When A Handshake Shatters Borders and Checkpoints
Photography by Ai Naripol
One second, the hall at the Bevan Community Benefit Society felt like any community space. The next, it felt like fireworks. Smiles widened, conversations lifted, laughter softened the edges of the unknown. The air crackled with warmth and possibility.
On Saturday, 22 Nov, something special happened in the West Yorkshire city of Bradford. Young Palestinians from across the occupied West Bank came together with creatives and young participants from Stand and Be Counted Theatre (SBC) for a day of fun, creativity and collective imagination.
The Palestinian group was hosted by the Camden Abu Dis Friendship Association (CADFA) through their Beyond the Checkpoints project, an initiative that seeks to create human connections between Palestine and the UK.
SBC had one simple yet great mission that day: explore what creativity means for this remarkable group.
We began sitting in a large circle. One by one, introductions were made. Names, hometowns, and emotions, too. Some felt excited, others hopeful, most curious, and many energised.
After that, we had a little over a minute to greet everyone in the room — more than 20 people!
Chairs pushed back, feet hurried, hands were shaken, fists bumped, voices overlapped. It felt like a reunion, not a first meeting.
But the real shift came when creativity took shape through something as universal as a handshake.
Chelsea and John from SBC split the crowd into small groups, each tasked to design a quirky, expressive handshake.
When the groups demonstrated what they created, language barriers dissolved. We weren’t speaking Arabic or English anymore. We were speaking rhythm, humour, gesture, and mini-dances.
One of the participating boys broke this into three levels:
Level 1: a two-person handshake.
Level 2: expanded to four people.
Level 3: reinvented for eight people.
With every added pair of hands, the ordinary transformed into choreography.
Creativity isn’t always what you make. It’s who gets to make it with you.
We sat back down, our hearts pounding with excitement.
The youths shared what creativity meant to them, and common themes emerged: dabkeh, writing, drawing, cooking, reading, dance.
With every speaker, a wave of whistles, claps and celebratory cries burst out. There was also ululating! That proud, high-pitched expression of joy heard at Levantine weddings, celebrations, and moments of collective pride.
Lunch should’ve been a five-minute walk. Instead, it stretched into 15 minutes of delighted wandering, pauses for fun group photos and admiration of the city.
Back at Bevan, the youth began creating again, but this time on paper. Each participant crafted an artwork and wrote one short line capturing what creativity meant to them.
Then one by one, supported by SBC’s creatives Ai and Muetesim, the group of young artists recorded short clips describing creativity’s role in their lives and why they want to share it. These recordings are the heart of a 3-minute co-created film.
Later, the group gathered outside Bradford’s town hall. Two Palestinian boys began dancing dabkeh, the water fountain rising dramatically behind them.
During a quiet aside, I told my colleague John that I couldn’t remember the last time I heard good news from Syria, Palestine, or even Lebanon — three neighbours that have been ailing for so many years. Bloodshed everywhere. Unimaginable suffering.
He said: “People coming together like this to create, laugh, and connect is what gives us hope in this world.”
He was right.
I said this before and will say it again: SBC has always felt like a shelter from the ugliness around us. A brief refuge from fear, despair, tears and heartbreak. Every time I arrived here weary, I left lighter, having faith in this world again.
We closed the day back in the circle where we began, but this time reflecting. Even the adults accompanying the youth shared they had learned something new, despite their age and experience.
And Chelsea, capturing it perfectly, said: “We all took something, we all gave something, we all shared something to become part of the moment.”
That was the magic of the day: not the handshakes, not the city, not even the theatre.
It was the exchange.
Written By Anan Tello
