Powerful documentary play on gender based violence staged

Lalit Gupta

Jammu, Dec 29: Providing platform for global and the local to speak to each other in eliminating gender based violence, a powerful documentary play, SEVEN, was staged by The American Center New Delhi in collaboration with Pandies Theater Group, Society for the Promotion of Youth and Masses, Yakjah Reconciliation and Development Network Kashmir with support of local theatre group Rangyug, at the auditorium of Government College for Women, Gandhi Nagar, here today.
Performed worldwide, the play based on interviews conducted in 2007, has been created by seven award-winning playwrights from Afghanistan, Cambodia, Guatemala, Nigeria, Northern Ireland, Pakistan and Russia, namely Paula Cizmar, Catherine Filloux, Gail Kriegel, Carol K. Mack, Ruth Margraff, Anna Deveare Smith and Susan Yankowitz, in collaboration with Vital Voices Global Partnership.
The seven stories in the play do not have fictional elements and imaginative fill-ups but based exclusively on real life events of seven women activists such as Hafsat Abiola, Nigeria, Farida Azizi, Afghanistan, Anabella de Leon, Guatemala, Inez McCormack, Northern Ireland, Mukhtar Mai, Pakistan, Mu Sochua, Cambodia and Marina Pisklakova-Parker, Russia. The revolutionary plays echoes loudly and raises awareness not only the physical violence but about all kinds of violence against women, is being performed in many countries.
Today’s presentation conceptualized and coordinated by Anuradha Marwah and directed by Sanjay Kumar, and part of the theatre project, See Something Say Something, was narrated /enacted by local alumni and fellows of The American Center including Deepak Kumar, Rangyug, Prof Meenakshi Kilam and Dr Kavita Suri-University of Jammu, Narmata Sharma, Ashima Kaul of Yakjah, Sajjad Husaain, Anuj Malhotra, advocate, and three actors of Pandies Theatre.
The performance a combination of first person account of life events of seven women activists by seven narrators and supported by dramatizations of some anecdotes by three actors, Diksha, Priya and Sanjukta helped in conveying to some extent the import of oppression faced by each of the seven women in their respective stations and situations and their resolve to stand against the tide.
The show was followed by a discussion in which members of the audience shared their views and reactions to the play and the pertinence of issues of in relation to gender based violence in local context.

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