August 18, 2015

August 18, 2015

Day and Sudden Evening

Children work in their workshops and studios, very serious about their tasks, preparing for Saturday's finale in concentration. Some adults are still looking for their place in the Village, finding out which action offers best role for them. They still have some time for their search.

In the valley, behind the Aviaries, a little out of the way, imperceptibly and slowly, a bridge is being built.

It is constructed bit by bit, just like the stories in Krzysztof’s Tale Workshop. Before noon, under the tent on the shore of the lake, participants add new continuations to Miłosz's "Hymn of the Pearl", an interpretations of old Gnostic tales. The story of the life of a young boy meanders in unexpected directions, it eludes those with a script ready to carry them along the way. In the afternoon, at the same place, there is also a conversation about real bridges (more about them later will be told by a newcomer in the Village - Lars J. Hvinden).

Just as unexpectedly as develop the successive stages of tale’s life in Krzysztof’s workshop, evening arrives at the Village. This is the second half of August, the Villagers, accustomed to long summer days and warm evenings are surprized by cold dusk appearing unexpectedly from nowhere. It is still not autumn, but summer is slowly changing its intensity, makes place for it.

This is already the fourth evening Tale meeting. Today, it will be spun by Jessica Kaahwa. She comes from Uganda and is engaged in dialogue, her basic building block is theatre. It nourishes her and is the tool her work is based on. It is not an institutional theatre but a socially engaged one, realized in different spaces and based on different persons, professionals and amateurs. – I have worked in theatre for 27 years, and it is a broadly understood theatre. It's a huge privilege and challenge, and how can I enclose my story in a few sentences? So today, I want just to indicate what I'm doing and what is important to me, however, I would like to invite you very much to my workshop tomorrow where I will try to show you and involve you in my theatre – says Jessica, not hiding her emotions. – This emotion of being here with you is so great, but I feel great humility because I have to accept the fact that you have decided to devote your time to me. Many of you I have already had an opportunity to meet - and to get to know your stories too, so I know that you are all exceptional and both the things you do and you yourselves are important. I am very grateful for your presence. But if we talk about presence, I'd like us to think for a moment about those who are not here. About all these important creative people who should share their experience and effects of their work, sitting here on this stage today instead of me, and I cannot do that because they lost their lives as a result of armed conflict, lack of access to humanitarian and medical aid, due to starvation or all sorts of other atrocities that afflict our world. Certainly each of us can recall in their head and heart such a person. Let’s think about them, please.

The room became quiet.

- I believe they smile at you – says Jessica.

And then she begins her story about an invisible bridge, that is, about what she is trying to achieve with her theatre and how she understands it. - I grew up in a culture in which one sings. All we do is accompanied by singing. Even when we are punished or in misery we endure it with dignity thanks to music, sound and song. It's a hidden treasure that we, in Uganda and Nigeria, where I lived for many years, carry it in ourselves and its memory always stays at the back of our head. And that is why, in spite of all these difficulties that affect us we are still able to smile. Yes, as if the evil things never happened. Because all that happens to us and all that allows us to deal with it is theatre: staging, playing, creativity.

How her vision of theatre turns into a concrete action, close to Grotowski’s ideas, based on direct participation and involvement of the viewer-actor in the emerging theatrical situation, is described by Jessica who illustrates her talk with pictures showing effects of her work.

At the beginning: shots of the activities carried out by her and her students in the biggest slum of Uganda. - This handful of children which you can see are not even a fraction of the children population of this place. More pictures: prison, roadside paved street, students hit the drums calling passers-by to start a class. - We operate in different places, but everywhere the goal is the same: to engage people, to inspire them to do something.

Just like in the last photo. This is already the Darfur region of Sudan, beset by armed conflict and one of the greatest humanitarian disasters of recent years. The photograph shows people dancing, crowd gathers around to watch them, come all, kids are pushing under the feet of adults. Even soldiers with guns on their shoulders come curious to watch. - And can you see this man in the middle? This is Ali, our African Krzysztof Czyżewski, he also builds invisible bridges - Jessica laughs, but soon turns serious. - You see people who have really experienced much. Their smiles mean gold to us. When  actors, dance teachers and theatre directors leave them, their lives will never be the same, because they have been watched by other people. When I leave from here I will probably also start doing some things differently than before, because I was inspired by all of you. I would also like to share with you something at the end which is not easy to watch. Perhaps even, some of you will want to interrupt me, let me know then – we’ll stop. But it is something very important to me and that’s why I want us to try. It's a film "Dance of Death" produced by the Ugandan government, it tells about what I devoted my life to: art that can give hope and that should be practiced - in whatever form, whether by dancing, or by singing, theater - even against the backdrop of the situation in which we find ourselves, because creation, creativity and talent are the resource on we can draw on, also when it seems to us that we have nothing left.

Film show. "We want you to hear our story, because if we don’t not tell it – you’ll never hear about it" – come the first words of the film. The narrators heard from the screen are: Nancy, Rose, Dominic, children from the Acholi tribe of northern Uganda engulfed by civil war, children displaced, orphaned, kidnapped and incorporated into the rebel forces. They say in the film: remember us differently. We do not want to be just children of war. We want to be remembered as talented young people, unique ones. One of us becomes the most famous musician of Uganda, one a doctor, one a teacher.

For nearly two hours the audience sits in silence. At the end - a long silence. Nobody wanted to stop, to stop watching.