THE PLACE
After 21 editions, more than 5000 visitors in Germany, India, Taiwan, Canada, Sweden, Korea, Cambodia, Romania, Bosnia… the Museum (of theatre), a participative theatrical and photographic device, returns to Sri Lanka after a first experience carried out in the heart of the explosive current events in the island, last summer. This second event will take place this time in the Tamil part of the country in the north.
The war that officially opposed the government dominated by the Buddhist Sinhalese majority and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LLTE) from 1983 to 2009 is still close and the after-effects are perceptible. It is in this particularly sensitive political context that the installation will open its doors for the 22nd time, inviting visitors to bear witness in a social and poetic self-portrait.
Heiner Müller’s Hamlet-machine, on which the project is based, will be performed by last year’s performers and a new Tamil team in the country’s two languages. The creation, co-directed by Clyde Chabot and local artists, is intended to symbolise the concrete possibility of living together in respect of both cultures.
This project, inspired by Heiner Müller’s Hamlet-Machine, has been reactivated since 2003 on different continents. In Asia, America and Europe, it is at one with the country’s history and political current events, and its divisions. It allows the inhabitants to write their own history, to bear witness as citizens, to be part of the movement of the world instead of being only disillusioned viewers behind a screen.
This project is supported by the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ), the Goethe Institute of Sri Lanka, Kalam, the French Embassy, the Spring Festival, the University of Peradeniya and Fundraising Conseil
