Acting Together I: Performance and the Creative Transformation of Conflict - by Cynthia Cohen & Roberto Gutiérrez Varea & Polly O Walker (Paperback)

About the Book

"Volume 1: Resistance and reconciliation in regions of violence"-title page.

Book Synopsis

Courageous artists working in conflict regions describe exemplary peacebuilding performances and groundbreaking theory on performance for transformation of violence.

Acting Together: Performance and the Creative Transformation of Conflict is a two-volume work describing peacebuilding performances in regions beset by violence and internal conflicts. Volume I: Resistance and Reconciliation in Regions of Violence, emphasizes the role theatre and ritual play both in the midst and in the aftermath of direct violence, while Volume II: Building Just and Inclusive Communities, focuses on the transformative power of performance in regions fractured by "subtler" forms of structural violence and social exclusion.

Volume I: Resistance and Reconciliation in Regions of Violence focuses on the role theatre and ritual play both in the midst and in the aftermath of violence. The performances highlighted in this volume nourish and restore capacities for expression, communication, and transformative action, and creatively support communities in grappling with conflicting moral imperatives surrounding questions of justice, memory, resistance, and identity. The individual chapters, written by scholars, conflict resolution practitioners, and artists who work directly with the communities involved, offer vivid firsthand accounts and analyses of traditional and nontraditional performances in Serbia, Uganda, Sri Lanka, Palestine, Israel, Argentina, Peru, India, Cambodia, Australia, and the United States.

Complemented by a website of related materials, a documentary film, Acting Together on the World Stage, that features clips and interviews with the curators and artists, and a toolkit, or "Tools for Continuing the Conversation," that is included with the documentary as a second disc, this book will inform and inspire socially engaged artists, cultural workers, peacebuilding scholars and practitioners, human rights activists, students of peace and justice studies, and whoever wishes to better understand conflict and the power of art to bring about social change.

The Acting Together project is born of a collaboration between Theatre Without Borders and the Program in Peacebuilding and the Arts at the International Center for Ethics, Justice, and Public Life at Brandeis University. The two volumes are edited by Cynthia E. Cohen, director of the aforementioned program and a leading figure in creative approaches to coexistence and reconciliation; Roberto Gutierrez Varea, an award-winning director and associate professor at the University of San Francisco; and Polly O. Walker, director of Partners in Peace, an NGO based in Brisbane, Australia..

From the Back Cover

Acting Together places before us the human story unfolding. It invites us to penetrate through the mask to the source and the vibrating essence of voice on the journey to find our way back to humanity.
--John Paul Lederach, Professor of International Peacebuilding, University of Notre Dame

An invaluable resource for the community of practitioners, students, scholars, and activists who are interested in the role of the arts in overcoming the worst of contemporary violence, war, and disaster.
--James Thompson, Professor of Applied and Social Theatre, University of Manchester, England

Thanks to the courageous creativity of the theatre artists across the world who have been willing to share their practice, we in Northern Ireland have new tools to help us excavate our truths and our troubled pasts, to speak to them and to dare to envision a future where our broken world will be healed.
--Pauline Ross, Artistic Director, Derry Playhouse, Northern Ireland

This book opens even narrowly focused minds to understanding how our global capacity to dream, touch, dance, and feel is a power source, one able to move people from what they know to what they can know, from what they have been told or forced to be to what they can become.
--Dee L. Aker, Deputy Director, Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice, University of San Diego

This publication is long overdue and will serve theatre students, directors, foundations, community-based theatres, and artist-based theatres as a much-needed guide to the complex, multilayered world of intercultural performance and conflict resolution.
--Frank Hentschker, Executive Director, Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, The CUNY Graduate Center

A significant addition to an emerging field of expertise--performance and conflict. It is difficult not to be inspired by the sheer diversity and versatility of the practices explored.
--Michael Balfour, Chair in Applied and Social Theatre, Griffith University, Queensland, Australia

Acting Together will shift perspectives and change lives. It could transform the trajectory of human conflicts.
--Dr. Michelle LeBaron, University of British Columbia School of Law, Canada

Acting Together volumes I and II and the feature-length documentary film, Acting Together on the World Stage, are projects of Peacebuilding and the Arts, a program of the International Center for Ethics, Justice, and Public Life at Brandeis University, in collaboration with Theatre Without Borders.

Review Quotes

"Acting Together places before us the human story unfolding. It invites us to penetrate through the mask to the source and the vibrating essence of voice on the journey to find our way back to humanity."--John Paul Lederach, Professor of International Peacebuilding, University of Notre Dame

"Acting Together will shift perspectives and change lives. It could transform the trajectory of human conflicts."--Dr. Michelle LeBaron, University of British Columbia School of Law, Canada

"A significant addition to an emerging field of expertise―performance and conflict. It is difficult not to be inspired by the sheer diversity and versatility of the practices explored."--Michael Balfour, Chair in Applied and Social Theatre, Griffith University, Queensland, Australia

"An invaluable resource for the community of practitioners, students, scholars, and activists who are interested in the role of the arts in overcoming the worst of contemporary violence, war, and disaster."--James Thompson, Professor of Applied and Social Theatre, University of Manchester

"For the first time, the anthology and the Acting Together project provide a platform for peace-building artists to connect and to reflect on their work together with other scholars and practitioners. That in itself is already a significant achievement of the editors and curators of this complex and fascinating collection."--Serge Loode, Applied Theatre Research

"Thanks to the vision and the courageous creativity of the theatre artists across the world who have been willing to share their practice, we in Northern Ireland have new tools to help us excavate our truths and our troubled pasts, to speak to them and to dare to envision a future where our broken world will be healed."--Pauline Ross, Artistic Director, Derry Playhouse, Northern Ireland

"This publication is long overdue and will serve theatre students, directors, foundations, community-based theatres, and artist-based theatres as a much-needed guide to the complex, multilayered world of intercultural performance and conflict resolution."--Frank Hentschker, Executive Director, Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, The CUNY Graduate Center