European Off Network - Part 4

posted by Angela Eder on 2005/11/18 00:26

[ European Off Network ]

A participatory theatre project about missing persons has just been started by the Center for Children's Theatre Development at Prishtina, Kosova
Jeton Neziraj, Executive Director of the Center for Children's Theatre Development at Pristhina, and one of the founding members of the European Off Network, presented the following project only a few weeks ago:
"A participatory theatre project about missing persons
Can theatre skills help unlock the grief of the people of Kosovo – both Albanian and Serb – who have suffered the trauma of having a loved one
disappear? Can the dramatic arts help them look beyond their immediate suffering and recognise the experiences they share with people from the
"other" group? The United Nations Mission in Kosovo Office on Missing Persons and Forensics (OMPF) is working with the Center for Children's
Theatre Development (CCTD) to create a participatory theatre project that addresses the issue of missing persons and the barrier it creates between Albanians and Serbs.
Following the success of "The Longest Winter", a multiethnic play produced in two separate language-specific versions, UK director Jonathan Chadwick returns to again work with both Serb and Albanian Kosovans.
Two playwrights, one from each ethnic group, have created short scenarios derived from the accounts of members of their community. Rooted in
Augusto Boal's groundbreaking forum theatre work, the emphasis of the project is on participation and the practitioners are working in collaboration with the Families Associations, organsiations that represent the communities of the missing. In expressing their opinions and experiences publicly, the people of Kosovo can collectively decide upon the real story of these disappearances and the long and painful search
they entail.
As a result of the Kosovo conflict, the fate of two and a half thousand people still remains unresolved. This attempt to address the social and psychological consequences of "the disappeared" has been launched by OMPF, an innovative effort from an office mandated to exhume and identify human remains. The project is part of the OMPF "Memory Project", a transitional
justice initiative which seeks to "de-victimise the victims" by moving them from the role of passive recipients of history to active recorders of history. Working in parallel with both Albanians and Serbs, the forum theatre initiative aims to demonstrate that the experience of loss is the same, regardless of the language used to express it.
The OMPF/CCTD forum theatre initiative is being implemented between November 18 and December 6, 2005. Critics, academics or other interested
persons are invited to join us and observe this pioneering work on post-conflict issues."


Kontakt
Jeton Neziraj
Künstlerischer Leiter / Executive Director
Center for Children Theatre Development (CCTD)
Prishtina, Kosova
Tel.: +377 / 44 / 186 393
Mail: jeton@cctdkosova.com
www.cctdkosova.com

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