Act 2: The Power of Theatre Post Conflict
21 September 2010
"War doesn't just destroy buildings; it destroys souls"In partnership with the British Council and Prospero World a remarkable event took place in Schloss Uberstorf, near Bern in Switzerland. The Shakthi company of war affected yougn adults from Sri Lanka, trained by Pan in 2008, travelled to Switzerland and were joined by 11 young people from other conflict zones around the world for a week of training with Pan artists.
These included South Sudan, Rwanda, Chechya, Zimbabwe, Peru, Abkhazia/Georgia, Palestine, Northern Ireland, Yemen and Kenya. For a week these participants, with a common bond of a life of conflict and a desire to overcome it, worked to share experiences and learn ways of using theatre to promote rebuilding of broken lives. Intensive work with pan artist, John Martin and Adwoa Dickson in theatre techniques were followed by afternoon sessions with rapper, and ex child-soldier, Emmanuel Jal, and creative time for participants to share reaction and ideas for the future, The Shakthi group demonstrated how forum theatre initiates debate around social issues. By the end of the week a network of young activists had been created, fired up with new ideas for work in their home countries. But before returning they were at the centre of a British Council conference in Geneva at the Red Cross Museum which looked at the many uses of culture in response to conflict. The Shakthi groups was highlighted as a case study for the day.
Click here to view a video of the Act 2 workshop week in Geneva.
After a more public performance at the Grutli Theatre in Geneva the larger group broke up and the Shakthi group continued to London and gave a great performance at Asia House to introduce their methods to a British audience. You can watch an introduction video for Shakthi here
(To hear more about Pan's work in Sri Lanka please read the 'Sri Lankan log' written by our General Manager)
