Transcriber: Quang Nguyen Reviewer: Hani Eldalees
Over the last 20 years of my career,
I have come to learn that empathy is the key to better results.
It's a great tool in our creative spaces as artists,
especially if you’re dealing with themes around memory or remembrance.
Because these stories are not just another story.
They are based on real life experiences
that hold a special place in people’s hearts.
We receive them as gifts and therefore, we are called to fill them,
carry them with care and clarity.
These stories speak to us.
The question, are you listening to me or are you just hearing me?
My first school of empathy was Africa's hope towards a stadium performance that
I worked on for the 10th commemoration of the Rwandan genocide against Tutsi.
Everything around this production was massive.
The content of this story was intense.
We had a cast over 1000 people.
We are going to perform for about 30000 people.
The emotions in this place and the process was really very intense.
At some points when words failed us, loud silence walked in and we had to stop
and listen to what our heart spoke to us.
And as a director, I couldn’t tell people that
“Come on, guys, cry very quickly. We are running out of time.”
We just had to sit in silence,
and wait for the first person to help us, lead us to the next step.
So out of all of this, we learned that it's important to feel and work,
so that’s how we give birth,
to this methodology of feeding and walking like a crab.
So through these experiences, we have learned that in a way
we’ve been wired to have empathy when we are dealing
with stories around life or around personal experiences.
Because how do you talk about mass rape if you are not mass raped?
So it is important to just be present
and try to relate to the experience as an artist
because that way you are doing justice and truth.
I remember around 2012 when we were invited to Italy
to take this same production, Africa’s hope
I remember as we were doing, having like our technical rehearsals,
I felt like there was a moment for me where I needed to work on
a special scene that was a transition between a random story to a Darfur story.
And looking at what it was, I just wanted to question the world.
Why does history keep repeating itself?
But I just wanted to use one word and just attach emotions to this word.
So in the interest of time, because there’s so much pressure
technicians, you know, we are running out of time.
The production house was running out of time.
We just need to get out of this and just get prepared for the audience to walk in.
But I remember I just improvised the melody
and I asked the cast members to just think that
to shift from one scene to another scene.
And one of the lead vocalists came to me and said
“I don’t feel that melody.”
This is a big question we are posing to the world.
And I just need more time to work on this melody.
I need to attach the right emotions
and all the frustrations of this question of why does history keep repeating itself?
So we had to stop and give time for
the vocalists to just step in this moment and connect their emotions to this word.
And it paid! because after the show that was very, very successful,
one of the audience members came and said to us
“It’s my first time to cry, get angry and laugh in just one hour.
Thank you for sharing our story.”
Then it dawned on me that actually, what may look like my story
could be another person’s story, and it’s really important that
empathy is brought on board when dealing with these kind of stories,
because my pain today could be a pain tomorrow.
So empathy has always been the way forward.
It calls for true listening.
But to truly listen, you need to give up the power of words.
We are all capable of doing amazing things.
After all, we give birth to life.