The kids in the Palestinian dance group Canaan Wellspring spent the entire winter break practicing their routines for their biggest performance yet.
Their upcoming theater show, Jafra, on Jan. 10 will be two hours long and is the first of its kind in St. Louis. It will showcase dabke — a traditional Levantine folk dance known for rhythmic foot-stomping, synchronized steps and linked arms.
The group is led by Hanan Hamed, who created Canaan Wellspring to teach youth in the St. Louis Palestinian community how to dabke.
“Dabke is something in Palestine [that] you do on every occasion, weddings and every time you're happy, you're [feeling] joy,” Hamed said.
In 2023, UNESCO added Palestinian dabke to its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
“Our culture and our heritage is very much being either erased or stolen, and it's very important to preserve our culture and our dances, our folklore,” Hamed said. “It's part of our identity, and it’s what shapes us as a people, too.”
Hamed established the dance group in 2024 with the help of Lea Koesterer, co-founder of St. Louis Friends of Bethlehem, a cultural exchange organization.
“Our mission is to promote the culture and the arts of Palestine and exchanges to let people know who the Palestinians really are because they've been flying under the radar for so long. And so we want people to be able to share in the beauty of the culture,” Koesterer said.
Canaan Wellspring has performed at cultural gatherings in the St. Louis region with a few songs at each set. Jafra will be its longest performance yet. Dabke theater shows often combine folk dance with storytelling and interpretive dance. It’s the first of its kind in St. Louis.
“We want to educate the community here, the American community, on Palestinian music and folklore dances, their types, how many dances we have — and the most important part is what the lyrics mean,” Hamed said.
The show will have visuals with lyrics translated from Arabic to English. Hamed worked on the translations with interpreter Aisha Badwan, whose daughters Nancy and Mira dance in the group.
The “dabke moms” in the group are almost as involved as the dancers, bringing snacks and enthusiasm to the practices.
“Sometimes I don't make it to the practice, but I count on other moms to be there for my kids. And I do the same thing for other kids because it can be tough practicing for two and three and four hours,” Badwan said. “We also help set up the [Jafra] program, we give our feedback.”
Even though she’s Palestinian, Badwan said she still learned a lot in the interpretation process.
“Those songs are very old,” she said. “You're talking about the 1920s or before or after. Sometimes they use certain wording in them that we don't use these days.”
Adding the translations was also crucial, Hamed added, because the group has faced pushback since its inception.
Most notably, St. Louis Art Fair organizers left it out in 2024 because they feared the dancers would make a political statement. But members of the dance troupe say they were left out because organizers viewed the simple expression of Palestinian culture as controversial.
That experience still lingers. Hamed said it was hard to find a place even willing to host the Jafra show.
“They were like, ‘We don't want anything controversial, or we don't want, like, press coverage or problems,’ you know. So it's basically, they're erasing a whole group of people because they think it's political,” Hamed said.
She said that the experience highlights the double standard many Palestinian Americans feel when it comes to showcasing their culture.
“If a Chinese group is here, coming to perform their culture. Nobody's going to be like, ’Oh, but we are not really good [politically] with China, we're not going to go watch it.’ Like, they don't make them political. Why? Because they don't want to dehumanize Chinese people,” Hamed explained.
After securing a Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis grant, Canaan Wellspring was able to book the theater stage at Logan University in Chesterfield.
Embracing their heritage
Despite the pushback, coaching the kids and helping them connect to their culture has been a proud moment for Hamed, she said, especially since there’s been a lot of discourse about Palestinians the past two years.
The kids who participate in the group are all from different parts of historic Palestine.
“I really felt so emotional to see them trying their best to represent their people in Gaza, Ramallah, Jenin, Tulkarm, Yaffa,” Hamed said. To reflect that, Hamed created their dance uniforms using pieces of fabric designs traditional to those regions.
Fifteen-year-old Sarah Zakarneh is among the older members of the troupe. Before joining, she said she was very shy and would never step on the dance floor.
She said the experience has helped her connect with her Palestinian heritage and boost her confidence in expressing her culture.
“I was a little bit shy about saying, ‘Oh, I'm Palestinian,’” she explained. “Although I wasn't embarrassed of it, I didn't talk about it as much. But after I joined Canaan Wellspring, I realized there's so many people here who are so proud to be Palestinian. It just motivated me to start talking about my culture more, and I've applied it in school projects.”
Zakarneh has a solo during the show and has spent time at practice and home refining her steps. But the part she’s looking forward to most? The finale.
“I really like the last dance that we do, ‘Ishtekna,’ because it connects all four countries in the Levant,” she said. “I just really appreciate our cross-cultural connection despite political and societal boundaries.”
Canaan Wellspring will perform at 6 p.m. Jan. 10 at the Purser Center at Logan University. More info here.
