THEATRE AS A WAY OF HEALING - Festival And Conference
Belgrade, 23 - 27. May 2003

Performances:

Maps of Forbidden Remembrance, A co/production of 7 Stages (USA) and Dah Teatar,(SCG) this performance recently toured successfully throughout the USA. It deals with important questions such as "How long a vigil does historical violence impose on us? How far can or should my personal responsibility extend for injustices I did not commit?" International and national cultural differences are witnessed in this story, which discovers the connection between progress, artists' responsibility and sources of strength in dark times. It is a story about emigration, a burning issue now in Yugoslavia but also in the USA where immigration issues have been coming more and more to the forefront.

Direction: Dijana Miloševic
Actors: Faye Allen, Del Hamilton, Sanja Krsmanovic Tasic, Maja Mitic, and Kathy Randels
Dramaturgy: Dubravka Kneževic
Set design: Neša Paripovic
Music: Kathy Randels
Light design: Jessica Coale / Radomir Stamenkovic
Texts: L. Anderson, W. Benjamin, M. Darwish, C. Fuentes, D. Ugrešic, book about Ellis Island, Dark Ages computer game and authentic historical documents

Chronics (Poland) The performance of the theatre, The Song of the Goat, deals with the sense and form of lamentation, as one of the first forms of human expression. As they explored this tradition they discovered something they called the physiology of lamentation, and that the essence of lamentation is cleansing. After leaving Theatre Gardzienice in 1993, Grzegorz Bral and Anna Zubrzycki became one of the foremost Acting workshop leaders in Europe. In 1997 they founded Teatr Piesn Kozla (The Song of the Goat) in Wroclaw, an international company with members from the UK, France, Sweden and Norway as well as Poland.

Director: Grzegorz Bral
Performers: Rafal Habel, Marcin Rudy, Cristopher Svertsen, Anna Zubrzycki, Anna Krotoska, Maria Sendow, Colin Sadler
Costumes: Vristina Gonzales
Scenography: Grzegorz Bral and Rafal Habel
Music: Based on polyphonic lamentations from northern Epirus (a region straddling Greece and Albania)

The White Woman of the West (USA) The piece is set on a Louisiana plantation at the beginning of the 19th century, on the night of a slave revolt. The White Woman of the West is the young second wife of the General who owns the plantation. The audience witnesses her as she nears death. The text is written and performed by Kathy Randels, USA, with original music composed and performed by Sean LaRocca. Kathy is a native New Orleans theatre artist and the artistic director of ArtSpot Productions whose original work has toured throughout the U.S. and in Bulgaria, Colombia, Denmark, New Zealand, Romania, Slovenia, Serbia and Montenegro. She has collaborated with Dah Teatar since 1997, performing in The Helen Keller Case, Travellers and Maps of Forbidden Remembrance

Director, text and performer: Kathy Randels
Music- composed and performed by: Sean LaRocca
Costume and set design: Shown Hall

Talking Mbira (Zimbabwe) Concert/performance. Stella Chiweshe, the famous musician from Africa, unites song, playing of the traditional instrument mbira, and ritual in which she is in contact with the ancestors, into an exciting theatre form of concert. She is the first woman in Africa to play mbira, traditionally a male instrument. She was one of three women that gave a concert as part of the Global Divas tour in USA. Mbira music, from Zimbabwe, is the basic element of the Bantu Shona culture. The sound of the mbira is the material medium of the culture, made of ceremonies to satisfy religious, healing and spiritual needs. Chiweshe firmly believes that the gentle mbira timbre is "closely related to the sound of water, something that is innately familiar to all people, and therefore the mbira is instantly memorable and comforting. It is a total form of therapy in itself." But it is the power of the spirit of the mbira that is most vital to Chiweshe, the power to override all the worries of this world and render them inconsequential by comparison, whether one is open to the idea or not.

Lectures and presentations:

Peru, Argentina & U.S.A.: Theatre, Memory & Resistance (USA/Argentina) Roberto Gutierrez Varea. Argentina /USA presents the work of Soapstone, the work of Yuyachkani with the Commission for Truth and Reconciliation for human rights abuses in Peru, and the work of the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo with the "Teatro por la Identidad", dealing with theatre that addresses the search for the children of the disappeared in Argentina. Videos from Argentina's street resistance actions will be shown, a short video from Yuyachkani Teatro in Peru, and a short video of Soapstone on the process of the offenders and crime survivors. Professor Roberto Gutierrez Varea is co-director of the theater program in Performing Arts and Social Justice (PASJ) at the University of San Francisco. From the beginning of his life in the theatre as an actor and director in Argentina during his country's last military dictatorship, his stage work and social activism have explored issues of violence, resistance to oppression, and social justice.

Healing Power of Theatre Armin Hadzimusic (BIH) will speak of his experience in Mostar during the war and post war period, and about the work of his theatre that opposed violence and destruction. Sejo Djulic, a director of Mostar Youth Theatre, has been active from the 70's and continuously working with young people, even in the period of the war in Bosnia. MTM initiated the founding of the Center for Drama in Education in BIH.

Inner Mandala (SCG) While performing texts from Dah Teatar performances from 1991 until today, Dah Teatar actress Maja Mitic also speaks about the healing power of theatre as experienced personally through her performances with DAH Theatre. In essence, DAH means ''spirit''. Throughout its history, Dah Theatre has always nurtured various educational forms of work, such as working process demonstrations, talks about performances and workshops. This lecture/performance has been a natural outgrowth of the focus of their work.

Healing From Govermental Abuse, Buddhist View (USA) From the Budhist point of view, all beings and appearances in the world are connected and no one ''exists'' as a separate entity. Even the intellectual comprehension of this statement develops a kind of compassion towards other beings. However, for a deeper, spiritual approach we need experiential understanding. Through breathing exercises, the Buddhist practice of the ''exchange of oneself with others'' takes place.This praxis really helps the development of compassion, and thus a greater peace both within ourselves and around us. The lecturer Tanja Popovic studied medicine and almost graduated, when she discovered Buddhism and the spiritual world and started her study of the understanding of the nature of beings and appearances. She has a MA in religious studies with special focus on the active, or applied, Buddhism at the Naropa University of Buddhist Studies in the USA.

Bread Storie (SCG) This project is an attempt to break ones own prejudices toward others that are different than us, recognizing that it is through communication that trust and understanding evolves. To foster this and a creative approach to life, the CHAMBER THEATRE OF MUSIC ''OGLEDALO'' was created in 1989 from different artistic projects that included more than 200 young people and cultural workers. In 2000 KPMO transformed into an Association of different artistic groups: LaDaBa Orchestra (Borisa Kovac), OM (Olivera Kovacevic Crnjanski), New Art Forum (Nineta Avramovic Loncar), TG Ogledalo (Ivana Indin). Today KPMO deals with the production and distribution of contemporary performing arts projects (theatre performances, live performances, concerts, happenings), the education of children and young people (musical and dance workshops, the program for the training of trainers and Drama in Education), and humanitarian work (art therapy, theatre in the field).

Psychodrama-Technique of Psychotherapy and/or Art Form (SCG) Vladimir Miloševic, psychiatrist and psychodrama trainer, who works at the Institute of Mental Health in Belgrade, will give a presentation about techniques of psychodrama and then he will organize short psycho drama situations with participants from the audience. Zoran Djuric, neurologist and psychiatrist, psychodrama therapist and trainer who works in the Institute "Dr.Laza Lazarevic" in Belgrade will present a video of the work with patients from Padinska Skela mental hospital, using psychodrama techniques.

Installation:

The Color of Time, installation. Claudia Bernardi, (Argentina) is an internationally known artist (installation, sculpture, printmaking, educator) who works in the fields of human rights and social justice and who has exhibited her work in over 40 solo exhibitions. Lately she has collaborated with the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team in investigations of the violations of Human Rights. Her artwork is profoundly influenced by these experiences. not only in the narrative aspect of the piece but, most importantly, in the conceptual realm of finding images through the searching of layers of colored dust: "I scratch the surface of the piece identifying human figures that interact with the world of the hidden images. The pigments convey the essential 'material prima'."

Video work:

Kali by Vesna Tokin, is artistic video work inspired by Hindu goddess Kali and her destructive form, with a necklace made by human skulls. Modern Kali gets contemporary necklace with images of our recent past. Vesna Tokin is visual artist based in Belgrade, who works on multimedia projects and video art.

Workshop:

Taiko Rhythms, workshop with actress Rita Superbi, Italy. After her encounter with the percussionists of the Japanese group Ondeko-za in 1979, she traveled to Japan where she practiced their special technique of drumming and formed the group Taiko Do which means The Way of the Drums, exploring how the movement, thought and rhythm are created in one breath. She uses Japanese rhythms and ones that are created through the special use of the body in this technique. Currently Rita Superbi continues her exploration on the connection of rhythms of the East and West and holds workshops of rhythm and percussions .The participants of the workshop will slowly be introduced to the technique and spirit of a special approach to drumming.

Festival was supported by:

Pro Helvetia Belgrade
City Council of Belgrade-secretary of Culture
Museum of African Art , Belgrade
Embassy of USA in Belgrade
Embassy of Poland in Belgrade

Participation of
7 Stages Theatre and Kathy Randels
has been supported by:

The Fund for US Artists at International Festivals and Exhibitions
National Endowment for the Arts
The US Department of State
The Pew Charitable Trust and Rockefeller Foundation

Participation of
Robert Varea
has been supported by:

The University of San Francisco
(Performing Arts and Social Justice Program)