Lessons Learnt on Reconciliation

Photograph courtesy Mind Adventures, by Deshan Tennekoon

TRACY HOLSINGER on 12/15/2016

After opening night of The Traveling Circus on the 26th of
November 2009, a small group remained behind long after the
show finished. They sat dotted around the small amphitheatre,
not speaking a word. Theatre practitioners, writers, political
activists, diplomats, NGO workers.

I felt very alone and very afraid as I walked out into the arena to
meet them.
Ive been asked a fair bit if I deliberately set out to make an antiwar play. The Circus has been the subject of dissertations and a
post-graduate thesis, been included in discourses on post-war
political theatre and set Mind Adventures on a journey of
discovery towards this seemingly impossible goal of
Reconciliation.
Was it intentional?
At the turn of 2009, I was simply frustrated. None of the plays I
had read came even close to articulating what was going on in Sri
Lanka. At the time, I was researching devised theatre and the
Northern Ireland peace process, and came across philosopher Paul
Ricouers theory of ethical memory: the notion that memory
shapes identity, and that a nation cannot move forward after
protracted conflict unless the experiences and stories of both
victors and victims are acknowledged by all. It challenges the arts
in particular to open up space for new dialogue and share diverse
narratives.
However, it was not until Groundviews got wind of the production
and sent a reporter to ask some difficult questions, that I was
actually forced to confront and rationalize what I was doing and
why.
I think every artist has what Augusto Boal calls the cop in the
head. That inner voice that screams (in my head, at least) Stop!
This is terrible! This is the worst thing you have ever made! Cease
and desist! Do not pass Go, do not collect 200, go straight to Jail!

So, this is what happens when a bunch of Colombos arty

thespians take it into their heads to draw recent events on an
allegorical map and shit all over it. Based on a short story by
someone who calls himself MASii, The Travelling
Circus by Mind Adventures is a cheap knockoff of Salman
Rushdie in his Haroun and the Sea of Stories phase
What follows is a ghastly wallowing in pseudo-intellectual pseudoempathy; an ostentatious indulgence in sententious frippery at
the expense of the very people it claims to speak for.
http://criticusapparatus.blogspot.com/2009/11/travelling-circus-ofpretension.html
I had knocked down the cop in my head to make the Circus. This
review one of the first, if not the first, published reactions to the
show revived her. I told you so, said the cop, rising up and
dusting herself off. I told you so! I went quite numb.
I didnt know what I had made. I didnt know what I had done. Had
I completely taken leave of my senses? Did I actually get it so
very very wrong? Did no one understand what I had tried to do? In
the days that followed, I was deeply mortified. Was I really the
pretentious charlatan described in that review? I didnt know what
to think. Then, this:
this is a production that will be invariably interpreted by those
closed off to any perspective other than their own as theatre
condoning the violence of the Other. The resulting diatribes will
attempt to name and shame the production and its actors as
those blind to, in particular, the causes for and conduct of war
jus in bello and jus ad bellum. Yet it is precisely here that, to
coin a phrase, these critics will lose the plot. Tracys play is about
a deep humanism that transcends violent factionalism, selfserving definitions of peace, pyrrhic victories and petty
justifications for violence.

https://sanjanah.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/a-review-of-thetravelling-circus/
This review from a virtual stranger, coupled with a message from
Prasanna Vithanage (also a stranger), brought me back from (to
quote The Princess Bride) the cliffs of insanity. In the wake of the
following overwhelmingly positive responses, I decided to
persevere with the show instead of killing it.
Back to opening night. Back to that few who stayed. Back to
when, heart in my mouth, I could only muster Well?
Slowly, the silence broke with quiet words ranging from its the
best thing Ive ever seen to its the best piece youve ever made
to I dont know. I dont know what youve made to Its too soon.
Its too fresh.
If you who havent seen it, heres a quick picture:
A post-modern fable, the Circus takes the spectator on a tour of
the recent past and potential future of those who have been
displaced by war, weaving a marvelous, tangled web of Island
folklore, Western pop culture, ancient and recent Sir Lankan
history, and striking visuals that mirrors the uneven patchwork of
a 21st world. This is irony with a razors edge
the Circus never allows its audience the comfort of falling into
the easy dream of a more traditional storyline. Rather the play
assaults the viewer with bizarre songs, dances, and placards, with
characters transforming into animals, forcing you to make sense
of the 30-plus-years of war that finds its proper metaphor through
a childs eyes
https://daytripper.wordpress.com/2009/12/17/the-daily-mirrorreview/
While the show was running, the government announced that the
gates of Manik (Manikkum) Farm would be opened and the IDPs
given a measure of freedom of movement. On December 1 st 2009,
the day after the show closed, The Guardian amongst others,

reported that 10,000 occupants were bussed out of the

compound.
It was too soon. It was too fresh. The Circus burlesque and mashups were just too shocking for some.
How does one deal with the trauma of a nation?
I suppose I began with what I knew. That irony and distance are
essential to social activism. The practice of disputing and
disrupting core messages dispersed by hegemonic authorities is
not new. We are all indebted to theories and tactics, artistic and
political, of the past in my case, Bertolt Brecht.

So I took a Sri Lankan story that I adore and set it upon a classic
Brechtian framework. Love or hate the play, it is out there. The
original story The Boy Who Speaks In Numbers by Mike
Masilamani was picked up after our tour to Chennai, went on to be
published by Tara Books, was given honourable mention for the
South Asian Book Awards this year and listed in the White Raven
catalogue for 2016.
For the Chennai show (2011) at the Metroplus Festival hosted
by The Hindu, we reworked the Circus, incorporating feedback
that we had received from the first run.
The work became a play within a play, with the refugee
characters frequently stopping the action to reflect on their
personal circumstances, which we constructed for each actor.
These stories and accounts were taken, almost completely
verbatim, from the Human Rights Watch Report (Sri Lanka) of
2009.
We staged it in Colombo before heading off to Chennai, and found
the changes well received. Chennais reaction was heartening:
I laughed some, I smiled some; but for the most part, there
was a lump in my throat. The message Nobody ever really wins
a war came through loud and clear. I loved that they chose to
tell such a politically charged history through the stories of
individual lives. The tragedy is uniform everywhere; it becomes
irrelevant which side youre on.
http://www.thehindu.com/features/friday-review/theatre/citizensreview-travelling-circus/article2379292.ece
Also in 2011, I was commissioned to create a play based on
reconciliation. On my blog I wrote:

I suppose the biggest stumbling block for me is that I dont

believe that we have even begun to understand the pragmatic
realities that accompany the full implications of that word. Yet, it
is on everyones lips. Reconciliation, along with reparations,
nation buildingits just so many words
Rondo deliberately had nothing to do with Sri Lanka. It was an
absurdist myth that investigated the impact of violence upon a
community by examining its collective memory.

Subha Wijesiriwardena as budding activist O in Rondo.

Photography: Deshan Tennekoon, 2011.
The late Sunila Abeysekera picked up on my reluctance in her
review:
And so, what about reconciliation? When the reality is too
complex and difficult to even attempt to represent itwhen the
silences and absences that surround you are too enormous to be
taken apart in a piece of theatre

I didnt know how to then. And I dont know that much more now.
Cultural Activism is a murky realm. It has become apparent that
Reconciliation means many things to the many actors in this field,
rarely finding inter-factional/disciplinary consensus on its
definition and interpretation.
As a company, Mind Adventures has found truth only in the idea
that ethical memory must be founded upon the sharing of diverse
stories.
How does one attempt to effect reconciliation? What have we
committed to? This is a heavy burden.
As an artistic collective, we have constantly tried to find solutions
to the questions,
How does one memorialize the trauma of a nation?
Who are we speaking to?
Who are we speaking for?
Within the discipline of theatre, we are encouraged to challenge
the status quo, to persevere towards the ultimate realization
that the right kind of theatre has the power to change minds and
change lives. Since 2009, we have created a range of stories,
presented in a variety of styles, which have examined the
concepts of conflict and tolerance, impunity and justice. We have
shared all these with our most immediate community.
What have we achieved? What have we learned?

Commenting on the importance of the collaboration of critical

theory with praxis in Cultural Activism: Practices, Dilemmas and
Possibilities (2010), editors Begm zden Frat and Aylin Kuryel
state:
The engagement of critical theories with activist practices opens
up a productive space where different epistemic coordinates of
the political stance(s) can be theorized. It is only through this
theorization that the limitations, dilemmas, and paradoxes of
these political practices, as well as their achievements and
possibilities can be illuminated.
Heres what I have learned.
Up until this year, I had been working on the assumption that a
general desire for reconciliation already existed. Now I understand
that the desire for reconciliation needs to be awakened.
This month I have had two vastly different, vastly illuminating
experiences: a two-day workshop on dance in conflict resolution
and a two-day conference on reconciliation with other artists,
activists and academics.
Both have helped me to comprehend and articulate my
experiences that have ranged from being highly rewarding to
completely disastrous. I am grateful for these lessons.
Lesson I
Choose the right partners Jonathan Hollander, Artistic Director,
Battery Dance Company
In May, I was extremely fortunate to make my Sinhala theatre
debut with the Janakaraliya troupe. The play we staged
was Kaerakena Keliya, the Sinhalese version of The

TravellingCircus. The current Janakaraliya ensemble core has been

working together for 7 years, are bi-lingual (some tri-lingual) and
their synergy is immediately apparent. What I valued and admired
the most was their habitual questioning of all aspects of the play
and their ability to take any theme and situation that arose and
apply them with focus and clarity to the larger questions of
conflict and tolerance in our country. These are the hardest
working artists/activists that I know of, with tried and tested
experience in reconciliation-based work and discussion. It was
truly a privilege.
Emboldened by this encounter, I agreed to another collaboration
based on reconciliation with a different, majority Sinhalese-only
speaking cast. This process did not go nearly so well. In the
following weeks, the company became, for me, a microcosm of
our country and within our interactions I began to see parallels
with issues that we face as a nation.
If a group of artists could not understand each other or reconcile
enough between themselves to create a short tri-lingual
performance, how much more convoluted the process for our
entire country.
The Art must not overtake the Activism. Thats the Dilemma.
When we allow this to happen, we undermine the tactics by which
we should achieve the true purpose of our work. Its difficult, very
difficult. At some point for an artist, the production aspect kicks in
and in looking at the aesthetics of imagery we may lose sight of
the bigger picture and inadvertently subvert the act of
disrupting. There is always that danger, no matter how
experienced one is or how well meant the driving intention is.

So in a milieu where a reviewer has recently credited one of my

theatrical peers with inventing or discovering already
established modes of social satire, we must become our own
strictest critics. Thus re-thinking and re-exploring creative
concepts is a healthy way of examining and grappling with the
sometimes confrontational relationship between theory and
practice, the artist and the activist.
As a company, Mind Adventures decided earlier this year to
pause, take stock and evaluate our individual and collective
motives.
Lesson 2
Spread some light Parakrama Niriella, Artistic Director,
Janakaraliya Drama and Theatre Institute
I came away from the two-day conference on reconciliation with
the knowledge that everyone is still tentative, figuring it out. This
is reassuring to know: that one is not struggling alone and that
this doubt and questioning is shared across the board.
From Professor Uyangoda, the proposition that the concept of
reconciliation does not historically exist in our culture, nor in our
vocabulary. Reflect on the history of this country. I found this
fascinating. From some, the proposition that reconciliation on the
whole has not been successful thus far. Others who reject the
term altogether. Some advocate not getting involved until invited.
Some say focus on the intra- not the inter-.
What stays with me?

Janakaraliyas Logananthan Rasiah (Loga) describing what

habitually displaced communities have experienced over 30 years
or more. A group of plantation Tamils, for example, by multiple
displacements, ending up in Vavuniya and then being forced into
the jungles beyond. People so used to gore that they have
become completely de-sensitized. They dont want to talk about
the war, he says. They want to feel, to experience a moment of
happiness.
What are we doing? Why are we doing it?
Do we/What do we share with the generations of people most
directly affected by our communal violence? What do they want
to see?
What stories shall we choose? How shall we choose to show
them?
Do we re-enact how our countrymen and women set fire to each
other and laid waste to our land? Who should see that and why?
Parakrama Niriella speaks softly. He seems very tired, and Loga
tells me they havent had a break since June. Janakaraliya cannot
afford the luxury of pause or philosophical speculation. We must
always persevere, says the leader of an organization that knows
more about the ground realities of conflict resolution than anyone
I know. All artists must come together, work together, and
together we must endeavor to spread some light for those who
have been through our darkest times.
For now, for us, thats something to go on.
Posted by Thavam