War Stories - An International Exploration of Destruction and Creativity.

Workshop on (the) war - Sunday 11th July 1999 at the Tricycle Theatre, London.

Workshop led by Jonathan Chadwick

Participants:
Jane Garioni, Mamoru Iriguchi, Allan Leas, Stephen Lowe, Alan Marni, Anthony Meyer, Moudy Mushatat, Tanya Myers, Despina Nikitidou, Christophoros Panoutsos, Nahar Ramadan, Noura Sakkaf, Mindy Sawhney, Maggie Steed
(invited but unable to attend: Deborah Findlay, Maria Oshodi, Harriet Walter.)

Countries of which participants had significant experience or with which they had strong links included:
Bosnia, Croatia, England, Greece, India, Iran, Iraq, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, South Africa

The participants had many skills. Of the ones which were relevant to the workshop there were:
Playwriting, Designing, Directing, Acting, Painting, Film Making, Counseling, Working for NGOs in helping refugees collecting evidence on war crimes.

All photographs from the workshop on this web site were taken by Maysoon Pachachi

Introduction

This is a report of our day's work together. Essentially, the workshop was an exchange of stories but this report will not attempt
to retell those stories.

We are including excerpts from letters and writing which were sent in by participants. These give a sense of the day as well as some specific comments.

The Beginning.

The day started with a reflection on the people who weren't with us. In talking to people about their participation in the workshop we had different responses.

Some people had said that the events of war were too close for them to deal with in a workshop.

Other people had said that they felt too distant from the real suffering of war to feel that they could contribute anything. People felt more or less distant from war. Could this relationship be expressed?

The participants were asked to consider the space in the room in front of them. This was the scene. This was the theatre of war. At the centre of the space, at the centre of war there is the activity of inflicting injury. At the outermost limits there were the reverberations and consequences of this central action.

A chair was placed in the centre of the space and a large piece of paper was stuck to it with the words INFLICTING INJURY written on it.

The participants were asked to reflect on their stories and were asked to decide how near to the centre the key moment of their story was. They were asked to place a chair in the space at a distance from the central chair which would reflect where their story lay in the overall theatre of war.

Chairs were placed at a variety of distances from the central chair.

The participants were then asked to reflect on the key activity in their story - not necessarily the physical activity but the psychological/dramatic activity. So we would see how many other activities were included in the theatre of war besides the central one of inflicting injury.

The participants were asked to write on a large sheet of paper the key word which expressed this activity. They were asked to use the present participle of the verb.

They were then asked to stick the piece of paper to the chair. Everybody could see all the different things people were doing in our stories. These are the words people wrote:

Fleeing
Searching
Fearing
Calming
Panicking
Running
Detachment
Unbeing
Refusing
Losing
Drinking Coffee
Being Confused
Joining
Living and Dying
Escaping
Projecting
Pleading
Negotiating
Writing
Learning
Corresponding

Panicking and Losing were used twice.

Middle

The participants were asked to tell another member of the group their story. The listener had then to go and tell this story as if it was their own to another participant. The participant would then go back and listen to the listeners story and go and tell their story to another participant. By the end of this exchange everybody would have told their story and have told another participant's story as if it were their own. Everybody would have heard two stories.

The stories were now in the group but they had not yet been told to the whole group.

End

The participants played grandmother's footsteps. The moment when grandmother turns round and tries to catch you moving and you freeze on the spot was selected for consideration.

This moment was likened and compared to a moment when external action is suspended. Possibly at these moments internal action may increase. The moments may be like turning points, moments of change.

An extract from Slavenka Drakulic's book BALKAN EXPRESS was read out in which she describes one such frozen moment when her action is suddenly suspended as she internally adjusts to the new reality. She goes on to talk about how this moment is connected to a sharp perception of the action of fate or destiny.

Another means of expression was then introduced. Participants were asked one by one to portray a key moment from their story by forming tableaux using other participants. Participants were asked to collaborate with the storyteller and words were to be avoided so each storyteller had to sculpt a moment from their story. Thus we saw a freeze frame or an image from each story in turn.

Conclusion

No conclusions were drawn. The stories and the images were left to lie in the imagination of the participants.

There was a feeling of excitement and discovery during the workshop and this was accompanied by a great deal of carefulness. The size of the subject matter and the likelihood that people would have differing and personal relationships to it led to a feeling that this was a tentative beginning. There was a sense of examination and of attempting to discern what the general lineaments of this human activity were. As well as serving through the stories to illustrate humanity's extraordinary capacity to inflict pain and destruction the telling of the stories was an affirmation of our creative capacities. Moreover the potential for the theatre, the most human of the arts, to express and explore our feelings was brought to life.

For comments on the workshops by participants please