Castlemaine Festival

Following its acclaimed debut season at the 2015 Sydney Festival, The Tribe, a uniquely Arab-Australian story, will be performed in a backyard in Newstead.
Based on Michael Mohammed Ahmad’s award-winning novel of the same name, The Tribe is a story of belonging and family. Performed by the inimitable Hazem Shammas as ‘Bani’, a small boy who finds his way in a young country by recounting tales of the old. At the heart of The Tribe is Bani’s love for his Tayta, his grandmother, who is a central presence in his life. She carries all the truths of The Tribe – a small Muslim sect that fled to Australia from Lebanon. Hazem’s Bani is like a visionary child channelling a Bedouin storyteller, amidst the Hills Hoists, paling fences and sprawling, thirsty vines of backyard Australia.