But I Want to Speak Out: Making Art from Women's Testimonies

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In order to preserve women's testimonies, and make them visible and heard, a new wave of documentary theatre has emerged in the Balkans that uses archival authentic testimonies collected in private hearings and public legal spaces such as courtrooms. In this article, I focus on theatrical plays that were created by female theatre directors from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Serbia. To produce these plays, all three directors used authentic women's testimonies of violence and war endured as conflict beset the region in the 1990s. The testimonies were collected and published by Women in Black, Belgrade.2 Through these plays, the three theatre directors have created a space for women's voices about the daily injustices suffered during the war to be made available to the public. These directors use performance as a strategy for intervention and truth-seeking, while actively promoting social and symbolic reparation. Margaret Urban Walker calls such reparations ‘the expressive dimension that constitutes … the communicative act of expressing acknowledgment, responsibility, and intent to do justice’.3 The plays bring on stage unique and universal women's testimonies about war and violence that cross regional and ethnic lines. By bearing witness to these experiences, which are relived on stage, the audience takes part in the public acknowledgment of crimes committed towards women and, thereby, actively engages in an act of symbolic reparation.