Abstract
For a long time, theatre has served as a platform for promoting human rights. Drawing on a case study of Dah Theatre Company from Belgrade, this chapter analyses the use of performance in the transitional justice processes, which followed the disintegration of Yugoslavia. The chapter argues that in post-conflict and post-transitional Serbia, survivors of wars are often ignored or marginalized by the government in their struggle to restore peace and achieve justice for the past wrongdoings. By creating and enacting narratives of war crimes and collective responsibility, Dah Theatre gives public voice to survivors of mass human rights violations—in particular to women. The theatre and its members employ performance as a strategy for truth-seeking, resistance and intervention, while actively promoting social and symbolic reparation—a process that is much needed but overlooked by the Serbian state.
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Notes
- 1.
Dubravka Knežević, ‘Do poslednjeg daha’, Scena no. 5/6, Sept/Dec 1995.
- 2.
Bertolt Brecht, ‘When leaders speak of peace’ in Selected Poems (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1975), 133.
- 3.
Personal interview, Dijana Milošević, Belgrade, Serbia, 12 December 2011.
- 4.
Dah has four women and one man in its troupe.
- 5.
Members of the Revenges (Osvetnici) military unit, commanded by Milan Lukić, with logistical support from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, were responsible for the abductions and then murder of nineteen men on the Bosnian territory. Although Lukić was sentenced to twenty years of imprisonment by ICTY, his indictment did not include the massacre of nineteen men. Women in Black state that this situation exposes the limits of ICTY. Only one person has been charged and accused for this crime, see Dušan Komarčević, Kreatori zločina i dalje na slobodi, E-novine, 27 February 2012, available at, http://www.e-novine.com/drustvo/59890-Kreatori-zloina-dalje-slobodi.html (accessed 1 February 2013).
- 6.
Jill Dolan, The Feminist Spectator as Critic (Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1991), 2.
- 7.
We would like to emphasize that both authors became aware of their ethnic origins in the beginning of the 1990s with the dissolution of Yugoslavia. As many Yugoslavs, we were raised in communist families where ethnicity was not discussed or in any way celebrated.
- 8.
Grupo Cultural Yuyachkani is an activist theatre group, performing in reaction to, and in defiance of politics in Peru. The group has been established in 1971. See, http://hemisphericinstitute.org/cuaderno/yuyachkani/group.html.
- 9.
While Dah has not documented these stories so far, its members are reflecting on how they could do so in the future, but do not yet have a clear strategy regarding this material at the moment.
- 10.
Bertolt Brecht, ‘Motto to the 'Svendborg Poems’ [Motto der 'Svendborger Gedichte] (1938).
- 11.
The ‘Off Frame Festival’ has brought together organizations and authors who focus their work on socially engaged theatre in Serbia and the region. The festival aimed to create a space for discussions about life in post-conflict environments. ‘Off Frame Festival’, December 4–10, 2011, www.off-frame.org.
- 12.
The Festival is held from 27–30 May 2013 in Oda Theater, Pristina, Kosovo.
- 13.
Dah Theatre, the line from The Story of Tea. Full transcript of the play on file with authors.
- 14.
Svetlana Logar and Srdjan Bogosavljević, Vidjenje istine u Srbiji, Rec 62(8) 15 (2001), available at http://www.b92.net/casopis_rec/62.8/pdf/005-034.pdf (accessed 12 January 2013).
- 15.
Ibid. at 32.
- 16.
Jelena Obradović-Wochnik, Strategies of Denial: Resistance to ICTY Cooperation in Serbia, in War Crimes, Conditionality and EU Integration in the Western Balkans 29, 34 (Judy Batt & Jelena Obradović-Wochnik eds., 2009), available at http://www.iss.europa.eu/uploads/media/cp116.pdf (last visited March 1, 2013).
- 17.
David Duggan, a playwright. The text is a part of his play ‘AH 6905’. Reproduced with permission of Dah Theatre.
Bibliography
Brecht, Berlot. 1975. ‘When leaders speak of peace’ in Selected Poems. New York: Harcourt Brace.
Brecht, Bertolt. 1938. ‘Motto to the ‘Svendborg Poems’ [Motto der ‘Svendborger Gedichte].
Duggan, David. 2005. Play ‘AH 6905’.
Dolan, Jill. 1991. The feminist spectator as critic. Michigan: University of Michigan Press.
Knežević, Dubravka. 1995. ‘Do poslednjeg daha’, Scena no. 5/6, Sept/Dec 1995.
Komarčević, Dušan. 2012. Kreatori zločina i dalje na slobodi, E-novine, 27 February 2012. Available at, http://www.e-novine.com/drustvo/59890-Kreatori-zloina-dalje-slobodi.html.
Obradović-Wochnik, Jelena. 2009. Strategies of Denial: Resistance to ICTY Cooperation in Serbia. In War crimes, conditionality and EU integration in the Western Balkans, eds Judy Batt and Jelena Obradović-Wochnik, 29, 34. Available at http://www.iss.europa.eu/uploads/media/cp116.pdf.
Logar, Svetlana and Srdjan Bogosavljević. 2001. Vidjenje istine u Srbiji, Rec 62(8):15. Available at http://www.b92.net/casopis_rec/62.8/pdf/005-034.pdf.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Associate Professor Peter Rush for his helpful suggestions and valuable comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
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Simić, O., Milošević, D. (2014). Enacting Justice: The Role of Dah Theatre Company in Transitional Justice Processes in Serbia and Beyond. In: Rush, P., Simić, O. (eds) The Arts of Transitional Justice. Springer Series in Transitional Justice, vol 6. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8385-4_6
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