Hawra is mortgaged
In a small workshop filled with color and imagination, Ahmed Jassim is made with his hands with his hands, giving her features and characters, then he ascends her on the stage to transmit life in it, on the stage of a theater that mixes many arts, including voice performance, acting, novel and story, and manufacturing dolls professionally.
After more than 20 years of work in the field of “Puppet Theater”, this Bahraini artist has become one of the few names that devoted her life to this rare art, transforming his passion for imagination into an educational and aesthetic message addressed to children.
Jassim’s journey began from a classroom, when he was working as a teacher of the Arabic language, where he noticed his tendency to literature and drama, so he moved from teaching letters to narrating stories.
He says: “Over time, I felt that I had a special tendency towards the child. A friend suggested that I work in the literature of the child, and from there I started writing stories and novels, all the way to the child’s theater, specifically the puppet theater.
His first theatrical steps were in 2006, through a work entitled “Wayne Al -Watan” in cooperation with the Royal Charitable Foundation, which was shown in the Castle of Arad.
“From that moment, I did not stop,” Jassim added, explaining that he was writing the text and brought it out himself, using colleagues to make the doll, until he decided to delve deeper into art and work to develop his talent in the manufacture of brides and narrate stories.
In 2017, he traveled to Tunisia to learn to make dolls on its origins, as it is considered one of the leading Arab countries in this field alongside Egypt. He also visited France three times to attend specialized theater festivals, and move between Arab and European countries, to learn from the experiences of others and develop its tools.
Ahmed Jassim is not satisfied with theatrical performances, but also entered the world of television through the children’s program “Talwin”, which was shown on Bahrain TV, and wrote its thirty episodes himself, as he supervised the movement and directing of the dolls, as he described the experiment as one of the deepest and most enjoyable experiences, despite the fatigue and the extension of photography for more than two months.
But Jassem’s passion does not stop at the boundaries of the show, but rather goes beyond her to an intimate relationship with his ..
He added that every doll needs visual and researching before designing it, as he sees with his team dozens of pictures and clips before drawing the initial model, then it is developed again and again until reaching the pathological result, then the initial drawing of a real doll turns.
Despite the successes, Jassem does not hide that this art still faces challenges in Bahrain, and he says: “The puppet theater is only on occasions, there is no permanent center or institutional support as in Tunisia, Egypt or Lebanon. Art.
And about the criticisms that he receives from some of those who see in the dolls a “forbidden embodiment”, he quietly responds: “I respect the views, but what I offer is a sophisticated educational art, and the dolls are like games that children use daily, and these dolls carry educational messages that we have used in advance until broadcasting influential religious messages, and have received the approval of children.”
In the world of Ahmed Jassim, everything is possible to turn into a doll, and about this vision he says: “Every aspect I see I imagine a doll … for me the scene of imagination, and art is a tool for breaking reality and making an imaginary world full of contradictions and strangeness.”
