An overview of day one of the Drama for Life Conference
September 30, 2010 - The annual Drama for Life Conference, an inspiring collaboration between Wits School of Arts (WSOA), the University of Pretoria’s music therapy and drama departments, South African Association of Drama Therapists (SAAD) and the South African Network for Arts Therapies Organisations (SANATO), kicked off on August 26, 2010.
Day one of the three-day affair saw members of the public, foreign delegates, students, academics and art practitioners from all over Africa gathering at the Wits Main Theatre in Johannesburg.
This year’s conference built on the 2008 theme, which aimed to explore how Africa can heal itself through the arts. Africa Research Conference in Applied Drama and Theatre, the theme for 2010, offered further engagement with debate around arts activism, education and therapies, and how these can transform communities across Africa.
The conference featured 12 panel discussions, 24 workshops, and 6 keynote speakers, and delegates were taken on a tour of Constitution Hill by Justice Albie Sachs and treated to an array of performances and documentary pieces.
By encouraging the sharing of new ideas, skills and opportunities, conference organisers hoped to be part of building a healthier and more resilient society. Up to 150 participants attended the conference, where they gained insight into using art both to heal and as a tool for social mobilisation.
Day one’s theme was titled “Arts for Social Justice”, and the first discussion panel was facilitated by performer and musician Sibongile Khumalo. The key speakers on the panel were Kim Berman, associate professor in the visual arts at the University of Johannesburg, and Justice Albie Sachs.
Berman shared her extensive knowledge on how social behaviour and attitudes can be shifted through re-imaging approaches, using her HIV/AIDS-awareness programme, Paper Prayers, by way of example. Since its inception in 1998, Paper Prayers has developed into a nation-wide training facility that offers ways of responding to the impact of the HIV pandemic.
At Berman’s printmaking centre, the Artist Proof Studio, based in Newtown, individuals affected by the illness are taken through remedial therapy and encouraged to express their emotions through printmaking techniques. This art-based intervention offers not only a space for healing, but also a means to generate income for the infected and affected.
In 2000, Berman’s efforts extended into poverty alleviation through a national programme, Phumani Papers, which focuses on handmade paper and crafts from waste projects, yet another income-generating activity among the disadvantaged.
In her quest to facilitate social change through the use of her core skill, Berman is herself as example of the role that art can play in advancing transformation, for the individual as well as for society. Explaining her view on the role of the artist in society, she eschewed the notion that artists are meant to sit on the margins as mere observers and commentators. She said: “I am an artist, I am an educator, I am an activist”.
Justice Albie Sachs was introduced by documentary film, which showed him conducting a tour around Constitution Hill. The courts’ notorious past, its transformation, and the ethos behind its features were all explained through Sachs’ narration. The structure itself embodies the celebration of “human dignity, equality and freedom” for all South Africans, and this vision is translated right down to the texture, substance and fabric of the building.
“The court symbolises our need to find a way to live together in our country without locking each other up,” Sachs said.
Constitution Hill is where the South African Bill of Rights, which has been translated into all 11 official languages, is upheld and protected by the team of 11 judges – women and men who represent all races and creeds of South Africa. Emphasising that this structure was created in order to invite participation and involvement in the shaping of the nation from all South Africans, Sachs said: “We need people at the bottom of the base to be included in the development of our creativity. These are the people who make things that are the basis of their livelihood with such aesthetic quality.”
Sibongile Khumalo closed the first panel discussion with a reminder of the aims of the conference, and urged engagement in the development and advancement of the arts space.
The second panel discussion was started by art psychotherapist, Hayley Berman, who founded Lefika La Phodiso, a relief centre that offers various forms of therapy for trauma associated with racial, ethnic and gender violence, in 1994. She related her experience during the xenophobic outbreaks in Strydom Park in 2008, at which time she used community art counsellors as a means of intervention. She said: “The community art counsellors fill the gap in education, in that they increase the arts therapeutic reach in inaccessible areas.”
The psychosocial support which Berman’s foundation offers is dependent on active participation from both the victims and the counsellors, and driven by the belief that creative living is synonymous with healthy living.
Another key speaker who stood out in this segment was Zimbabwean-born theatre practitioner Owen Seda, who teaches English literature and theatre studies as part of the visual arts programme at the University of Botswana.
Seda presented a paper on the contradictions inherent in the use of popular theatre as a medium for healing. Focussing on “theatre in combat with violence”, he provided a critique of a popular theatre project on political violence and torture in Zimbabwe, questioning whether the strategies and methodologies relied upon really work in all instances. He posited that practitioners need to make the theatre space more dynamic, that it might better reflect people’s lives, invite active participation, and thereby better facilitate the healing process.
“Part of the problem is the focus on dialogue drama, whereas the culture is as much about dancing and singing too,” Seda said.
Overall, the first day of the conference highlighted for participants the importance of collaboration, between government, civil society, higher education and arts organisations, on efforts to eradicate the socio-political environments that lead to trauma.