Ruth Kanner Theatre Group | [email protected] | 
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Let Our Voices Be Heard!
Speech-Performances
To listen, to join in, to split up, to stand out, to assimilate, to shout, to laugh, to make room, to cut in, to be silenced –
Speech-Performances belong to an artistic field with social-civic aspects our group has been developing in the past few years. We have created special artistic techniques, interweaving solo speech and collaborative speech into theatrical Speech Choirs.
These performances are inspired by ancient traditions – the Greek dithyrambos, African-American rap in their various forms, Jewish traditions of hymns of praise, laments, bawls, pleas, complaints and protests giving voice to the individual and the community striving to influence and bring about a change in the local tale.
The goal of this project is to create a discussion space among different groups in Israeli society in order to provide a platform for voices that are not sufficiently heard in the main public discourse.
One of the main problems Israel is facing today is the increasing polarization in Israeli society and with it the inability to listen to one another and to engage in a complex critical discourse, which is essential to the existence of a healthy democratic society. We feel that various voices in society are weakened and not heard enough. We believe that the practice of listening and of making different voices heard is the best instrument human society can offer to recognize and include different narratives, dissolve objections and thus create a sense of closeness, formulation of common goals and creating a better social future.
Stage 1: Transforming the Voices of the Community to Performative Texts
During the first part of the program we will seek to find different voices and narratives in the community and transcribe them into words, whether it be through special community forums, the participants’ own personal experiences, dreams and stories, and interviewing ‘exercises’ they will take back to their community. We will perfect the ability to decipher patterns in everyday speech. We will discover rhymes, rhythms, images and poetic contexts that will form the basis for the Speech-Performance. We will learn to edit these raw materials while constructing textual rules from a performative orientation.
Stage 2: Developing the Speech-Performance
The program is based on techniques for performing text that we have perfected in our group: identifying and performing the text’s melodies, rhythms, accents, dynamics of intensities, tones, speech actions, changing perspectives, and individual and collective speech patterns that organize it. Part of the work will be devoted to the mechanisms of group speech: listening, balancing and shifting focus between the individual and the group, the ability to create a response to others by continuing, creating change, development, expansion or opposition.
Stage 3: Introducing the project to the community
During the final sessions we will edit and form the materials to a full Speech-Performance, presented to the immediate community of the participants. We will develop a unique dramaturgical concept for each Speech-Performance, in order to create an empowering personal experience for each participant, while allowing reflections, content and structures that have developed during the program, to permeate and influence the public community discourse.
The concluding performance will bring together different parts pf the community, making them feel empowered by listening to their own narratives validated and told publicly on stage, while hearing other unknown narratives on the same stage, forming a stronger sense of community.
Project creation: Ruth Kanner Theatre Group – A Local Tale
Artistic and pedagogical development: Yair Vardi, Ruth Kanner
Workshop instructors: Ronen Babluki, Shirley Gal, Adi Meirovich, Tali Kark
Production: Yair Vardi
Project manager: Shira Yovel
