Smashing Times On the Road: Equality for Peace
Smashing Times Theatre and Film Company are delighted to announce a series of creative and cultural public events and activities to generate a greater understanding of women’s rights and the promotion of gender equality and peace in Ireland, Northern Ireland and internationally.
- The Woman is Present: Women’s Stories of WWII on national and international tour to Ireland, Northern Ireland and Germany from September 2017 to February 2018
- Women in an Equal Europe Creative Arts Symposium, 27 October 2017, 10am-2pm
- Creative Equality Smashing Times Young Ensemble performance, 27 October 2017, 7.30pm
- The Power of Theatre and Film, a film and discussion event to explore the use of Smashing Times creative processes to promote equality and peace, 22 September for Culture Night 2017
- Crisis Trauma Hope Co-production with Theatrelabor, Germany, 15-19 November 2017
- Women War and Peace Digital Book
- Women War and Peace On-line Questionnaire
The Woman is Present: Women’s Stories of WWII International Tour
Imagined re-creation of moments from the lives of women in WWII
By Deirdre Kinahan, Mary Moynihan, Fiona Bawn Thompson and Paul Kennedy
The Woman is Present: Women’s Stories of WWII is a creative reimagining of moments from the lives of women during WWII recalling stories of bravery, sacrifice and love amidst the horror of war, as women stood up against fascism and totalitarianism and refused to accept oppression. Each performance is followed by a post-show discussion with the artists and invited guest speakers to explore powerful women’s stories in history and themes of gender equality and peace in Ireland, Northern Ireland and internationally. The performance goes on national and international tour to Ireland, Northern Ireland and Germany from September 2017 to February 2018.
Women’s stories in the performance include Mary Elmes (1908-2002), a Cork woman who was the first Irish person honoured as ‘Righteous Among Nations’ for her work saving Jewish children from the Nazi gas chambers during World War II; Ettie Steinberg (1914-42) the only female Jewish Irish citizen known to have been murdered in Auschwitz; Marta Hillers (1911-2001) from Germany who wrote her autobiography Eine Frau in Berlin (A Woman in Berlin) under the name ‘Anonyma’ (Anonymous), detailing her experiences of the last days of WWII as she and over one million other women were raped and abused by Allied soldiers of the Red Army; Neus Català Pallejà (b.1915) from Spain, a member of the United Socialist Party of Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War, an active collaborator with the French Resistance during WWII and the only living Spanish survivor of Ravensbrück concentration camp for women; Maria Eugenia Jasińska (1906-43) from Łódź in Poland who worked for the resistance and gave up her own life rather than ‘name names’; and Dolores Ibárruri, or La Pasionaria (1895-1989), from Spain, a revolutionary leader, political activist, communist and crusader against Fascism during the Spanish Civil War who created the famous cry ‘They Shall Not Pass’.
‘Such a moving piece of theatre. The performances were excellent’
Sabina Higgins, Áras an Uachtaráin First Lady
The women’s stories featured in the performance can be found in the Women War and Peace Digital Book, with a foreword by Marian Harkin, MEP, which contains 23 stories of women’s experiences during World War II and is now available online. The book was launched at the Mansion House, Dublin on 8 November 2016 by Mary Lawlor, Front Line Defenders and Cllr Rebecca Moynihan, Deputy Lord Mayor of Dublin. The editor of the book is Mary Moynihan, Artistic Director, Smashing Times Theatre and Film Company and Lecturer, BA in Drama (Performance), Conservatory of Music and Drama, and key contributors are Edyta Pietrzak, Inga Kuzma, Fernando Benavente Tendillo, Kilian Cuerda Ros, Arne Schrader, Freda Manweiler, Mary Moynihan, Jessie Smith, Bernard Wilson (writing about the life of Mary Elmes) and Nadia Clare Smith (writing about the life of Dorothy MacArdle).