The Necessity of Bearing Witness: political activism in theatre

Wakefield International Film Festival (WIFF) is pleased to announce an important and timely film presentation and discussion to take place this weekend. Dangerous Acts Starring the Unstable Elements of Belarus directed by Madeleine Sackler is a 2013 film which follows members of the Belarus Free Theatre in their efforts to subvert the oppressive dictatorship under which they live. Creating provocative theatre carries great personal and artistic risks, and in the case of this troupe, those risks are extreme: censorship, imprisonment and worse. Using footage smuggled out of the country, this film offers a front row seat to a resistance movement that unfolds both on the stage and in the streets. It screens at the WIFF this weekend, at 5pm March 1st and at 7:30pm March 2nd. At the 5pm show on Saturday, there will be a panel discussion after the screening of the film, with theatre artists committed to political theatre, together with an academic who has unique and extensive background in the repressive Belarusian regime and the democratic resistance movement in that country. Dr. Volha Isakava is the Russian Program Coordinator in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at the University of Ottawa. Originally from Belarus, she is an expert on popular culture and cinema of post-Soviet countries, including Belarus. Her family has played an active part in the Belarusian democratic movement, including her mother, a human rights defender and her father, a documentary filmmaker working for the opposition channel BelSat. Dr. Isakava herself actively participated in her parents' projects. Her current research concerns the role of social media and internet in resistance politics in post-Soviet countries. Arthur Milner is a well-known theatre artist in the Ottawa/Gatineau area. One of the cofounders of the Great Canadian Theatre Company, he has had a long career dedicated to political theatre. He was resident playwright at the GCTC from 1978 to 1991 and artistic director from 1991 to 1995. From 1993 to 1995, he was president of the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres. He has taught playwriting at Concordia University and has worked as a dramaturge for the Manitoba Association of Playwrights, the Banff Playwrights Colony and Playwrights Workshop Montreal. His articles on social, economic and arts issues have appeared in The Globe and Mail, and he is a regular columnist for Inroads, The Canadian Journal of Opinion. His most recent play, Facts, ran for a month in London, U.K., in March 2013, after touring Palestine and Israel, in Arabic translation, in late 2012. Robert Rooney is the artistic director of Wakefield International Film Festival and principal in the film production company Rooney Productions. He has also had a long career in theatre, including time spent as artistic director at Toronto Workshop Productions, Canada's first political theatre company. He has directed in theatres across Canada and the United States. Credits include political theatrical productions in Chile (Something in the Air, by Teatro ICTUS de Santiago) and Canada (The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs, featuring R. H. Thomson), Gone the Burning Sun, by Ken Mitchell, which toured the People's Republic of China, the US Premiere of Tête-à-tête, starring José Ferrer and Constance Cummings at the Berkshire Theatre Festival, and Night of the Iguana by Tennessee Williams for Perseverance Theatre, Juneau, Alaska. A regular member as a director/dramaturge of the Banff School of Fine Arts Playwrights' Colony in the 1980s, he notably also wrote and staged Mandela and the Children at Toronto's Skydome which went live to air on CBC, Newsworld, RDI and SRC in Canada and via satellite to SABC1 in South Africa. His most recent film is Precautionary Principle: the Nicole Bruinsma Story, which premiered in January. Tickets for the film (including the discussion following) are $10 and are available at www.wakefieldfilmfest.ca or at the door. The show is at 5pm on Saturday, March 1st at the Wakefield Centre, 38 Valley Drive, Wakefield, a 30-minute drive from downtown Ottawa. There is another screening of Dangerous Acts Starring the Unstable Elements of Belarus on Sunday, March 2nd at 7:30pm, but there will be no discussion after this second screening. For more information or to arrange an interview, please call Melanie Willis at 613.699.3745 or email artzenjammer@gmail.com.