PROJECT NEWS

November 6, 2007

WINGS OF THE BUTTERFLY MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
AT DUTCH WOMEN'S THEATRE FESTIVAL

By María Suárez Toro
San José, Costa Rica

A musical performance of Wings of the Butterfly ( Alas de Mariposa), which includes songs, dance and storytelling will be featured at the Women Inc. Women's Theatre Festival in Amsterdam on December 1st.  This performance is a preview of the musical theatre show under production in Costa Rica by an interdisciplinary group of Latin American & Caribbean women.

The name of the show, "Wings of the Butterfly" honors the “Butterfly Effect” from Chaos Theory that says that everything is so interconnected that the smallest action in any one place can have an immense effect elsewhere around the world.

The preliminary performance, which will be presented in the Beurs of Berlage Theatre in Amsterdam , portrays selected women in history, the sciences, the arts and political activism whose experiences and contributions have not been well recognized, from their own perspectives and voices.

Among the characters in the show are Marge Taniwaki (a Japanese-American held in a U.S. internment camp) and Boc Dong Kim (a Korean "comfort" woman ), both Asian women, break 50 years of silence about their abuse during World War II by the US and Japanese militaries.  As part of the show, a Dutch Comfort Woman, Jan O'Herne, born in 1923 in central Java and forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese army, will also be honored along with 78 other Dutch comfort women for their strength and courage in having joined many Asian comfort women in their recent claims against the Japanese Government.

Another woman featured in the show is Mileva Maric, a Serbian mathematician and physicist who was Einstein's first wife, yet was little acknowledged in biographies and autobiographies until very recently. She contributed to her husband's Nobel prizewinning scientific work, but was never recognized. She shared her knowledge with him in their love letters, which were released only recently!

Another character is African American Rosa Parks who reconceptualized the butterfly effect when she refused to give up her bus seat to a white man in the Southern USA , in violation of segregationist laws of the 1950s. With this action Rosa , as part of the civil rights movement, unleashed a wave of nationwide protests that led to the abolishment of those racist laws. The song “Mar-Mariposa” produced and performed in the show by Guadalupe Urbina, is an artistic expression of a different paradigmatic approach that women bring to the “butterfly effect” based on their own experiences, and also with their own account of the stories.

Lucy will be the main character in the show. She is one of the oldest skeletal remains who was "discovered" in Ethiopia in 1974 as a female hominid (pre human) who redefined in anthropology what was believed at the time regarding human evolution.  In the show, Lucy returns to life today, telling stories that reconstruct women's contributions to human evolution. The song: “Lucy in the Sky” relates an historical route through conventional definitions of human evolution.

The women in the musical show claim that the present hegemonic mind-set (paradigm) promotes and affirms forms of life in society on this planet that are non-sustainable, which is obvious in the destruction and devastation of the political-social weaving that is the result of abuse of authority.  Likewise, the environmental weaving that connects us to the environment is broken when humans develop an abusive relationship with everything that surrounds us.

Throughout history, many women, and in some cases their whole communities (indigenous among others)live their lives in resistance to the hegemonic mind-set, thus presenting alternatives that have been rendered invisible and devalued, yet might make interesting and significant contributions toward new ways for humankind to find their way out of the present socio-political and environmental crises, among others.

As part of the process of “internationalizing" the show, Wings of the Butterfly collects and features stories of women in history who have remained invisible in their contributions to a paradigm shift in the world today.  In preparation for the performance in The Netherlands, the case of Maria Sybilla Merian is being added to the process. This case also represents an example of how Latin American and Dutch women are joined by history!  In the 17 th century, Maria, a Dutch artist turned botanist, traveled to Suriname to paint and study the metamorphoses of butterflies “alive and in the context.” Her approach was a contrary process to most men of science who were trying to understand these phenomena by dissecting dead insects. Even though Linneaus (who created the first taxonomy of natural life) used Maria's paintings, it took the scientific community 300 years to recognize Maria's contribution to botany “because she was an artist, not a woman of science”.

The Wings of the Butterfly performance in Amsterdam will be presented in Spanish, Dutch and English. The stories will be in Dutch, while the acting will take place in the universal language of bodily expression, and the songs will include multimedia translations. The cast of the show combines Costa Rican actresses, singers and composers along with Dutch artists who will interpret the Latin American production.  Latin Americans in the show include Guadalupe Urbina, composer of the music and songs, and a guitar player, singer and actress; and Gladys Chiny who will play percussion, and be a voice and actress.  Other actresses from Costa Rica include Luchy Peres and Tatiana Sobrado. From The Netherlands will be Thea van der Meer as musical arranger and guitar player, Tineke Langedijk as singer and storyteller and 17-year-old Ángela de Boer as a dancer.

Artistic director, Guadalupe Urbina is a Costa Rican singer and composer, with an extensive trajectory as producer of theatre and musical shows commited to the advancement of women in Costa Rica and internationally, particularly in The Netherlands. In 1992, Guadalupe produced and acted in “Luna de Media Cara” with Dutch artist Paula Van Ginneken. In 1994, she produced Tribute to Mother Earth with music and dance, and also is a painter in San José-Costa Rica and New York .  In 1994-1995, Guadalupe sang, acted and danced in two documentary films by Costa Rican filmmaker, Patricial Howell, produced by the Interamerican Human Rights Institute about Central American women and the United Nations World Women's Conference in Beijing , China in 1995.

The show, Wings of the Butterfly, is based on the book “Women, Metamorphosis of the Butterfly Effect” by Maria Suarez Toro, being published in Spanish by the Editorial Norma, renowned in Latin America .  The book is currently being translated into English for future publication.

The author, Maria Suarez Toro, will be part of the delegation to travel to the Netherlands where she will also be a guest speaker during the Theatre Festival conferences and workshops at the legendary Red Hat Theatre in Amsterdam . Maria will also speak at a workshop and a conference at the Women Inc. Festival that will focus on the challenges and state of affairs of the global women's movement and what Wings of the Butterfly is seeking to contribute in that context.

In another series of workshops where Suarez will participate during Women Inc., she will present the work of FIRE--Feminist International Radio Endeavour, the first global women's internet radio station that she co-founded and co-directs. One workshop, organized by HIVOS, Mama Cash and AWID (Association for Women's Rights) will address issues of funding and movement building.  Another will put the spotlight on exclusion and discrimination based on sexual orientation. In another forum, together with Thuli Madi (South Africa), Sri Agustine (Indonesia) and Joke Swiebel (The Netherlands), Maria will share FIRE's 16 years of work and her own personal commitment in the promotion of the rights of lesbian women (and gay men).

On November 30 th - World Aids Day, Maria will represent FIRE radio in participating in the Conference “Stop Aids Now” organized by HIVOS and  IICO. A workshop within the event, organized by Aids Fund Netherlands , will focus on women's leadership and HIV/AIDS. World Aids Day is a well attended annual event with broad public participation in The Netherlands.

International coverage of all of the activities by Wings of the Butterflies and FIRE will be provided by FIRE at www.fire.or.cr

The presence if Wings of the Butterfly in The Netherlands will be possible thanks to the support of HIVOS, both for the production and the trip, and also the support of the Global Fund for Women and Mama Cash. The Wings show and project is also the result of the volunteer collaboration of many women and their artistic and social movements, as well as national (Costa Rican) and international advisory groups that have contributed in different ways to the show.

An English magazine containing the full scope of Wings of the Butterfly and broad background information as to how it has evolved will be available upon request and for a small contribution at the Festival. You can write to maria2003@racsa.co.cr (in Spanish or English) for more information.