This statement is produced by collecting thirteen perspectives from each of the thirteen artists within the Rose Choreographic School cohort. We have decided to publish them together, without signing each contribution individually, to indicate that we stand together as a group. The use of different fonts foregrounds how this group is constituted through a plurality of positions and it acknowledges that difference and dissonance are integral to any collective act. We recognise the importance and urgency of actions of solidarity and so we have worked together in relation to this statement, but we do not speak with one homogenous voice. When the writing moves between “we” and “I” it does so with an awareness that both plural and singular pronoun forms have tensions and blindspots. The “we” can occlude dissensus and the “I” can disguise situatedness and relationality, so rather than be faithful to pronouns we have kept this movement between them as a reflection of how we experience the ongoing choreography of this group.

This statement is part of larger discussions and actions both within the School and in the singular practices of the thirteen artists and we may edit and update it when necessary.

As the artistic cohort of the Rose Choreographic School based at Sadler’s Wells, we categorically oppose Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. We support a permanent ceasefire, the end of occupation and the defunding of all genocides.

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As artists, curators, producers, writers and thinkers, and as citizens and human beings raised and based in a multiplicity of localities around the globe, we are committed to an active practice of decolonial and anti-racist politics. We refuse to succumb to a culture of fear and ignorance. We believe in the power of the collective to assemble and affirm each other. We insist that our freedoms are interdependent.

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In a world rife with inequality and systemic oppression, it feels as though chaos and war are escalating, eroding our sense of humanity.

We cannot remain silent in the face of the violence unfolding in Gaza, which cannot be justified under any circumstances. Israel must bring an end to this massacre, which constitutes a war crime and a crime against humanity.

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The struggle for Palestinian liberation is deeply interconnected with global struggles against oppression, systemic injustice, and inequality. It reflects a much longer history of imbalanced conflicts, historical amnesia, and the enduring legacy of settler-colonialism, which continues to manifest worldwide in various forms—from Indigenous dispossession and racialized violence to the sustained rise of right-wing authoritarian regimes.

In a moment where we are all implicated, and no one can be untangled from the messes of the world, we remain steadfast in our commitment to justice. We recognize that decolonial political commitments take many shapes and forms, follow different temporalities and rhythms, and move toward diverse orientations.

We also recognize that the ‘we’ in these words rests on an impossibility; history has sedimented into our lives differently, and the weight we carry in each of us might even be incommensurate. As such, the ‘we’ in this group must be disassembled. However, what holds this polyphonous ‘we’ together is an act of broad hope - reaching, moving, and aspiring toward a vision of the world where all lives are affirmed equally.

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We stand against any form of violence based on the class, race or gender of the people affected, whether by one or all of these axes of oppression, which are specifically operated by capitalist and fascist regimes to eliminate communities of people who do not serve their necropolitical fantasies or strategies.

No one is free until everyone is free.

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There must be solidarity across all liberatory causes. I am aware of the complexity that permeates the expressions of solidarity and the divergences in understanding them. However, I also embrace the understanding, as we know, that all forms of creative and intellectual work are inherently political, and being silent in the face of current events becomes a form of complicity. I do not condone extermination, all the war crimes, and nothing justifies or can ever justify a genocide. I stand for the end of all colonial occupations.

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Without qualification, and with a continued commitment to learning how to act in line with our statement, we stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people and their right to liberation. As such we stand in complete opposition to the many systems that exist and continue to be upheld to maintain Israel’s apartheid State and its ongoing genocide.

We recognise the power of words to construct the worlds we live in and design the materiality of the systems we uphold through our daily existence. As such we raise our voices to refuse to accept the genocide that is being committed in Palestine, in so doing adding words to the collective voice that seeks to imagine what is possible when we do not bend to the vision of any group (in this case Zionists and those who support them), whose modus operandi is violence, brutality, oppression, suppression, genocide and supremacy. We recognise the interconnectedness of systems of oppression and refuse to accept that it is normal or given that these systems define the worlds we live in.

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In the words of artist Mazen Kerbaj “Anti-semitism is a disgrace. Anti-zionism is a duty”.

I refuse the conflation of Judaism and Zionism, which for too long has been used as a weapon to silence and villainise those who speak out in support of the oppressed. I am committed to an anti-racist practice and therefore I must speak out against genocide and systems of oppression.

There is a deep running web of support for the oppressor that trickles further than I can comprehend, through our government, financial bodies, institutions, and wealth. Existing in this system implicates us all in the atrocity, which is why I feel it necessary to counteract it with words, and with action. These words are by no means enough, but an ignition to action which hopefully feeds the disentanglement and undoing of the web.

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“[M]y words lost any power and yet they continued to pour out of me. I still had a voice, even if only a handful would listen.”[i]
Alaa Abd El-Fatta / / علاء عبد الفتاح


“ … part of the genocidal iceberg are genocide enablers. Little people, men and women, in every facet of life, in every institution. These genocidal enablers come in three types.

1. The first are those whose racialisation and total othering of Palestinians has rendered them unable to feel anything for the 14,000 children who have been killed and for whom Palestinian children remain ungrievable. Had Israel killed 14,000 puppies or kittens they would have been completely destroyed by the barbarity of it.
2. The second group are those whom Hannah Arendt said in ‘The Banality of Evil’, “had no motives at all, except for extraordinary diligence in looking after his personal advancement.”
3. The third are the apathetic. As Arendt said, “evil thrives on apathy and cannot exist without it.”[ii]
Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah / غسان أبو ستة

“The new state was supported unhesitatingly and unflinchingly, armed and bankrolled, coddled and applauded, no matter what crimes it committed. It grew up like a protected child in a wealthy home whose parents smile proudly as it commits atrocity upon atrocity. No wonder today it feels free to boast openly about committing genocide. (At least The Pentagon Papers were secret. They had to be stolen. And leaked.) No wonder Israeli soldiers seem to have lost all sense of decency. No wonder they flood the social media with depraved videos of themselves wearing the lingerie of women they have killed or displaced, videos of themselves mimicking dying Palestinians and wounded children or raped and tortured prisoners, images of themselves blowing up buildings while they smoke cigarettes or jive to music on their headphones. Who are these people?

What can possibly justify what Israel is doing?

The answer, according to Israel and its allies, as well as the Western media, is the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7th last year. The killing of Israeli civilians and the taking of Israeli hostages. According to them, history only began a year ago.

So, this is the part in my speech where I am expected to equivocate to protect myself, my ‘neutrality’, my intellectual standing. This is the part where I am meant to lapse into moral equivalence and condemn Hamas, the other militant groups in Gaza and their ally Hezbollah, in Lebanon, for killing civilians and taking people hostage. And to condemn the people of Gaza who celebrated the Hamas attack. Once that’s done it all becomes easy, doesn’t it? Ah well. Everybody is terrible, what can one do? Let’s go shopping instead…

I refuse to play the condemnation game. Let me make myself clear. I do not tell oppressed people how to resist their oppression or who their allies should be.”[iii]

Arundhati Roy / അരുന്ധതി റോയ്

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I stand against oppression in all its forms, affirming the interconnectedness of our freedoms. In the face of injustice, I believe in the power of solidarity as a daily practice - engaging with one another to weave a world where dignity and equity prevail.

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The images, videos, half-stories, voices, fragments of fragments, metrics, data, partial truths, egregious lies, and indelible depictions of violent, dispossessory oppression out of Gaza reflect a systematic failure and a morally reprehensible collusion of Western governments to acknowledge the human rights of Palestinian people. Furthermore, Western governments that purport to do this “in the name” of the people they represent, ‘their nation-states’ as it were, levy the globally compounding shame they accrue – a shame that continues to wither the already dilapidated state of trust citizens had with their governments – daily, onto their constituent citizens. I mean, they implicate us.

In crisis time (and when are we never in crisis), I do find it useful to differentiate between art and activism. Art, in the Baldwin sense, may, in times like these, only uncover the questions hidden by the answers: Why should we be implicated? Does resisting remove or assuage that implication? Or most prescient, what can we do? Activism takes up the mantle and does something, ideally uncomfortable for the activist.

The business of statements circulated on social media and the larger internet has, for me, as a writer, revealed a paradoxical and simultaneous feeling of suspicion and necessity. It’s summed up, in a sense, by lines from poet Danez Smith’s anti poetica such as “there is no poem greater than feeding someone” and “there is no poem to free you.”

Statements like this may not cause harm, but what do they actually do?

As a cohort, we are already taking steps to provide concrete actions to pause, rescind, and alleviate pain, and if we’re lucky, promote joy or progress, in our small way. Those actions as they come into fruition seem to me to be more valuable than all the words in this statement added together.

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The situation in Palestine and Lebanon remains a profound humanitarian crisis with no end in sight. We face critical questions: How can we make a difference? How can we unite across our differences, moving from an "us versus them" binary to a more collaborative relationship? What does it mean to join in solidarity, and how can we pressure organisations to create change? How can we create art in this unstable world and draw attention to the silences and gaps that will haunt us into the future?

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In this climate where systemically racist, capitalist structures prioritise profit and power over people, weaponize fear and difference and perpetuate inequality, caring more than ever is a necessary act. It becomes a necessary political act when systemic structures and political administrations continue to disregard human life and assert and defend dominance. It becomes a necessary everyday practice when speaking up against oppression in defence of human life and taking any position for collective freedoms requires continuous and courageous concrete steps and actions.

I believe in a shared practice of care that actively and reflexively engages in actions that challenge oppression and inequality on a micro and macro scale. Our freedoms are interdependent - liberation is built collectively, and solidarity sits alongside our differences and different emancipatory calls. Freedom for Palestine; Freedom and Liberation for all.

[i] https://www.madamasr.com/en/2016/01/24/opinion/u/jan-25-5-years-on-the-only-words-i-can-write-are-about-losing-my-words/ (2016)

[ii] https://progressive.international/wire/2024-04-12-dr-ghassan-abu-sittah-tomorrow-is-a-palestinian-day/en (12 April 2024)

[iii] https://thewire.in/rights/palestine-israel-apartheid-arundhati-roy-pen-pinter-prize (2024)