Youth from across Afghanistan collaborate in Kabul

Joanna keep us up-to-date about the goings-on in Kabul. Afghan Project Leaders have completed workshops in Balkh and Kunar, and now youth from both groups are in Kabul together for a week of workshops, training, and idea-sharing.

Joanna Reports:

This morning the participants were all happily doing warm-ups and exercises. Now they are creating their "community mapping" (drawing their region) and then their "ideal communities" (as mixed Kunar-Balkh groups, hopefully sharing their ideas about what makes an "ideal" community).  

The sounds of laughter fill the house as it should be.  

They did their "community profiles" last night.  Very interesting -- each presentation was really really well done!  The issues that rise to the top are environment, medical, and women's rights.  The Balkh girls were all about pre-marriage testing to prevent certain diseases, and the need for vaccinations.  Both the Balkh and Kunar guys were most concerned by the wanton cutting of trees, soil erosion and proliferation of trash.  And the Kunar girls showed some shocking photos of the violence against women, including trading girls for bad debts, and blaming women for the crimes of others.  Unbelievable!  

We worked with the girls all together this morning and the Kunar girls are ready to speak out... but still cover up the second a male or a camera is anywhere close.  Three are daughters of other active women, and the other two need some gentle coaxing... but that's okay.  They will all help each other I hope.  

And then, two days later…

The workshops are continuing well! It is super-busy and also super-fun.  

We have had some great guests speaking about youth activism, how to meet challenges, how to get the government to listen, etc.  And today we went to the Presidential Palace!  It was grand... and an amazing experience for the youth -- like a trip to the White House to meet ... well, okay, not Obama... but maybe Joe Biden.  

We had a two-hour session with one of the top people during which the participants stood up and talked about their issues. Wow.  Can you imagine getting a chance to air all your grievances with some top government person who is actually listening and writing it all down. Even the Kunar girls all covered up stood up and gave their rant.  The guy was very moved, and then he told us that he had also had this idea to set up creative youth projects in different provinces, then bringing the groups together and implementing the projects.  So he was very happy that we were doing just that.  

This Balkh-Kunar collaboration is the first of many in the coming years. Groups from across Afghanistan will come to Kabul and share ideas with group members from a different province, each with their own issues, solutions, history, and culture. Stay posted for more updates from the field! 

Yangon News #1

Michael's update from Yangon on the current situation on the ground, the effects of history, progress, and the Water Festival.

Greetings from Yangon...
...where the weather is hot and the atmosphere is peaceful.  It's the calm before the storm, the storm being the New Year Celebration and the infamous Water Festival which starts today, Saturday April 13.   I'm getting the impression it's like being in New Orleans for Mardi Gras and Times Square for New Years.  We have an expectation of getting continually soaked by water cannons and blasters, and assured that my sins or bad karma or both are being washed away.  Another reason not to drink the water.

Joanna and I are here to flesh out the plans for a US - Burmese production of Ben Jonson's Elizabethan-era comedy, Volpone, which we plan to produce with our friends in Thukhuma Khayethe (Art Travelers Theatre Co.) with whom we've been training and performing since 2009.

Our first visit four years ago was under the watchful eyes of the military dictatorship, which kept the beloved lady Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest.  Our last visit a year ago had seen Suu Kyi released and elected to Parliament, and a new "open" era coming in (hopefully).   Now a year later, we are getting the skinny from our friends on how things have been going.

If you have been following the news, you may be aware that there have been recent clashes and bloodshed between the Buddhists and the Muslims. To understand where this comes from, we have to take a step back and remember our cultural history.

First, the name Myanmar vs Burma.  In the Burmese language, and we are talking history here, the name of the country when written in official King's court documents is Myanmar.  When the commoners speak it, they say Burma. This notion of having special words for the King and other words for commoners is not rare in world languages.  The British, having had colonies all over the place including here, referred to this territory as Burma, partly to stick-it to the former royal rulers.  But there are a lot of ethnicities and religions:  the majority are Buddhist and ethnic Burmese, but there are also Muslims, Christians and Hindus who are Shan, Karin, Mon etc etc.  When the military took over somewhat after the Brits left, they changed the name to the more "inclusive" Myanmar (inclusive sounding, though the military was primarily Burmese, paranoid and brutal to anyone remotely dissenting).

There is a good primer and political update on this Burma - Myanmar - US relations issue at the Washington Post.

With that background and even a vague understanding of world politics, its pretty easy to guess what happens when a formerly oppressed people gets a taste of freedom and democracy. They use their new-found voices to yell at each other. Every under-educated charismatic bullet-head now figures their opinion is better than the next guy, and they get on the radio and say "ya know, these [insert ethnic group here] people are dirty and smelly and taking over our way of life. They should leave."  So yeah, there are ethnic tensions, these days particularly between the Buddhists and the Muslims. Myanmar shares a border with Muslim-majority Bangladesh, and the politics are akin to the immigrant situation between the US and Mexico.   Arizona, anyone?

More to the point, our friend Thila Min (director of TK) reports that people are happy to take their rights, but not the responsibility.  Freedom of speech can be used for good or for evil, but nobody wants to be responsible for the evil their speech might unleash.  Sound familiar? 

Thila's English is very good,  but I wouldn't have thought he knew a word like "crony", which he uses a lot to describe another problem: rampant crony-ism.  There is a great deal of deal-making, land grabbing and back scratching between politicians, connected merchants, and foreign interests, all to the detriment of the poor and middle class that the new openness was supposed to help. 

But, by and large, there are "onward and upward" kinds of changes going on. We've been staying in the same neighborhood through these years, and just in the last year we have seen many new and modern homes spring up, gigantic hotels, new car dealerships, all in formerly vacant lots. I don't know if they are getting any business, but the construction companies must be making a killing. The members of  Thukhuma Khayethe also hear the siren call of business opportunities outside of theatre work.  One of the finest clown-actors I know, Soe Myat Thu, is getting a lot of work instead as an English-French-Burmese translator for all the foreign business people descending on Yangon.

But the theatre work does go on. We have had some great meetings with Thukhuma Khayethe about our co-production of Volpone, and we're learning more about the culture and seeing how it might manifest in the play, which is exciting. 

Next: swimming in the Water Festival.

...and a Happy New Year!

We're back! Coming back to New York has been like getting on a fast-moving train. We were immediately caught up in company activities not to mention the frenzy of the holiday season!

As we enter into the New Year things are looking quite promising for us here at Bond Street. Our planning trip to India was more enlightening then we anticipated. We met with several individuals and NGOs that are going to be fantastic resources and collaborators when we return in February. Everyone is very excited about our work and we expect a very positive response.

(PICTURE: children in a village outside Kolkata watched us work in an open theatre studio)

A partnership is also in the works with UNICEF to initiate a South Asian Social Theatre Institute (SASTI) at the Gandhi Center in Delhi. It will be a tremendous benefit to the field of social theatre and a great opportunity for us to share our knowledge and experience to make this program a reality.

(Picture : Ghandi Center performance pavillion, New Delhi)

We hope to design a full range of programming, and identify practitioners who will continue programs at the Center once we’ve returned to the US.

We will put together a team of 8 including a few of our Afghan partner and some new Indian artist as well. The initial phase of SASTI will involve direct collaboration with theatre artists and stakeholders, both in studio settings, at the Center, and in the field in conjunction with community programs. We hope the future of SASTI we include an expanded network of participants from other countries throughout South Asia including our some of our Afghan collaborators.

Our team will also work throughout Delhi to present performances and workshops with some of the following groups that have especially requested our assistance:

*Salaam Baalak Trust – to work with poor children living in the railroad station and to train and direct the young actors at their Center.
*Pravah – to help them develop their Theatre for Development program, and accompany their actors on some of their community work in Delhi and outside.
*Jagran NGO (Alanar) – to give workshops to their actors and perhaps join them on some of their work in the villages around Delhi.
*Jamia Millia Islamia University – to give guest lectures, presentations and workshops for their students in their new Development Communications program (part of the Mass Communications Department).
*God Graces School – to work with their teachers and students.

(PICTURE: Salaam Balak Trust youth theatre group performs play about abuse )

In addition to the work in Dehli, we will also be working in Kolkata and West Bengal with Banglanatak, a well-established social theatre organization. They have asked that we spend some time training the local theatre groups that they work with in the villages. Most of these groups follow very traditional performance techniques and we will have a great opportunity to learn from each other.

We are brimming with excitement here about the year to come. Keep checking the blog, throughout our trip, to hear the latest news from India. As always, we hope our family and friends, throughout the world, are enjoying a very happy new year!