Lecture reflects on the horrors of Rwandan genocide
Posted on 14. Apr, 2010 by JoanaDraghici in News
Maggie Cameron
Senior Reporter
Humber marked the 16th anniversary of the 1994 Rwandan genocide by having Canadian theatre director Jennifer Capraru speak as part of the Robert Gordon lecture series on April 7.
Capraru began her speech not by talking, but by asking everyone to take a minute of silence to remember the victims and survivors of the Rwandan genocide.
Faculty, students and Capraru fell silent recalling over 800,000 Tutsi people killed by their Hutu neighbours in what has been called a tribal bloodbath that lasted 100 days in 1994, between April 7 and July 4.
Capraru described how “hand to hand combat put brothers against brothers, and husbands against wives.”
Though it has been 16 years since the genocide, Capraru hasn’t forgotten. She recently directed The Monument, a play written by Canadian Colleen Wagner, which relives parts of the genocide. Capraru’s actors and audience are the very survivors and perpetrators from both sides of the massacre.
The Monument has been seen and heard in over seven languages all over the world, but it was Capraru who chose to bring the play to the community centres, churches, hotel lobbies and grassy hills of Rwanda, through Rwandan theatre company, Isoko, which she founded in 2008.
“I was so concerned with upsetting people with this play, but my Rwandan colleagues and friends encouraged me to do it,” said Capraru.
“The audience is invited to connect back to the time of trauma, witnessed as a communal ritual. The work in Rwanda will, I hope, through revisiting trauma, help build an audience for contemporary theatre which fosters social cohesion and hope,” she said.
Capraru said theatre has been a catalyst for transformation for centuries and is said to provoke catharsis.
Art therapist and theatre performance faculty member, Catherine Marrion agrees. “The idea of catharsis through attending theatre is ancient; it goes back to ritual theatre for healing purposes and Aristotle in his Poetics talks about tragedy as a cathartic experience.
Marrion said theatre has been a rising movement in developing nations and among marginalized people everywhere.
“It can deal with major political and social issues, in a way which is slightly distanced as it is being enacted for an audience which gets to experience it vicariously,” she said.
Capraru said the reaction from her audience members was varied and amazing to witness.
“Some people felt uncomfortable. Some sat there silently with tears running down their faces. Some people laughed at really sad moments,” she said.
Humber counselor Svetlana Loliva said experiencing the re-enactment or dramatization of a traumatic event allows people to re-visit extreme feelings.
“Once re-experienced, it begins to unfold, evolve, shift, and no longer remains the same,” said Loliva.
She said theatre creates the healthy opportunity to share something with others.
“Then one is not utterly alone with the horror. We are not solitary beings, and do not have to carry things alone,” she said.
First-year creative advertising student Noella Eze asked whether or not forgiveness is possible for the people of Rwanda. She said in her home country, Nigeria, the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people in 1966 left many Nigerians full of hatred and incapable of forgiveness.
“You can only really answer that question for yourselves,” said Capraru. “What if these things had happened to you?”
Capraru said the Rwandan government is engaged in non-stop efforts to mend the country and there are general policies of reconciliation and unity within all branches of the government.
Despite its history, Capraru said Rwanda is now very safe and beautiful.
“It has this feeling of paradise. It’s the land of eternal spring, it’s incredible. It’s like the devil came down to mock god in that paradise by bringing genocide,” she said.
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