Feature ~ Blog

I am floating in the ocean - not a cloud in the sky, the sun blazing.  I turn to another playwright splashing into the water near me.  “I’m trying to figure out how this is part of my professional development,” I say with a laugh.

Touch down, Winnipeg.  –30∞C and knee-deep snow.  Back home from the other side of the world. Where I had been, was, exactly as it sounds – a world away from here.  I traveled over 30 hours (not counting 5 stopovers!) to the Women Playwrights International conference in Jakarta and Bali having fully prepared myself for the culture shock: the 13 hour time difference, the language, the food and the climate of Indonesia.  I knew all these things would be very different from my life on the Canadian prairie.  Being a self-diagnosed homebody, as the date of my departure drew near, I began to wonder how I’d gotten myself into this mess.  As I wrote the speech I would deliver as a panelist for the conference, I really began to question myself.  Who did I think I was, thinking I could get up in front of a global audience of theatre artists?  What do I know?

What do I know?  Apparently quite a lot.

On my arrival at the Indonesian National Gallery I had prepared myself for such stark contrast, such absolute foreignness.  What really surprised me, as I met face to face with women theatre artists from around the world, was our absolute sameness as artists and as people.  Being storytellers by nature, all of us attending the conference wanted so deeply to hear each other’s stories - wanted to welcome each other and share.  What do I know?  I know that like every artist I met, my art is my community.  After shaking off the jet lag, I came to see was that I was home, and my peers surrounded me.  The complex act of mirroring life through our art drew us all like moths to the flame.  Here we were, from every corner of the globe, and we were all mucking around with words and the stage, saying, “this is me.  This is me.  Are you out there?” 

It was reassuring to know we all want the same things: the freedom to create, the financial means to do so, and the support of our communities.  Yet it was disturbing to meet face to face with those who did have these basic needs met.  During one panel discussion, two playwrights humbly commented that they had both been to jail for their art.  One artist - who planned to present a speech critical of her government’s treatment of artists in her home country - decided against speaking at all when a government official appeared.  Another delegate spoke of a theatre festival in her country and the victory of having it shut down by the government on the third day rather than the first. As the days of the conference passed, my humility grew.  I have this huge gift – the freedom to write whatever I want.  The urgency I fell now to use this liberty, to hold it in both hands and never take it for granted again has been embroidered on my soul. 

On our final evening, under the night sky, we all gathered one last time.  “Will we be okay?  Will her play be censored?  Will she write at all with poverty all around her?”

Then all of us took to the stage to perform a Kecak dance.  The dance was a mix of chanting, dancing and martial arts that we had learned in workshop the day before.  At a certain point, dancers get up in pairs in the centre of the circle, and dance-fight each other - the “loser” tumbling to the ground, cursed out by the other dancers.  Pair after pair of delegates got up to “fight” and a pattern emerged: no one would fall to the ground in defeat, no one would surrender.  Each of the “fights” ended amicably, sometimes a draw, sometimes with hugs even.  It was as if to say “we may struggle, but we will not be knocked down.”

I’m home now, and the snow is gone.  I have a voice, and I have nothing stopping me.  I will not be knocked down.

Melanie Brouzes is a budding playwright and Drama Resource Coordinator, Manitoba Theatre for Young People.