Protest and art: Workshop Players take their act to Galle Face
Art has been actively associated with the ongoing Aragalaya movement. Whether it is the painters and mixed-media artists displaying their installations or one hundred voices singing a song of revolution, there is no doubt that art, in all its forms, plays a part in bringing people together for a cause.
It was with this idea that The Workshop Players and the Artists of the People’s Movement held a theatre workshop last Sunday at the Galle Face protest site. Conducted by Jerome L. de Silva, this was the first in what will be a series of interactive workshops.
“We, as artists, have come together in order to take forward the message of the Aragalaya,” says Jerome, who founded The Workshop Players in 1992. “Why did it all begin? Why is it that the
oppressed people have come together as of 56 or 57 days ago? They’ve come together and are now speaking in one voice as a nation which has never happened in the entire history of this country.”
Gaining momentum with thousands peacefully protesting about the mismanagement of the country, “GotaGoGama” became the epicentre of the protest. However, the
unfortunate events of May 9 seem to have caused a drop in numbers, which Jerome felt needed some reviving “in a peaceful, nice way.”
The participants, ranging in age from 7 to 35, worked on basics like breathing techniques and rhythm, then tapped into their creative potential coming up with sound poems, stories, and drawings. “This first workshop is just a feeler as to what sort of talent we have here, or how much people want to discover because it’s a huge dramatic process,” explains Jerome.
The veteran director has conducted many similar workshops in the past in Jaffna, Batticaloa and Trincomalee during the height of the conflict. For the workshops at the protest site, he has devised a programme which echoes the current political climate and draws inspiration from renowned theatre practitioners like Augusto Boal who founded the Theatre of the Oppressed, Bertolt Brecht who developed and practised Epic Theatre, and Konstantin Stanislawski who devised a systematic method of training actors.
Jerome plans to include elements of choreography and how they vary for drama, musical theatre, singing and dancing, also character design, which is “designing for the character in a particular place. It’s not just doing research; it starts with the emotions and the purpose and the feeling of the character.
The majority of participants came by chance while making their way to the Aragalaya. “This is the first time I’m coming for something like this,” said Saddha Mangala Dissanayake, who had come from Kuliyapitiya. Zaahid Aman has previously been a part of The Workshop Players’ productions and was interested to experience something new – “the concept of doing this within this Aragalaya.”
In a heartening gesture ‘residents’ of the protest site, chipped in with coffee, bottles of water, and biscuits as refreshments.
Visit The Workshop Players’ Facebook page for additional
information. www.facebook.com/
theworkshopplayers/