“Darfur Plays” - Using Theatre To Build Bridges

Spotted on: Shadow and Act

A very inspiring documentary of a group of self-taught young actors in Dafur. They perform in the streets of their village and in the neighbouring refugee camp.

As someone from the 'West', Dafur is about war, human rights violation and ethnic cleansing. Dafur is chaos. It’s a place where Arabs are killing black people like sheep. It’s like a black planet without an ozone layer. So far my European view.

But in this documentary I saw artists who perform for their people, who spark the dialog and reach out to people who are perceived to be ‘the others’. So yes people also “live” there. They think about the future and make theatre plays. I saw artistic director Haythum Djalladien taking a cab in Darfur. (Small observation: the cab looked very new.)

There is still a war going on there! And it’s filthy. But it's also good to see change at work in Darfur.

Most interesting quote: Money runs out but ideas last.

Part 1


Part 2


2 Comments

  1. Interesting! Linked to that I'd like to talk about my own experience.
    last year I was in Goma, East Congo and stayed there 4 months. I still have family and friends living and working there. This is a place that comes in the news like Darfur. People can't even imagine you can have a life overthere.
    Today things are much calmer in Eastern Congo, it was different when I was there in the first half of 2008. But still, people make a living there, laugh, cry, eat, dance, ... like anywhere; there are taxi's, markets, shops, clubs, bars, restaurants, ...
    i tend to say that because of war and threats people laugh more and live more, than here in north west Europe. But war doesn't mean that people stop living their daily lives and manage to cope with the situation.
    Just wanted to live this little comment. thanks again

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  2. Sibo, thanks for sharing this. I have heard of the atrocities in Congo, and how the female backbone of the country is deliberately broken. On TV, as usual, you see the images you will remember for years. But now I know that in these war zones normal daily live also goes on, in spite of everything

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