Wellsprings for Women staged a unique performance, ‘Unscripted Voices Against Racism,’ by Melbourne Playback Theatre group.
Almost 150 people attended the event on Thursday 20 November at the Castle, to not just watch the performance play out in real time but also share their stories, experiences, express their emotions in a safe and supported environment.
Almost everyone in the audience were left teary, emotionally moved, empowered and connected – mixed with a few laughs during the performances.
Wellsprings for Women, as part of the South East Anti-Racism Network, has tackled topics such as racism and Islamophobia.
CEO, Dalal Smiley says this time around they sought to do something different to a seminar.
“I thought this would be something that engages the audience. With these kinds of topics, it’s more powerful to see them being performed than just hearing the stories.
“It’s kind of an eye opener, raising awareness on the situations and also it gives tips and strategies that people can utilise in everyday life to make a difference.
“Usually, the stories we’ve heard is about Dandenong residents experiencing racism outside of Dandenong as a setting, which is a telling thing in itself.”
The performance was divided in two parts. First was a form of playback theatre where the facilitator engages with the audience by asking some questions. Then based off the shared stories, a group of five performers presented them on stage.
The second half was a forum theatre where members from the audience share their experience of racism and see the entire story play out in front of the audience.
Ahlam, a Palestinian who fled Israel with her husband and two children a decade ago, was chosen from the audience for the forum theatre.
As she saw her story play out in front of everyone, she was moved to tears.
“We could see things were getting really bad – and we didn’t know how bad and I couldn’t raise our family – so we started packing our bags.
“We miss our family and the support but I see our future here not there.
“They live their life, go to work, study but they live in fear. They can’t speak up or say anything against the country.”
Her family arrived through skilled visa migration but unfortunately for Ahlam and her husband, their entire family still reside inside Israel itself, not in the West Bank or Gaza where majority of Palestinians are located.
She says Palestinians face heightened racism in Israel, being not allowed to speak their own language and facing slogans like, “Death to Arabs”.
So, it was complete shock to her in Australia where she was praised for speaking Arabic to her children i- a stark contrast between two worlds.
“When I spoke my own language with my kids or colleagues, people would stare at us and say that’s very rude (in Israel).
“I took my kids to a shopping centre here talking in Arabic, and a lady said, it’s so beautiful you speak in your language with your kids
“That made all the difference for me. At that moment I realised I did the right thing.”
Phoebe Mason, has been with Melbourne Playback for nine years and was the artistic director of the company who performed last week.
The unique form of theatre requires immense rehearsals, immersive techniques to perform in sync with the group looking out for tiny details like metaphors, tone of the voice, deep listening, even listening for potentially unsaid things based off unfinished sentences as well as body language.
“We feel very thrilled that the organisation has trusted us with the community and this topic because it’s such a painful and present topic.
“It’s a real leap of faith to open up that space, while trusted it will be held appropriately and safely with positive outcomes.
“Because of the nature of our work, we never know what stories are shared by people so we are always ready for bigger social issues brought into the room,” Ms Masons says.
“We are focused on honouring a person’s experience. We find that’s very empowering and enjoyable, by the end people are more connected to each other, there’s humour and they laugh.
“It opens the space for people in a suspended moment to spend time with these events. It creates a community space to collectively go, OK what is happening in these moments and what can we change?”
Greater Dandenong mayor, Sophie Tan also attended the event and took part in answering questions by the facilitator.
Cr Tan, being the first female Cambodian-Australian mayor in the country, touched on the importance of belonging and feeling safe especially as a new arrival to the country.
“I just want people to know that we are the most multicultural city, so there’s no racism here.
“As a council, we do promote a lot of anti-racism, we do have a lot of our signs, especially in activity centres and reserves.
“We want people to at least speak up about this issue, which is very important.”
Melbourne Playback have previously worked with different organisations, corporates and even retirement village on topics like mental health, staff satisfaction, gender violence and bystander topics.
Ms Smiley urges increased funding targeted towards prevention rather than merely “splashing money” responding to racism.
She also touched on the “insidious wave of hate” online, referring to Wester Australia’s Senator Fatima Payman’s social media accounts flooded with racist comments targeting not just her but those associated with her.
Ms Payman has recently shared the constant racist emails and calls her office has been receiving, urging the government to provide more support and publicly condemn the abuse.
