Saleh’s Balfour Reparations sparks discussion, confronting audiences with the UK’s responsibility to Palestine, and how much more we each can do. Stimulating and motivating, each audience member is left to think about our own individual version of these “Balfour Reparations”, and how we can support Palestine right now.

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