BackWorkshop Leading to Production of a Video-Supplemented Stage Play (CinÈ-PiËce) in Kalpitiya, Sri Lanka.
Submitted by Wedikã Group of Artists
Project Summary
The notions of war and conflict have become increasingly abstract allowing for various perceptions informed by the environment of those who experience it. Such perceptions become resistant to dynamics and form stereotypes and a culture of silence. Wedik„ Artists intend to bring forth these different perceptions of war and life in general in Kalpitiya to the stage through a workshop leading to a play, which will be developed and performed by youth in Kalpitiya and its vicinities for audiences in their home town as well as in Colombo. A meeting point for two communities will be created, while the youth of the area will get exposed to non-violent means of expressing difference and accommodating it, besides the expertise they will acquire and share in with peers in particular and the community in general. The group has planned a unique mode of representation of the play in which diverse views of the narratives brought on stage will be mirrored in the three forms of artistic expression of stage play, cinema and music complementing, supplementing and questioning each other. Characters on stage will play along with digital images and music and thereby challenge the structural restrictions of the proscenium theatre.
Project Implementation Period: June 2007 to January 2008
Performances will be staged in January 2008
Project Planning
Project Background
In lieu of an Introduction:
When the war broke out again in Sri Lanka after a long standing cease-fire between the government forces and the Liberation Tigers, it was in Kalpitiya, a fishing area in the North Western coast, that the first major fighting took place. Tigers attacked a navy barricade in the morning and the news spread to Colombo in minutes. Result: All major schools were closed and pupils sent home anticipating a bomb attack on schools! On the contrary, all schools in Kalpitiya functioned normally, witnessing firing and bullets, some of which said to have landed in school premises.
The Conflict
War is no longer a concrete notion, but an abstract concept as perceived by those who experience it differently, mostly in isolation from one another. In Kalipitiya, people live with war, disappearances, unidentified gunmen and dead bodies, a situation in its entirety compose the life of Kalpitiya. On one hand it points to the split between perceived threat to the lives of those in the capital and the everyday experience of conflict of those living in Kalpitiya and the vicinities, where livelihood of the majority fishing community is threatened everyday.
The Project
Wedik„ Artists (Wedik„ meaning ‘platforms’ in most indo Aryan languages) intend to bring these different perceptions of war and life in general in Kalpitiya to the stage through a workshop leading to a play, which will be developed and performed by youth of all ethnic groups in Kalpitiya and its vicinities for audiences in their home town as well as in Colombo, where war is something very different from what it means ‘over there’.
A theatre workshop will be started in June with a participation of 60 to 80 participants from all communities and they will be initiated in theatre and film. Narratives of the participants will be accommodated and a script for the play will be developed by the participants based on their own narratives.
The script will be complemented by recordings of digital moving images, that may be relevant to the play in revealing narratives and expressing generally suppressed stories or those difficult to be brought onto stage. Final product, the cinÈ-piËce, will be staged in Kalpitiya, Colombo and Kandy. Besides, participants will be encouraged to start initiatives of their own in schools, community centres and various community based organisations, which in turn become sites for non-violent intercultural communication.
2. a. Expected Artistic Outcomes
The final product as well as the process leading up to the play will always encourage and make use of diverse art forms as context warrants. On stage production will juxtapose the two main genres of picture frame audience i.e. theatre and film so that the space on stage will be contested and the limits of the proscenium will be smothered. what cannot be brought on stage, what a character may not want to narrate, will be triggered off by the deliberate use of video clips, still photos, and occasional use of music. This experiment will serve to broaden the experience of the audience as it helps generate more interpretations.
b. Expected Political changes (Outcomes), Indicators and Means of Verification
Expected
Outcomes (Objectives) Indicators Means of verification
1. Discussion of Perceptions of Conflict in Colombo
1. Participation in the Play
2. Audience Response
3. Reaction of the general public
1. Response to the workshop
2. Turn out to the shows
3. Newspaper criticisms / opinion of specialists
2. Participants accommodate cultural differences
1. Participants taking part in activities of other communities
2. They take part in other art productions
3. Participants interact more with other communities
1. By consultation of community leaders and participants, their family members
2. Questionnaire
3. Overall capacity Building of Participants
1. Participants take small initiatives locally.
2. They organise themselves as community organisations
3. They take part in other initiatives
4. Reviving of existing literary and drama societies of schools and other community centres
1. Number of new groups, societies formed and their membership.
2. By consultation of community leaders, Participants, their families.
3. Questionnaire
4. Accommodating diversity and willingness to reconsider stereotypes increase in the general public.
1. People interact more freely with other communities.
2. They are able to think free from stereotypes
1. Immeasurable but influence the way people want to react to the conflict.
3. Implementation Strategy of the Project
The main output of the project is the production of a play based on a narrative identified during the workshop. But the process leading to the final production is an equally important component of the project as most lasting impacts in conflict transformation and capacity building will take place at that level. The participants and network partners such as schools, other community organisation will be constantly encouraged to initiate theatre forums, for which resource personnel could be provided by Wedik„ Artists.
4. Duration
The complete project will be carried out over a period of 8 – 9 months including the first 3 performances of the play in January.
The Workshop will be conducted over a period of four (04) months by professional theatre and film trainers in order to provide best training for the participants, who will eventually become the actors, writers, assistant directors and the other crew of the project.
Production will take anther four (04) months to complete as the players will be trained specially to treat the digital screen in the hall as another omniscient character, a modern replacement to the ‘puraka’of the stylised Sinhala stage play.
Staff requirement will be kept to a minimum by self contributions of the group members, who may conduct some parts of the production, script development, financial management etc. Yet the following position is desirable:
▪ Project Manager to oversee the entire project, to maintain accounts, to keep complete records, to coordinate with partners and resource persons and strengthen networks in the area and for all other liaisons regarding the project during the full period of its implementation.
Every workshop and training and rehearsal will be attended by at least two members of the Wedik„ artists. It is expected by this measure to minimize costs incurred on externally hired resource personnel and to keep strings of the project together.
5. Target Groups
There are two equally important target groups in this project. They are the workshop participants on the one hand and the theatre visitors and the general public on the other.
Direct workshop participants will be around 60 to 80 young people from Kalpitiya and surrounding areas. It is expected to have a wider range of reach in the area through schools and other community organisations, which this project will build networks. The participants will be always encouraged to initiate other local project for which Wedik„ artists will extent maximum support. Under such initiatives, drama and literature clubs of schools will be revived and founded with the assistance of Wedik„ artists. Complementary to the workshop, there will be film shows organised as a part of the project to attract people who would not want to take part in the workshop, but wouldn’t mind watching a movie. This will create more awareness and acceptance of the project.
The indirect impact in the area will be extended to the families of the area through participants, schools etc.
General public is targeted as the main consumers of the final product for whom it is intended. It is difficult to measure them but the project intends to organise two shows in Colombo, Kandy and another in Kalpitiaya.
Reading public will be reached through newspapers, for which the play and the process of making it will be critiqued by peers/ professionals of the artists. It is expected that many art lovers will be interested in watching and studying this play, as it challenges the restrictions of the proscenium theatre by introducing moving images to the play as a character. That will be a major attraction of the play but it would not require sophisticated technology. So the reach of the play will be broad due to its mobile-friendly dramaturgy.
6. Risks and Obstacles
Wedik„ Group of Artists are a new organisation and depends entirely on the voluntarily contribution of its members. This may be a considered a risk but the personal profiles of the members indicate that teamwork is a strong point of all of them.
The situation in the country may affect the project negatively but no stalling of it could be expected as Kalpitiya has never been completely occupied by LTTE.
7. Sustainability
The group of artists have a member ship of four artists and that will provide enough manpower to keep the project going in the absence of another.
Financial Support is required to carry the project further, Despite the contribution by the artists group.
8. Monitoring and Evaluation:
Monitoring and evaluation will be carried out by an appointed member of the group. He will insist on the records and will produce a progress report at the end of the workshop and a final report at the end of the implementation of the project, i.e. by end of January 2008.