New festival of Theatre Reportage is looking for creative contributions.
I have been planning on hosting an event on Theatre Reportage (details on how to book and participate as a creative, are below) to research its development, its method and the possibilities it presents for better represention of global crisis. As a distinct mix between non-theatre aesthetics and journalism this vital work has effectively communicated the plight of many civilians living their lives in war, under oppression and conflicts not of their making. I believe this method developed by HiddenTheatre could also help those living in conditions of daily attack, due to racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, abusive conditions and marginalised realities such as climate crisis. These are all Hidden Wars.
This method of Theatre Reportage has been developed over the past 26 years and I have been UK representative for 15. Please see the article I wrote on their work for The Peace Journalist (Oct, 2022) for a more detailed explanation of their work trajectory, ethos and mission, https://issuu.com/parkalumni/docs/the_pj_oct_2022_web_-final (pages 8 and 9).
What makes this work unique is that the artists auto-ethnographically immerse themselves in the environment they represent. Last year a lot of this work focused on the war on Ukraine, and ongoing concerns in regarding all Kurdish regions with the murder of Mahsa Amini. Whilst these are still humanitarian emergencies the company is small and with this ethnographic aim they can only locate themselves in one geographical space at a time.
The company performed at the EU Parliament along with Palestinian stories in January 2023, to great effect.
This year much of the company whom are native to the Middle East find themselves unable to leave the very stretches of land they live and work . So, they work, with the same integrity that they tirelessly engage to represent anothers experience but now they represent their own and those they live with.
Their work using theatre as its medium, does not hinge on debating the rights and wrongs of the ‘political’ machinations, reasoning and propaganda from all sides. They do not create spectacles to persuade audiences through one sided manipulative means. What they do is show what is happening to the ordinary civilian, across regions. The common human torture between wars and hidden landscapes of emotional and physical abuse. The anguish of not knowing if your family is alive. The terror when they are not.
Their work, when taken as a collective whole represents the trauma that grandiose politics of ownership and oppression cause on a global scale by sharing what they intimately know; stories localised within life under oppression and war.
That local is often too far away for us to fully comprehend. This company- with this work-bring that "far away", close.
They have created numerous site-based interventions such as The Catwalk in a shopping mall in Basra, Dreams from Beyond at Pisa train station and many, many performances at the EU Parliament and theatres around the world representing the ordinary people stuck in war, conflict and adverse challenges and it is through this representation that audiences decide what is right or wrong and what is human and what is against being human.
Last year (February, 2023) Ukrainian actor journalist Valera Simonchek also performed for Cardiff University students, using this method. Students remarked that they felt as if they could understand the war, for the first time through his personal narratives and direct performance style.
This November ( 2024), members from the international group will be able to lead workshops and present performances in Cardiff, UK focusing primarily on the Middle East, however we hope very much to be joined by Valera to represent Ukraine, once again.
1. If you are interested theatre that matters, art that says something important and the academia around reporting conflict and global crisis. This event is for you.
2. If you are an artist, theatre maker, film maker, poet, writer or an activist with something to say then there is also an opportunity to contribute to this three day event held in Cardiff at Chapter Arts Centre ( 6-8th November).
We welcome creative responses to current hidden and underrepresented wars and those living in the consequences of living every day in war and oppression.
What does Hidden Wars mean to you?
What does living under oppression mean?
Please send your proposal or finished artworks for consideration ( max 2 A4 sides) to me at WestwaterCA1@cardiff.ac.uk by 20th October.
NB: All responses will be accepted into an online portfolio of responses, and potentially as part of the festival exhibition - as per my method and ethical position of Non-Selective Curation.
3. Please come and join the conversation.
Book tickets ( these are free or for a donation " if" you can afford it). For the performance please book directly with Chapter Arts Centre.
The workshops have a separate fee that supports the financial burden of the actors- journalist coming from the Middle East and Ukraine. However these sessions are free for Cardiff University staff, students and creative contributors (see point 2 ).
Disclaimer: Each and every production is the culmination of years of ethnographic and auto-ethnographic observations with actor-journalists who understand the necessary un-safe space of this kind of theatre and aim with their ‘total body ‘to represent those who cannot represent themselves. As a trigger warning, the space of the woprkshops is therefore also not what we might call a 'safe space' as it would hinder the experiential witnessing the very experienced team will guide you through. The company do however create a 'safer space' where all of you participating having the autonomy and agency to determine your own levels of participation in the work. Please be aware that these workshops may feel unpredictable ( because war is unpredictable) and for some can be triggering. It is brave participation and I can assert that everyone over the past 15 years (since I have been involved in the companies processes) have stayed in someway connected to the company afterr the workshopsand have felt positively changed by the experience.
I recall observing and documenting intensive workshops held in Italy in 2015. The artistic director stated before we began that the rehearsal room was not a ‘safe’ space and as such, as adults, we all have a responsibility to respond to our own parameters. We can leave any time and stop and take a breath...
”But, remember if you are in war, chased by armed forces. You cannot stop for a breath”.
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