Palestinian artist Alaa Shehada's application for a visa to Canada is stuck in the system with just two months to go before the opening night of his one-man-show, 'The Horse of Jenin'.Supplied
Almost a year ago, on Aug. 17, 2025, Alaa Shehada applied for a temporary resident visa so he could come to Canada, where he was invited to perform his acclaimed one-man show, The Horse of Jenin.
The show was scheduled to run last March in Vancouver, as part of the Warrior Festival at the Cultch theatre. But with no visa, it had to be cancelled.
The Cultch re-programmed The Horse of Jenin for its 2026-27 season. It seemed unimaginable that it would take more than a year for the visa to be approved (or declined). But with two months to go before opening night on Oct. 8, Mr. Shehada’s application is stuck in the system. The consultant the Cultch hired to work on this says Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) indicates it is still being processed.
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Now, Cultch executive director Heather Redfern is once again scrambling to deal with the possibility that her artist might not make it into Canada. A Toronto theatre is on standby, also planning to stage the work if Mr. Shehada is allowed in. But they won’t move on that until the visa is approved.
Does Ms. Redfern have any idea what is behind the delay, I asked her?
“Well, he’s Palestinian.”
Mr. Shehada is a Palestinian national who lives in Amsterdam, where he has residency status; he also has residency status in Britain and has a British work permit, according to a letter from Jenny Kwan, the MP representing the riding in which the theatre is located, addressed to Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diab and Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree. The letter, which the Cultch shared with The Globe and Mail, asks that his file be prioritized and processed “without delay.” It states that Mr. Shehada’s biometrics were submitted on Sept. 5, 2025, and criminality and eligibility assessments are complete. But security verifications have been ongoing since September.
That is a long time.
Mr. Shehada’s show draws on personal memories from his childhood in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank. A German artist arrives and, with the rubble from an Israeli army operation after the second intifada – and help from Palestinian children – builds a large sculpture, a horse. It stood in the city centre for years. Three weeks after the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on Israel by Hamas – from Gaza – the sculpture was removed by the IDF.
“To us this horse … is not just a symbol of our freedom,” Mr. Shehada says in the show. “To us this horse [is] a symbol of our resistance, our resilience, our vitality.”
The show was an award-winner at last year’s Edinburgh fringe festival. “It’s a magical piece of storytelling,” says Ms. Redfern. She calls it a personal story, not political.
It seems impossible for such a work by its very nature to not be political, but so what?
The Horse of Jenin also had dates booked in the U.S. beginning last fall. But when Mr. Shehada landed at JFK Airport in November with his valid visa, he was detained, questioned, put in an immigration detention facility, and sent back to Amsterdam.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection told NPR that Mr. Shehada was refused entry for “not being forthcoming with facts” during his interview with officers upon arrival.
It is unclear if this has had any bearing on the murky situation in Canada.
IRCC told The Globe it cannot comment on a specific case without consent from the applicant.
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Ms. Redfern says it will be impossible to reschedule the show for this season, given how in-demand Mr. Shehada is these days. If he does not get the visa in time, the Cultch will try to program it for the 2027-28 season – if he’s available and still performing the show. In any case, that’s more than a year from now.
That would be a shame.
The Cultch attracted protests earlier this year for mounting Soldiers of Tomorrow, written and performed by Israeli-Canadian Itai Erdal who served in the IDF (and is strongly opposed to the Israeli occupation). Ms. Redfern stood her ground then, and she’s moving heaven and Earth now to bring The Horse of Jenin to Canada. She understands the important role art can play in understanding human catastrophes.
This moment demands this kind of theatre, whether you agree with the artist or not. Any concern that this play about a boy and a sculpture will serve as some sort of Trojan horse for a political message would be absurd. That message is everywhere, anyway. Canadian audiences should be able to hear it from, well, the horse’s mouth.