Article Prins Claus Fund

Article Prince Claus Fund

Breaking the Silence

On April 8 2012, one day after the official commemoration ceremony of the genocide in Rwanda, a bilingual, bicultural version of the performance 'Breaking the Silence' started its tour through Rwanda in Ishyo Art Centre in Kigali.

The play - written and directed by Dutch director Annemarie Prins in 2009 and produced by Amrita Performing Arts in Phnom Penh – shows the effects of a genocide on the daily life in nowadays Cambodia. The new version, now in process, aims to reach a vast Rwandese audience and will be performed by a mixed cast of Cambodian and Rwandese actors.

Breaking the Silence in Cambodia
In Cambodia the Pol Pot era is still an open wound, but also a silenced period.On stage: four actors who were at the age of ten when the Khmer Rouge hunted their families out of Phnom Penh and three representatives of the next generation: a singer, a musician, a dancer.

'Breaking the Silence' has made two tours on a mobile stage through the provinces of Cambodia, reaching thousands of farmers and villagers. Performances in big cities and on international stages like The Esplanade in Singapore, have been welcomed by enthousiastic reviews in the International Herald Tribune amongst others.In 2010 the play was adapted into an audio play, which has been broadcast by numerous radio stations in Cambodia and Voice of America.

Breaking the Silence in Rwanda
Radio La Benevolencija HTF, an NGO which uses radio soaps, television debate programs and theatre to teach the populations of the African Great Lakes (Rwanda, Burundi en Congo) how to resist incitement to mass violence is coproducing and hosting 'Breaking the Silence' in Rwanda.

Two Rwandese actors will be on stage to bridge the language- and information gap between performance and audience in the local language, Kinyarwanda. Despite the enormous differences in duration and type of genocide in Rwanda and Cambodia, the effects are similar.Just to name some: feelings of 'survivors guilt', of loneliness, shame and isolation.

'Breaking the Silence' will be performed indoors in three cities in Rwanda. The huge network of grass root groups of Radio La Benevolencija will guarantee the performance will also reach the villagers.Like in Cambodia, each performance will be followed by an open discussion with the audience. Rwanda TV will record and broadcast the performance.

Breaking the Silence in Rwanda is supported by Prince Claus Fund, Open Society Foundation, Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Kigali, Goethe-Institut and private sponsors.