Laura Edmondson

Marketing Trauma and the Theatre of War in Northern Uganda

This essay explores the ways in which theatre and performance are used to market trauma and humanitarianism in northern Uganda, where a civil war has been waging between the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) and the Ugandan government since the late 1980s. Specifically, the article focuses on the dynamics of performance in a rehabilitation center for former child soldiers sponsored by World Vision. I draw upon my observations and personal experiences at the center to suggest that drama is valued primarily as a marketing tool to reach international and national audiences. In addressing specific variations upon the narrative of war, however, I find that theoretical frameworks of globalization and marketing do not satisfactorily explain the fierce investment in a linear story and the trappings of realism. The final section argues that former LRA captives use indigenous dances to carve out a space in which cultural memory and globalization intersect.

National Erotica: The Politics of "Traditional" Dance in Tanzania

In Tanzania, a tension exists between the persistence of the primi-tive and erotic stereotype of African performance and the emergent means of representing culture and gender on the dance stage. This tension leads to a complex process of inventing, counterinventing, and reinventing tradition.

Of Sugarcoating and Hope

Theatre and performance scholars in the U.S. are an optimistic bunch. We are fond of concluding our analyses with a happy ending, in which we celebrate, or at least comment upon, humanity’s capacity to create despite the various forces of oppression/exploitation/terror in which that particular group of humanity is caught. Even when we focus upon particularly formidable structures of domination, we can usually discern ruptures and slippages in which marginalized voices and alternative agendas are at least momentarily articulated. Although we have learned to be more nuanced in our theorization of resistance through a greater understanding of how margins and centers are interdependent, we still cherish those powerful moments of performance in which the margins triumph and the centers are destabilized. Inspired by these glimpses that we have been privileged to witness, we write passionately and persuasively about hope. We imagine alternatives with a vengeance.

Genocide Unbound: Erik Ehn, Rwanda, and an Aesthetics of Discomfort

Among the mounting pile of plays that address the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, Erik Ehn’s play Maria Kizito stands out for its systematic dismantling of boundaries between nightmare and reality, poetry and fact, the quotidian and the extreme. Although the play itself has received only one production to date, this essay positions the text of Maria Kizito within a larger metatext that Ehn is scripting through a series of cultural exchanges and conferences devoted to examining the genocide and post-genocide efforts at reconciliation. The essay suggests that the play’s unique discourse of violence provides a roadmap through the charged landscape of post-1994 Rwanda, in which the determination of context can be a deeply political act.

Confessions of a Failed Theatre Activist: Intercultural Encounters in Uganda and Rwanda

In the summer of 2004, I traveled to the town of Gulu in northern Uganda, proudly bearing an invitation to facilitate theatre workshops at a rehabilitation center for former child soldiers. These children had been kidnapped by the notorious Lord’s Resistance Army, which terrorized the region in the longest civil war in the history of subSaharan Africa. In the heart of this warzone, I met another U.S. theatre artist, as eager as I was to contribute her skills. She had arranged for private workshops at another rehabilitation center in Gulu, which she invited me to observe. She led a group of fifteen teenage girls in a series of theatre exercises, working with them to use their body as a tool of expression. She was wearing a loose, flowing skirt, and, as she demonstrated the movements, all of us caught glimpses of her underwear. As members of a culture in which modest dress is a social norm, the girls giggled and whispered among themselves. These outbursts continued despite the obvious annoyance of the facilitator, who repeatedly requested their undivided attention. Although I’m fairly certain that the residents of Gulu did not see my underwear, the image of white woman as ludicrous spectacle haunted my own attempts to practice activist theatre.

Tanzanian Theatre and the Mapping of Home

Tanzanian popular theatre consists of a dizzying variety of ‘traditional’ dances, plays, acrobatics, and musical acts that freely borrow from traditions across the globe. In a stark contrast to the fluidity of these performances, however, the plays maintain a rigid division between representations of the urban city and rural home. This demarcation operates along the gendered lines described by Anne McClintock, in which the village is coded as the feminized model of tradition in contrast to the ‘male’, modern world of the city, leading to stereotypical roles of the innocent rural girl and the lustful urban woman. At the same time, the participatory, improvisational quality of popular performance clears a space for the ‘unnatural’ urban women in the audience to resist these stereotypes. Also, the theatre troupe Muungano creates plays which challenge essentialist constructions of the primordial ‘home’, allowing complex interactions of geography and gender to be revealed and explored.