Performance and Peacebuilding in Global Perspective

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An Anthology in Progress

In conflict regions around the world, theatre artists and cultural workers are contributing to coexistence and sustainable peace. Performances are being crafted to facilitate relationships across the lines of enmity. Theatrical works are mediating between competing historical narratives. Theatre and ritual are supporting communities to acknowledge violations of human rights, to mourn losses, and to empathize with the suffering of the other.  In the aftermath of violence, theatre artists and cultural workers are negotiating the complex ethical terrain inscribed by memories of the past, imperatives toward justice, and desires for peace. These performances operate in a number of different settings, ranging from mainstream art theatre, to community-based participatory projects, to coexistence workshops that use theatrical techniques, to adaptations of traditional rituals performed in explicit reconciliation ceremonies. What they have in common is their ability to engage people in embodied experiences that open possibilities for new insights and new relationships. Performances can engender transformations in consciousness, social relations, cultural practices, and legal arrangements.

Performance and Peacebuilding in Global Perspective is an anthology that will document and reflect on promising contemporary examples of compelling performance works directly linked to restoring active participation in civil society, and to facilitating the construction of peace. It will consist of case studies that will situate performances in their relevant historical, social, and political contexts. The case studies will describe final productions as well as the processes leading up to them, assess their impact, and evaluate their contributions to establishing sustainable peace in their region of the world. The volume is designed to be a resource for artists, cultural workers and peacebuilding practitioners working in conflict regions, as well as for scholars and students of Performance Studies, Conflict Transformation, and related fields.

The Anthology’s editors intend for this book to strengthen and help legitimize an emerging, dynamic international movement linking performance and peacebuilding, by sketching the contours of a body of theory and practice; identifying the paths of connectivity between artists, peacebuilding practitioners, and policy makers; creating opportunities for critical reflection; and highlighting the movement’s achievements and its promise. We expect to complete the manuscript in the summer of 2008.

The book is co-edited by Dr. Cynthia Cohen, Executive Director of the Slifka Program in Intercommunal Coexistence and Director of Coexistence Research and International Collaborations at Brandeis University; Roberta Levitow, founder of Theatre Without Borders, and a noted American theatre director who, as a senior Fulbright specialist, has worked with emerging theatre artists in Romania, China and Uganda; Roberto Varea, director of the Performance and Social Justice Program at the University of San Francisco; and  Dr. Polly Walker, a research associate and conflict resolution trainer affiliated with the Australian Center for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Queensland, who is an expert on Native American and Aboriginal reconciliation rituals.

For a working outline of the anthology project, please click here.