A catalyst for dialogue and healing is 91��ɫ film Professor Colleen Wagner’s Governor General’s Award-winning play . This electrifying drama was the inaugural production of Rwanda’s ISÔKO Theatre in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide (see YFile, June 27, 2008).

Left: �����ٰ��������Jacqueline Umubyeyi, as Mejra in Colleen Wagner's The Monument. Photo by Nick Zajicek.

Translated into the local Kinyarwanda dialect and directed by , a former student in 91��ɫ’s Graduate Program in Theatre and the founding artistic director of ISÔKO, the play premiered in Kigali and toured throughout Rwanda. Harbourfront Centre’s presents the North American premiere of ISÔKO’s production (with English surtitles) at 91��ɫ Quay Centre in Toronto April 27 to May 1.

Intimately staged and accompanied by song and African drumming, The Monument tells the story of a young soldier who has been convicted of war crimes committed during a genocide. Just as he is about to be executed, a mysterious woman who is both his saviour and tormentor offers him freedom − at a price. Billed as a “profound excavation into the nature of forgiveness”, this highly physical and imagistic production paints a contemporary portrait of a country whose resilient voice continues to be a beacon of hope and reconciliation.

Shortly before The Monument opens at Harbourfront, a second play penned by Wagner – this one a very topical, made-in-the-moment riff on Canadian politics – hits another Toronto stage. Wrecking Ball 12: Are You Dying to Vote? swings into the electoral debate tonight at Toronto’s Theatre Centre – exactly one week before Canadians head to the polls.

is a fast and furious compendium of short works of political theatre. Playwrights hand over scripts to the directors and performers for rehearsal a mere week before the show, which is performed for one night only – usually to a fully-packed house. Founded in Toronto in 2004, The Wrecking Ball went national in 2008 when it was adopted in cities coast to coast.

Wagner is one of six writers contributing works “both strategically and from their hearts” to the current Toronto edition. The details of her piece have not yet been announced, but if The Wrecking Ball’s track record is any indication, it will be a part of a theatrical romp long remembered.

Showtime is 8pm. The Theatre Centre is located at 1087 Queen St. West at Dovercourt. Tickets are pay-what-you-can at the door.

Another catalyst for political dialogue is the latest work by 91��ɫ theatre professor and playwright Judith Rudakoff, which opened in Whitehorse on April 21. The River offers a vivid, poetic and unflinching glimpse into the intersecting lives of marginalized people in the community where it was created. Directed by Rudakoff’s colleague, Professor Michael Greyeyes, the production runs to May 1 at the Yukon Arts Centre Studio theatre.

Above: A map of Whitehorse drawn by Joseph Fish Tisiga, for the "Ashley Cycle" that inspired The River

The River was born out of Rudakoff’s ongoing -supported project Common Plants: Cross Pollinations in Hybrid Reality. In 2008, Rudakoff visited Whitehorse twice to lead her "Ashley Plays" workshop, in which participants collectively devise a cycle of short, site-specific performances that share a character named Ashley and a common theme – in this case, the theme of "home".

The material developed in those workshops was so compelling that the collaboration continued into subsequent years. Rudakoff worked with local artist Joseph Tisiga and David Skelton, artistic director of Whitehorse’s , a professional company dedicated to the development of live theatre relevant to northern audience to write the play. Nakai is producing it in partnership with the Yukon Anti-Poverty Coalition (YAPC).

The three artists drew inspiration for The River from both the extreme natural beauty of the Yukon and the ugliness that beauty can mask. Episodic and non-linear, the narrative is told by members of the largely untraceable "ghost population" of Whitehorse: a derelict vagrant, a missing high-school girl, a Tilley hat-wearing tourist, a transient worker and even an alien abductee. These disparate voices take the audience on an unbridled journey through a world of longing and belonging that is both real and imagined.

The production aims to promote conversation and action in the community. YAPC is actively inviting and offering free tickets to individuals who might never otherwise attend a production at the Yukon Arts Centre, as well as arranging a special invitational matinee performance at the local Salvation Army shelter. At the end of the run, YAPC and Nakai are co-hosting a community conversation to discuss the issues brought up in the play.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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91��ɫ film Professor Colleen Wagner’s current project, “Theatre of the Wounded”, places women at the centre of heroic myths, a space they have not traditionally occupied. Wagner's creative undertaking, which is funded by the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada, seeks to give women and girls a new role and voice, something that no longer characterizes them as diminished or victimized.

Right: Colleen Wagner

Often typecast as temptresses, stoic wives or the spoils of war, women have been overshadowed in myths by the male protagonist. Wagner's project, which includes the writing of a play, the film documentation of the research process and the preservation of oral traditions, will be developed in post-genocide Rwanda and post-apartheid, AIDS-plagued South Africa.

Wagner says she is interested in “how trauma and atrocity impacts upon the ways that women in particular come to understand their affiliations and notions of community, responsibility and citizenship and how these might give shape to a new female-centred mythology.”

She considers post-genocide Rwanda a site where women’s roles are changing, since their traditional ones are no longer sustainable in the post-traumatic climate. Wagner says that Rwanda offers an ideal setting for an exploration into how these changes may inform a new female-centred mythology.

Her multi-faceted and collaborative project will bring together artists, women’s organizations, the local community and other professionals. During the first phase of the project, Wagner will travel to Rwanda and South Africa to lead workshops with women’s organizations, students, teachers and artists. With the help of a cinematographer, she will capture the process and make it available as a documentary. She will also be travelling to various memorial sites, prisons and throughout the countryside to record traditional oral myths. This essential component of her project, she says, will ensure that the oral stories and discussions can be made available as archival records that will be submitted to various libraries and universities in both Canada and South Africa. Following the completion of this research, Wagner will mount an initial sketch in Rwanda, Cape Town and Johannesburg of a play that will bring her research and oral traditions together.

The final play will be performed in Toronto, Rwanda, South Africa and as a 91��ɫ student theatre production. Though the play itself will be a fictional narrative, Wagner places great importance on the research potion of the project “in order to let the women’s voices speak to their particular environment…and give the play a base in reality.”

The stories portrayed in the play will rise out of the actual experiences of women who survived horrific political events, coped with troubled realities and went on to rebuild their lives and the lives of their families. For Wagner, “A new female-centred myth, is timely” in light of the ongoing bloody civil wars, genocides and rapes.

Wagner is a professional playwright, film script and short fiction writer. Her first stage play, Sand, was shortlisted for best international play at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, England, in 1989. She won the 1996 Governor General's Literary Award for Drama for her play The Monument, which was also nominated for a Dora Award. The Monument has been translated into French, German, Romanian and Mandarin, and has been produced across North America and in Australia, Europe and Beijing – the first commercial production of a Canadian play to be produced in China. In 2006, The Monument became the first production by a non-black writer to be presented by Toronto's Obsidian Theatre Company.

Wagner's other stage credits include Eclipsed and The Morning Bird, which premiered at the in Fredericton, NB in 2005. Her other current projects include a new play titled Home, a screenplay adaptation of The Monument, and the story-editing of a documentary film, Hallowed be thy Name.

Submitted to YFile by Vivian-Sofia Mora, a fourth-year visual arts student in 91��ɫ's Faculty of Fine Arts.

Republished courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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