PACK PREFACE
This publication is derived
from the performance of ‘White Lament’ at Holocaust
Memorial Day 2004 and the process from which the performance
was created.
‘White Lament’ examined the ‘Art
of the Holocaust’; this included art banned by the Nazis
as they took power, art produced by those persecuted during
the Holocaust and art produced in response to the Holocaust
by those
who felt its influence from a distance or after the war. The
arts we explored included music, visual art, literature and
poetry.
The performance was created with a cast of senior
pupils from East Renfrewshire schools over several months of
weekly
after-school
sessions. The cast researched and brought their own material
to
each workshop, to be combined with material from us. Through
rehearsal games, creative writing exercises and drama experimentation,
the
scenes representing each art form were devised and prepared.
These art scenes were then structured around the true story
of the White Rose Society, a group of young Germans who expressed
their disgust at the Nazis in a series of secretly published
leaflets. In war-time Germany the full weight of the Gestapo
fell upon them
when they were eventually caught and quickly executed. This
heroic
and tragic story formed a narrative around which the more abstract
and impressionistic ‘art’ representations were
placed.
By examining the art and culture of the Holocaust
era and placing it into the context of resistance against the
war
by young
Germans, ‘White
Lament’ provided a fresh perspective on the subject.
In the art studied and in the story of the White Rose, many
of the young
cast found strong points of identification and interest that
surprised and absorbed them.
The resources and exercises in this pack will hopefully provide
an insight into the grim facts of the Holocaust, into the
Nazis who caused it and some of the Germans who tried to
stop it.
The art created by witnesses, the persecuted and by the artists
who
reflected on the Holocaust in the years that followed has
an impact of its own.
We hope this pack will continue the
work begun with the process and performance of ‘White
Lament’.
Katherine Morley and Tim Nunn
Reeling & Writhing
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