Jonathan Chadwick, ex Artistic Director of Meeting Ground has set up a sister company to explore War Stories and other developments. For further information please visit www.aztheatre.org.uk or e-mail info@aztheatre.org.uk

War Stories -Background Documents.

For latest news about War Stories (updated 15/12/01)

For information on the workshop which took place on 11th July 1999

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War Stories

Meeting Ground Theatre Company in association with Sibiu International Theatre Festival

Proposal

1. Brief Description

Meeting Ground will bring together 20 performing artists from all over the world for a four week workshop and rehearsal to produce a theatre show for the Sibiu International Theatre Festival In May 2001. The show will be constructed from the stories about war brought by the participants from their respective countries. The work will take place at the historic Saxon fortress of Cisnadioara on the outskirts of Sibiu. The work will be directed by Jonathan Chadwick and the dramaturg will be Stephen Lowe.

2. Aims

2.1 To bring together performing artists from a broad range of countries to exchange stories, to illuminate shared experiences, to develop creativity In the face of aggression and destruction.

2.2 To assemble as varied a group of performing artists as is feasible with a strong proportion from European Union countries, from Eastern Europe and the Balkan region, from Asia, Africa and America. To ensure that there is a wide spread of ages with a strong proportion of young performers.

2.3 To ensure that the learning amongst the whole group is rich and the training content of the experience for the young participants is high.

2.4 To create a unique piece of theatre which will be available for further presentations.

2.5 To create a high point in a long-term project of sharing stories and of creative work on the subject of war.

2.6 To provide enhanced and wide access to the work by producing a high quality documentary video using the latest in video technology as a record of the event and to publish an illustrated book.

2.7 To establish creative good practices to enhance the work of the participants in their home countries. To maintain creative contacts with and between the participants and thus seek to disseminate the benefits of the project.

2.8 To provide the opportunity for there to be an exchange of working experiences and of performance traditions from the participants' countries.

2.9 To make creative use of, and find inspiration in, the unique environment provided by the Cisnadioara fortress near Sibiu.

3. Method

3.1 Meeting Ground will form close working relationships with key European partners. Through the use of information technology as well as non-electronic means of communication we aim to inform potentially interested parties throughout the world of the project and its aims. We will encourage artists to apply to us, informing us of their experience, and we will select the optimum group of performers.

3.2 The performers will be asked to bring with them stories about wars from their own countries, of their own or from the living memory of relatives, friends or acquaintances. The means of recounting the stories may vary and could include the spoken word, dance or song. The stories may be accompanied by artefacts such as letters, photographs or other objects which have a special meaning with reference to the story. We will encourage participants to focus on stories about the impact of war on people who are distant from the front-line as well as near to it.

3.3 These stories and the performance skills of the participants will be the raw material out of which the piece will be made. Through intensive work on how these stories can be shared, by finding ways of creating images and scenes from the stories, by acting out the experiences contained in them, through exercises, games and improvisations the dramatic material of the piece will be discovered. All the participants' experiences will differ. They will be more or less distanced through time and space from war. This difference will be made a dynamic part of the project. Putting performers in a direct relationship with the experiences they wish to convey will play upon the performers' capability to physicalise their imagination and to relive experiences.

3.4 The work will be assisted by a production team drawn from the working associates of the main partners.

4. Why war?

4.1 Experiences of war have been chosen as the subject matter for the workshops because this material is likely to have a dynamic relationship with the creative process of making theatre.

4.2 War divides countries and groups of people inside countries from one another; creating theatre can bring people together. Although war divides people the experiences we have of it are similar and can be shared.

4.3 In English we refer to the space which is affected by a war as a 'theatre'. At the centre of this theatre of war is the activity of inflicting injury on human beings. The consequences of this activity are death, displacement, loss, grief, damage and wounding.

4.4 Apart from the gains made by the manufacturers of the instruments of war, feelings of rejoicing which the supposed victors may experience and the relief and guilt which the survivors may feel, the main impact of war is pain. The activity of inflicting pain, physical and mental, has profound repercussions for all the people who surround this activity. There are processes of identification, recognition, self-realisation, bonding, empowerment, impotence.

4.5 These powerful forces have both deep and superficial effects on people. They make people feel different. They redefine individuality and personality. Expression of these powerful processes are at the root of European culture (in the work of the Greek poets Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides).

4.6 In facing and dealing with these destructive urges, admitting them and relating them to our own experience of pain and anguish we can go to the source of imagination and creativity. This act of transformation, from 'unmaking' to 'making', from destruction to creation lies at the heart of the workshop process which we envisage. This is why we want to create a piece of theatre from war stories.

5. Why Cisnadioara?

5.1 Cisnadioara is a particularly inspiring environment to undertake an exploration of this theme. It is a chapel fortress, a place used by the local community as a sanctuary in the event of invasion. Small memorial stones skirt the nave recording the names of people who died in a nearby battle during the 1914-18 war. Its walls have their own story to tell about violence and safety.

5.2 Romania has never been a war-like country as such but it has suffered invasion after invasion since the Romans arrived there 2000 years ago. It is a country which is a gateway between the East and the West. This cultural richness is stitched into the fibre of its language.

5.3 Sibiu boasts one of the most exciting, adventurous, ambitious theatre festivals in the world, certainly one of the most varied. The location is an ideal combination of seclusion, which can give rise to depth of thought and inventiveness, and attractive energy, which will create the right resonance for the project's concerns.