[The
statement below is from the website of the International Theatre Institute. ITI, an NGO in formal associate relations with
the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, was
officially inaugurated during the meeting of its first World Congress in Prague
in 1948, organized on the initiative of UNESCO and a group of international
theater experts.
[ITI’s charter objectives are: To promote international exchange of knowledge and practice in the domain of the performing arts; to stimulate creation and increase cooperation among theater people; to increase public awareness of the need to take artistic creation into consideration in the domain of Development; to deepen mutual understanding and contribute to the consolidation of peace and friendship between peoples; to join in the defense of the ideals and aims of UNESCO; and to combat all forms of racism or social and political discrimination.
[To further its goals and especially to spread the idea of theater as a bridge-builder for peace and mutual understanding, in 1961 ITI created World Theatre Day, celebrated annually on 27 March. Each year the Executive Council of ITI selects a message author and circulates the international address all over the world. The message is translated into more than 20 languages.]
World Theatre Day was created in 1961 by the International Theatre
Institute (ITI). It is celebrated annually on the 27th March by ITI Centers and
the international theatre community. Various national and international theatre
events are organized to mark this occasion. One of the most important of these
is the circulation of the World Theatre Day International Message through which
at the invitation of ITI, a figure of world stature shares his or her
reflections on the theme of Theatre and a Culture of Peace. The first World
Theatre Day International Message was written by Jean Cocteau (France) in 1962.
It was first in Helsinki, and then in Vienna at the 9th World Congress of the
ITI in June 1961 that President Arvi Kivimaa proposed on behalf of the Finnish
Centre of the International Theatre Institute that a World Theatre Day be
instituted. The proposal, backed by the Scandinavian centers, was carried with
acclamation. Ever since, each year on the 27th March (date of the opening of
the 1962 "Theatre of Nations" season in Paris), World Theatre Day has
been celebrated in many and varied ways by ITI National Centers of which there
are now almost 100 throughout the world.
Each year a figure outstanding in theatre or a person outstanding in heart and
spirit from another field, is invited to share his or her reflections on
theatre and international harmony. What is known as the International Message
is translated into more than 20 languages, read for tens of thousands of spectators
before performances in theatres throughout the world and printed in hundreds of
daily newspapers. Colleagues in the audio-visual field lend a fraternal hand,
more than a hundred radio and television stations transmitting the Message to
listeners in all corners of the five continents.
* * * *
2023 WORLD THEATRE DAY MESSAGE
World Theatre Day is an opportunity to celebrate Theatre in all its myriad
forms. Theatre is a source of entertainment and inspiration and has the ability
to unify the many diverse cultures and peoples that exist throughout the world.
But theatre is more than that and also provides opportunities to educate and
inform.
Theatre is performed throughout the world and not always in a traditional
theatre setting. Performances can occur in a small village in Africa, next to a
mountain in Armenia, on a tiny island in the Pacific. All it needs is a space
and an audience. Theatre has the ability to make us smile, to make us cry, but
should also make us think and reflect.
Theatre comes about through team work. Actors are the people who are seen, but
there is an amazing set of people who are not seen. They are equally as
important as the actors and their differing and specialist skills make it
possible for a production to take place. They too must share in any triumphs
and successes that may hopefully occur.
March 27 is always the official World Theatre Day. In many ways every day
should be considered a theatre day, as we have a responsibility to continue the
tradition to entertain, to educate and to enlighten our audiences, without whom
we couldn’t exist.
* * * *
INTERNATIONAL MESSAGE BY SAMIHA
AYOUB
To all my friends the theatre artists from around the world,
I write this message to you on World Theatre Day, and as much as I feel overwhelmed with happiness that I am speaking to you, every fibre of my being trembles under the weight of what we all suffer – theatre and non-theatre artists – from the grinding pressures and mixed feelings amidst the state of the world today. Instability is a direct result of what our world is going through today in terms of conflicts, wars and natural disasters that have had devastating effects not only on our material world, but also on our spiritual world and our psychological peace.
I am talking to you today while I have the feeling that the whole world has become like isolated islands, or like ships fleeing in a fog-filled horizon, each of them spreading its sails and sailing without guidance, not seeing anything on the horizon that guides it, and despite that, it continues to sail, hoping to reach a safe harbour that contains it after its long wanderings in the midst of a roaring sea.
Our world has never been more closely connected to each other than it is today, but at the same time it was never been more dissonant and farther from each other than it is today. Herein lies the dramatic paradox that our contemporary world imposes on us. Despite what we are all witnessing in terms of the convergence in the circulation of news and modern communications that broke all the barriers of geographical borders, the conflicts and tensions the world is witnessing exceeded the limits of logical perception and created, amidst this apparent convergence, a fundamental divergence that distances us from the true essence of humanity in its simplest form.
Theatre in its original essence is a purely human act based on the true essence of humanity, which is life. In the words of the great pioneer Konstantin Stanislavsky, "Never come into the theatre with mud on your feet. Leave your dust and dirt outside. Check your little worries, squabbles, petty difficulties with your outside clothing – all the things that ruin your life and draw your attention away from your art – at the door." When we ascend the stage, we ascend it with only one life within us for one human being, but this life has a great ability to divide and reproduce to turn into many lives that we broadcast in this world so that it comes to life, flourishes and spreads its fragrance to others.
What we do in the world of theatre as playwrights, directors, actors, scenographers, poets, musicians, choreographers and technicians, all of us without exception, is an act of creating life that did not exist before we got on stage. This life deserves a caring hand that holds it, a loving chest that embraces it, a kind heart that sympathizes with it, and a sober mind that provides it with the reasons it needs to continue and survive.
I am not exaggerating when I say that what we do on stage is the act of life itself and generating it from nothingness, like a burning ember that sparkles in the darkness, lighting the darkness of the night and warming its coldness. We are the ones who give life its splendor. We are the ones who embody it. We are the ones who make it vibrant and meaningful. And we are the ones who provide the reasons to understand it. We are the ones who use the light of art to confront the darkness of ignorance and extremism. We are the ones who embrace the doctrine of life, so that life may spread in this world. For this, we exert our effort, time, sweat, tears, blood, and nerves, everything we have to do in order to achieve this lofty message, defending the values of truth, goodness, and beauty, and truly believing that life deserves to be lived.
I am speaking to you today, not just to speak, or even to celebrate the
father of all arts, “theatre,” on his world day. Rather, I invite you to stand
together, all of us, hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder, to call out at the
top of our voices, as we are accustomed to on the stages of our theatres, and
to let our words come out to awaken the conscience of the entire world, to
search within you for the lost essence of humanity. The free, tolerant, loving,
sympathetic, gentle and accepting human. And to let you reject this vile image
of brutality, racism, bloody conflicts, unilateral thinking, and extremism.
humans have walked on this earth and under this sky for thousands of years, and
will continue to walk. So take your feet out of
the mire of wars and bloody conflicts, and leave them at the door of the stage. Perhaps them our humanity, which has become clouded in doubt, will once again become a categorical certainty that makes us all truly qualified to be proud that we are humans and that we are all brothers and sisters in humanity.
It is our mission, us playwrights, the bearers of the torch of enlightenment, since the first appearance of the first actor on the first stage, to be at the forefront of confronting everything that is ugly, bloody, and inhuman. We confront it with everything that is beautiful, pure, and human. We, and no one else, have the ability to spread life. Let us spread together for the sake of one world and one humanity.
—Samiha Ayoub
* *
* *
[Samiha Ayoub is an Egyptian actress, born in the Shubra neighbourhood of Cairo. She graduated from the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts in 1953, where she was taught by the playwright Zaki Tulaimat (1894-1982). Her credits on the stage over the course of her artistic career amounted to approximately 170 plays, including Raba’a Al-Adawiya, Sekkat Al-Salamah, Blood on the Curtains of the Kaaba, Agha Memnon, and The Caucasian Chalk Circle.
[Although theatrical works dominated the majority of her artwork, Ms. Ayoub had many contributions in cinema and television. In the cinema, she was distinguished through several films, including The Land of Hypocrisy, The Dawn of Islam, With Happiness, and Among the Ruins, and on television, she presented many prominent works, the most important of which are Stray Light, Time for Roses, Amira in Abdeen, and Al-Masrawiya.
[She received many honours from several presidents, including Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918-70; President of Egypt: 1956-70) and Anwar Sadat (1918-81; President of Egypt: 1970-81), as well as Syrian president Hafez al-Assad (1930-2000; President of Syria: 1971-2000) and French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing (1926-2020; President of France: 1974-81).
[I posted an earlier World Theatre Day statement by John Malkovich in "World Theatre Day 2012," 24 April 2012.]
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