End of the Year Letter from Global Arts Corps

“If you want to make peace with your enemy, then you have to work with your enemy, then he becomes your partner.” – Nelson Mandela

Dear Friends,

Like many around the world, we at Global Arts Corps mourn the loss of Nelson Mandela. His legacy has been and continues to be an inspiration to our work. His ideas prompted the question we first asked when we initiated Truth in Translation and still ask today: Can we forgive the past to survive the future?

It’s been our busiest year yet — covering 3 continents! As we near the end of 2013, Jackie and I are writing to you from Paris, where we’ve just screened our Truth in Translationdocumentary film at Le Laboratoire, the unique center for artistic experimentation and design at the frontiers of science. In November, we were invited for a similar screening to The Carter Center in Atlanta; followed by screenings in Kabul, New York and Soweto; and in Winnipeg, Canada to our Aboriginal and foundation partners in a new GAC project — “Reconciliation Rehearsed.”

These screenings followed September in Boston, where we work-shopped and premiered our new production from Northern Ireland/the North of Ireland, Hold Your Tongue, Hold Your Dead. In February we will gear up with members of our South African troupe for a second year of theatre training for the Phare circus youth in Batambang, Cambodia.

In all of these places, and more, our work testifies to the power of theatre as a transformative medium for education and social change. We have begun interdisciplinary collaborations with teachers and students from institutions of early to advanced education to complement the theatrical productions we “devise” with survivors of conflict. Our goal over the next five years is to solidify our role as a multi-lingual, multi-cultural theatre and film resource for conflict transformation and reconciliation; and as a thought (and practice) leader at the forefront of arts/science research into perceptual change for reconciliation.

To do so, we need your help, alongside that of our foundation partners across the globe. We’d like to invite you to become Co-partners of our Cambodia Project with Phare Ponleu Selpak (“the brightness of art”) — the Cambodian Arts School that provides circus and related arts training to orphans and destitute, impoverished children. This is a project that touches our hearts and where so little goes such a long way to heal and re-open communications between generations in this post-conflict society. In addition, the GAC collaboration will provide them with the acting skills to create a social theatre for circus, both for Cambodian and international touring.

Please take a look at our initial theatrical workshop with the young circus students and performers at Phare and witness their extraordinary potential in this short piece of film:

https://vimeo.com/62121947 (password: GAC)

The touring circus/theatre production is tentatively called “Landmines”. It will explore the legacy of the Khmer Rouge regime by examining the silence that lingers between generations. In Cambodia, as in many countries emerging from genocide, violence and conflict, communication between generations tends to be avoided. Out of feelings of shame, guilt and a desire to “move on”, Cambodia’s troublesome past has been swept under a rug of discarded memories and untold stories, resulting in an entire generation of young people who have little sense of identity and an overbearing sense of hopelessness and isolation.

The working title of the piece comes from the landmines that still litter the Cambodian landscape, waiting to detonate under the feet of unsuspecting passersby – an event that happens regularly. But in this production, we are focusing on the emotional, historical and inter-generational “landmines” and the psychological consequences of leaving them buried for the current and future generations.

A major European human rights foundation has pledged half of the budget needed to continue our work with Phare kids in Cambodia, in February, 2014. We still need to raise $40,000 from private donors to complete and film this workshop. We are asking for help to enable our work to continue in Cambodia. Those that help will be recognized as partners in the programs and on our website for the joint GAC/Phare production that is being created for touring in 2015.

If you wish to join us as co-partners in Cambodia, your generous tax-deductible donation will ensure that this production will be on track for completion in 2015; and will assist the youth of Cambodia in finding their own voices.

Please give as generously as you can. Donations can be made here.

A warm thanks to all of you for your continued support of our work. Amazingly, it’s been ten years since Jackie and I began this work with Truth in Translation. Many of you were with us very early on. It gives us great pleasure to let you know that our efforts are reaching a critical mass where real synergy is possible. We work in bleak environments…but we are evolving with a constantly growing group of enthusiastic performing artists who are committed to continuing this work across borders. For a more detailed summary of our activities over the past year and plans for 2014, please read our end of year update, here.

One of our challenges in keeping the momentum going on all of these important projects is finding the operating funds to support their development. As you know, most foundations provide program support. So we look to our friends and cause-related partners to supplement this with contributions that keep us working world-wide to teach, speak, screen, explore & develop new opportunities as we build new partnerships and map the future of the GAC. Any donations to this would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for being part of our success. All of us at Global Arts Corps wish you a very happy and prosperous new year.

Jacqueline and Michael Lessac