FALL 2012
Mashirika Performing Arts and Media Company from Kigali, Rwanda, visited the School in September for a three-day event.
Performers Spread Healing Abroad with Africa’s Hope Tackling tough issues early on in the fall semester, the School of Dramatic Arts explored the topic of arts and genocide with a three-day event that featured guest artists from an African performing arts troupe. Comprised of Rwandan artists, actors, musicians and dancers, the group known as Mashirika Performing Arts and Media Company was invited to USC to share their artistic talents, as well as their firsthand experience as young people combating a stained history of genocide and how they have found healing through their work. “With theatre, it helps you heal because you understand that you can overcome things,” explained Mashirika performer Angel Kabanguka Uwamahoro. The company’s visit from September 19 to 21 exemplified what the School teaches through its Applied Theatre Arts program – the theory and practice of applying theatre skills as supplemental tools for therapists, cultural field workers and activists. The long-anticipated event, organized by the School and presented by USC Visions and Voices: The Arts and Humanities Initiative, opened in Bovard Auditorium with the first American performance of Africa’s Hope: A Story of Survival and Hope – a powerful piece that recounts the narratives of Rwandan genocide survivors and shares the hopes of the country after decades of trauma. “Mashirika’s vision, as told through Africa’s Hope, desires to create a new world where the voices of the dead are revived again through the poetry of meaning, movement, dance and song,” said Director of Applied Theatre Arts Brent Blair, who spearheaded the idea of inviting Mashirika to USC for their first visit to the United States. “This is what is so compelling about bringing Africa’s Hope to urban L.A. This play explores multiple accounts of genocide from many different cultural experiences, and gives them poetic voice through a chorus representing Rwandans who are either ghosts or survivors,” he added. continued on PAGE 5