Exploring Root Causes of Conflict through an Actors' Ensemble Rehearsal Process

Arts and cultural approaches have been indispensable for societies that deal with the legacies of mass scale violence. This is due to the therapeutic potential they promise, the fact that they can be exercised on a community level, the potential for reconciliation, self-expression and reflection. Arts and cultural approaches also represent a language that is accessible and acceptable for various social groups, which also transcends generations and borders. Numerous scholars similarly argue that artists better comprehend and reflect on current reality than theorists. Drawing on one of such artistic initiatives—Global Arts Corps (‘GAC’)—that is tied to the goals of transitional justice, and which has employed theatre, inter-country dialogue and innovative methods of storytelling, the speakers examine what is to be earned from such approaches in post-genocide and post-conflict contexts. 

They particularly draw on two different interventions of GAC—a Cambodian circus that nearly wordlessly dramatized the horrors of the Khmer Rouge and the subsequent lack of communication between generations. Another relates to a group of actors who through their performance voiced some of the challenges the translators experienced while working for the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. This show travelled to Rwanda, Northern Ireland, the Balkans and elsewhere to perform and engage in a dialogue with societies that also experienced mass-scale violence.

These theatre interventions apply actor-centric approaches to their work, meaning that the performance or show itself, however important, has a collateral effect. What matters most, is the dialogue internally between the actors, and the actors and communities in post-genocide contexts where they perform. GAC particularly focuses on the processes happening during rehearsals, on stage, and outside of it through the perspective of actors. This initiative represents a different way of looking at accountability, which is sought not through the traditional mechanisms, such as courts or truth commissions, but rather through inter-community historical dialogue. Theatre is one of the forms through which such dialogue happens among civil society. The notion of accountability thus receives a broader theoretical and conceptual outlook and involves such factors as intergenerational education and conversation, building of civil society, agonistic dialogue, reflection on trauma and healing.

Speakers

Michael Lessac is the Artistic Director and co-founder of Global Arts Corps. Lessac started his career in theatre after having received a Ph.D. in developmental and perceptual psychology, and was given a two-year Ford Foundation Grant to work at the National Theatres of England, Italy, France, Poland, Romania, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. Michael went on to a career in Hollywood writing and directing the feature film House of Cards starring Tommy Lee Jones and Kathleen Turner. He has directed over 200 television shows and sixteen pilots including Taxi, Newhart, Grace Under Fire, The Drew Carey Show, The Naked Truth, Just Shoot Me, Everyone Loves Raymond, a among others. Michael is the creator and director of the international theatre piece Truth in Translation, which he co-produced with South Africa’s Market Theatre. Truth in Translation travelled to 26 cities in 11 countries on four continents and led to his founding of the Global Arts Corps. GAC is a non-profit theatre and education foundation dedicated to using professional theatre to support reconciliation initiatives in countries emerging from conflict and which celebrates and fosters the possibility of perceptual change.

Selbi Durdiyeva is the Alliance for Historical Dialogue and Accountability (AHDA) Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University. For the Fellowship, she develops a project on the role of arts and theatre in transitional justice. She also works as a Research Assistant at Nottingham Law School on a project under a broad theme of accountability. She obtained her PhD, entitled ‘The Role of Civil Society in Transitional Justice Processes in Russia relating to the Soviet Repressions’ from Transitional Justice Institute at Ulster University. She holds an LLM from Essex University, with a major in International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law. Prior to PhD, she taught Public International Law and Human Rights Law at KIMEP University, Kazakhstan, and worked for Child Rights International Network (CRIN).