12 Sep 16
Index on Censorship annonce l’ouverture des nominations pour l’obtention des prix et bourse de la liberté d’expression de l’année 2017.
- les récompenses sont attribuées aux journalistes, militants et activistes digitaux luttant contre la censure à un niveau mondial
- il est possible de soumettre ses nominations sur indexoncensorship.org/nominations
- ouverture des nominations du 12 septembre au 11 octobre 2016
A partir d’aujourd’hui, sont ouvertes les nominations pour la remise des prix et de la bourse de la liberté d’expression d’Index on Censorship. Depuis 17 ans maintenant, ces prix honorent quelques uns des héros de la liberté d’expression les plus remarquables. Parmi les gagnants des précédentes années, figurent le collectif Great Fire, activistes digitaux chinois, le caricaturiste syrien Ali Farzat ainsi que le journaliste d’investigation d’Angola Rafel Marques de Morais.
Dès à présennt, Index On Censorship invite le public en général, les organisations de la société civile, les associations à but non-lucratifs et autres organismes de media à nominer quiconque participe de la lutte contre la censure dans le monde et dont le travail mériterait d’être soutenu et célébré.
Il existe quatre catégories pouvant prétendre aux prix de la liberté d’expression d’Index on Censorship :
- la catégories arts, regroupant des artistes et des producteurs artistiques dont le travail s’érige contre la répression et célèbre l’expression artistique libre,
- la catégorie campagne, composée d’activistes et de militants ayant oeuvré de manière décisive contre la censure et pour la liberté d’expression,
- la catégorie activisme digital, qui recouvre l’utilisation innovante de toute forme de technologie destinée à contourner la censure et assurer l’indépendance et la liberté des échanges d’informations,
- la catégorie journalisme, représentant toute forme de journalisme courageux, déterminé et à grand impact s’employant à exposer la censure et son cortège de menaces à la liberté d’expression.
Les nominés dont le profil s’y prête sont également en liste pour l’attribution de la bourse Musique en exil, qui soutient les musiciens et leurs œuvres quand ils sont menacés.
Tous ceux ayant remporté un prix se voient offrir une semaine de résidence à Londres (avril 2017) pendant laquelle ils reçoivent des conseils en formation, en création de réseaux et en gestion. S’y ajoutent ensuite 12 mois d’aide et d’accompagnement leur garantissant la possibilité de perpétrer et étendre leur précieux travail de défense de la libre expression à travers le monde.
« Non seulement l’attribution des prix de la liberté d’expression assure une visibilité aux personnes et aux groupes dont le travail brillant et valeureux n’a de cesse de promouvoir la liberté d’expression à l’échelle internationale, mais cela consolide également leurs structures et leur organisation », dit Jodie Ginsbberg, PDG de Index. « Ces gens sont de véritables héros. Des gens qui, souvent, doivent faire face à de considérables obstacles et à un danger immense et bien réel, dans le simple but de faire valoir leur libre expression. J’incite vivement tout un chacun à nous soumettre le nom de leur champion de la libre expression, il faut s’assurer que leur voix soit entendue. »
La liste des prétendants aux prix 2017 sera annoncée fin janvier. Les noms des gagnants seront révélés lors d’une cérémonie de gala le 19 avril 2017 à Londres au Unicorn Theatre.
Pour plus d’informations quant aux prix et à la bourse, veuillez contacter [email protected] ou appeler le +44 (0)207 963 7262.
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22 Apr 16 | Magazine, Volume 45.01 Spring 2016 Extras
Order your copy of the spring issue of Index on Censorship here.
Saturday 23 April marks the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. The Bard’s work has long been used to tackle difficult or controversial issues; issues that most often only received an audience due to the cloak of his respectability. To honour the occasion Index has put together a list of all things Shakespeare.
Shakespeare and his role in protest and dissent is the theme of the spring 2016 issue of Index on Censorship magazine: Staging Shakespearean Dissent; Plays That Protest, Provoke and Slip by the Censors. The issue features pieces that explore how the bard’s plays have been used to circumvent censorship and tackle difficult issues around the world; from Bollywood adaptions to Othello in apartheid-era South Africa and a ground-breaking recent performance of Romeo and Juliet between Kosovan and Serbian theatres, along with reports on theatre upsetting people in the USA, and interviews with directors around the world
Index on Censorship magazine editor Rachael Jolley introduces our Shakespeare special issue with her editorial piece, How Shakespeare’s plays smuggle protest. In this piece Jolley discusses how the work of “established” or “historic” playwrights gave actors the chance to tackle themes that would otherwise never be allowed.
Shakespeare was no stranger to censorship, from the Elizabethan to Jacobean police states. In this extract actor and theatre director Simon Callow looks at how his plays amused monarchs and dictators but also prompted their anger.
My Mate Shakespeare recasts the playwright as a brandy loving bingo addict, struggling in a war zone. The poem, which was published in the spring issue of Index on Censorship magazine, was written by poet Edin Suljic following a visit to his home country, Former Yugoslavia. The issue also features an interview with the poet, who fled to London in 1991 ahead of the country’s impending war, discussing his inspiration for the poem and his involvement with theatre group Bards Without Borders.
How well do you know Shakespeare? Take our quiz and see how much you know about the Bard and his work.
The theatre and censorship reading list is a compilation of articles from the magazine archive covering theatre censorship across the world. From the censorship of Romeo and Juliet in US high school textbooks to Janet Suzman’s controversial production of Othello in apartheid-era South Africa, to the banning of performances of Macbeth in actors’ homes in Czechoslovakia.
In an interview with magazine editor Rachael Jolley an award-winning cartoonist, Ben Jennings, discusses his design for the latest Index on Censorship magazine cover on the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death.
Hitler was a Shakespeare fan; Stalin feared Hamlet; Othello broke ground in apartheid-era South Africa; and Brazil’s current political crisis can be reflected by Julius Caesar. Across the world different Shakespearean plays have different significance and power. In our global guide to using Shakespeare to battle power some of our writers talk about some of the most controversial performances and their consequences.
Order your full-colour print copy of our Shakespeare magazine special here, or take out a digital subscription from anywhere in the world via Exact Editions (just £18* for the year). Each magazine sale helps Index on Censorship fight for free expression worldwide.
*Will be charged at local exchange rate outside the UK.
Magazines are also on sale in bookshops, including at the BFI and MagCulture in London as well as on Amazon and iTunes. MagCulture will ship anywhere in the world.
11 Apr 16 | Magazine, Volume 45.01 Spring 2016 Extras
Kemel Aydogan’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Turkey. Credit: Mehmet Çakici
Hitler was a Shakespeare fan; Stalin feared Hamlet; Othello broke ground in apartheid-era South Africa; and Brazil’s current political crisis can be reflected by Julius Caesar. Across the world different Shakespearean plays have different significance and power. The latest issue of Index on Censorship magazine, a Shakespeare special to mark the 400th anniversary of his death, takes a global look at the playwright’s influence, explores how censors have dealt with his works and also how performances have been used to tackle subjects that might otherwise have been off limits. Below some of our writers talk about some of the most controversial performances and their consequences.
(For the more on the rest of the magazine, see full contents and subscription details here.)
Kaya Genç on A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream in Turkey
“When Turkish poet Can Yücel translated A Midsummer’s Night Dream, he saw the potential to reflect Turkey’s authoritarian climate in a way that would pass under the radar of the military intelligence’s hardworking censors. Like lovers in Shakespeare’s comedy who are tricked by fairies into falling in love with characters they actually dislike, his adaptation [which was staged in 1981 and led to the arrests of many of the actors] drew on the idea that Turkey’s people were forced by the state to love the authority figures that oppressed them the most. They were subjugated by the military patriarchy, the same way the play’s female and artisan characters were subjugated by Athenian patriarchy.
Kemal Aydoğan, the director of the latest Turkish adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, described the work as ‘one of the most political plays ever written’. For Aydoğan, the scene in which the Amazonian queen Hippolyta is subjugated and taken hostage by the Theseus marks a turning point in the play. ‘That Hermia is not allowed to marry the man she loves but has to wed the man assigned to her by her father is another sign of women’s subjugation by men,’ he said. This, according to Aydoğan, is sadly familiar terrain for Turkey where women are frequently told by male politicians to know their place, keep silent and do as they are told.’ ”
Claire Rigby on Julius Caesar in Brazil
“In a Brazil seething with political intrigue, in which the impeachment proceedings currently facing President Dilma Rousseff are just the most visible tip of a profound turbulence which has gripped the country since her re-election in October 2014, director Roberto Alvim’s 2015 adaptation of Julius Caesar was inspired by a televised presidential debate he saw in the final days of the election campaign, in which centre-left Rousseff faced off against her centre-right opponent Aécio Neves. ‘I watched the debate as it became utterly polarised between Dilma and Aécio, and the famous clash between Mark Antony and Brutus instantly came to mind,’ he said. ‘It was the idea that the same facts can be drawn in such completely different ways by the power of speech: the power of the word to reframe the facts, and its central importance in the political game.’ ”
György Spiró on Richard III in Hungary
“Richard III was staged in Kaposvár, which had Hungary’s very best theatre at the time. This was 1982.
Charges were brought against the production, because the Earl of Richmond wore dark glasses. A few weeks earlier, on 13 December 1981, General Wojciech Jaruzelski declared a state of emergency in Poland. For health reasons he wore sunglasses every time he appeared in public.”
Simon Callow on Hamlet under Stalin and the Nazis
“In 1941, Joseph Stalin banned Hamlet. The historian Arthur Mendel wrote: ‘The very idea of showing on the stage a thoughtful, reflective hero who took nothing on faith, who intently scrutinized the life around him in an effort to discover for himself, without outside ‘prompting,’ the reasons for its defects, separating truth from falsehood, the very idea seemed almost ‘criminal’.’ Having Hamlet suppressed must have been a nasty shock for Russians: at least since the times of novelist and short story writer Ivan Turgenev, the Danish Prince had been identified with the Russian soul. Ten years earlier, Adolf Hitler had claimed the play as quintessentially Aryan, and described Nazi Germany as resembling Elizabethan England, in its youthfulness and vitality (unlike the allegedly decadent and moribund British Empire). In his Germany, Hamlet was reimagined as a proto-German warrior. Only weeks after Hitler took power in 1933 an official party publication appeared titled Shakespeare – A Germanic Writer.”
Natasha Joseph on Othello in South Africa
“In 1987, actress and director Janet Suzman decided to stage Othello in her native South Africa, bringing ‘the moor of Venice’ to life at Johannesburg’s iconic Market Theatre. It was just two years since Prime Minister PW Botha had repealed one of apartheid’s most reviled laws, the Immorality Act, which banned sexual relationships between people of different races. Even without the legislation, many white South Africans baulked at the idea of interracial desire. No wonder, then, that Suzman’s production attracted what she has described as ‘millions of bags full of hate letters from people who thought that this was an outrage’.
But in a country famous for sweeping censorship and restrictions on freedom of movement, speech and association, the play was not banned. Why? Because the apartheid government ‘would have been the laughing stock of the world if they had banned Shakespeare’, Suzman told Index on Censorship. ‘Any government would be really embarrassed to ban Shakespeare. The apartheid government was frightened of ridicule. Everyone is frightened of laughter.’ ”
For more articles on Shakespeare’s battle with power around the world, see our latest magazine. Order your copy here, or take out a digital subscription via Exact Editions (just £18 for the year, with a free trial). Copies are also available in excellent bookshops including at the BFI, Mag Culture and Serpentine Gallery (London), News from Nowhere (Liverpool), Home (Manchester) and on Amazon or a digital magazine on exacteditions.com. Each magazine sale helps Index on Censorship fight for free expression worldwide.
08 Apr 16 | Magazine, mobile, Student Reading Lists
Order your copy of the Staging Shakesearean dissent here.
Order your copy of Index on Censorship here
To mark the release of the spring 2016 issue of Index on Censorship magazine Index has compiled a reading list of articles from the magazine archives covering the censorship of theatre. The latest issue, Staging Shakespearean Dissent, takes a look at how Shakespeare’s plays have allowed directors to tackle issues that would have otherwise been censored in countries around the world.
Egoli — City of Gold
August 1982 vol. 11 no. 4
Performances of South African play Egoli, by writer Matsemela Manaka, went ahead at a Johannesburg theatre without being censored, yet the printed version – an extract of which is featured in this article – was banned. Egoli, which means “city of gold”, focuses on the plight of migrant mine workers in South Africa. Its two characters, John Moalusi Ledwaba and Hamilton Mahonga Silwane, were in prison at the same time: one for a political crime, the other for rape and murder. Now they work in the gold mines, while their families attempt to farm in the “homelands”.
Read the full article here.
Knife edge
March 2015 vol. 44 no. 1
Lucien Bourjeily’s 2013 play Will It Pass or Not? was banned by Lebanon’s censorship bureau, yet his 2015 play For Your Eyes Only, Sir was approved after some minor changes, despite the play including scenes from its banned prequel. Aimée Hamilton talks to Bourjeily about why his new play escaped the censors when his previous one didn’t, and what inspired it; and For Your Eyes Only, Sir is translated into English for the first time for Index on Censorship magazine.
Read the full article here.
Oh! How I miss the termite
July 1979 vol. 8 no. 4
Despite government assurances that it was lifting restrictions on Brazilian stage productions in April 1979, theatres were among the most censored over the next decade. Every play had to be submitted to the censor in Brasilia before it was staged, and a complete rehearsal had to take place in the presence of a censor of the town in which the play was being performed. In December 1978 one of Brazil’s best know playwrights Plínio Marcos, notorious for having 18 of his works suppressed without performance, wrote the play Oh! How I Miss the Termite to be read only, believing he could not get the play performed publicly.
Read the full article here.
My Temptation
November 1986 vol. 15 no. 10
In an interview with Czech exile Karel Hvizdala, for inclusion in a book of interviews he was working on, Czechoslovakian playwright Vaclav Havel, who was unable work in his profession in his own country – where nothing he had written had been published or performed since 1969 – speaks about his latest plays Largo Desolato and Temptation.
Read the full article here.
A censored life
February 1985 vol. 14 no. 1
Karel Kyncl tells the story theatre and film actress Vlasta Chramostová, her Living Room Theatre, and how Shakespeare was used as a form of resistance. In the 1960s and 70s Czechoslovakian actors put on performances of Macbeth in houses, which they called Living Room Theatre. However, Shakespeare was seen as an enemy of socialism by Czechoslovakia police, who began to harass the actors. The actors continued to perform despite pressure from the police but eventually some of these actors were driven into exile.
Read the full article here.
Shame in Birmingham
May 2005 vol. 34 no. 2
Janet Steel discusses the censorship Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti faced when the British-Pakistani playwright attempted to put on her production Behzti at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. The local Sikh community called for the play to be banned, stating it incited racial hatred, which led to Bhatti receiving threats because of her work.
Read the full article here.
Nan Levinson: Bowdler revisited
March 1990 vol. 19 no. 3
Nan Levinson discusses censorship of Romeo and Juliet in textbooks in American schools. Artist Janet Zweig read an article written by a student about the discrepancies between the play in his school textbook and the version he saw on stage. Over 300 lines had been cut from the play, the majority of which contained sexual references. Zweig spoke to publishers and found the publishers that didn’t cut lines from the textbook didn’t sell as many as those who did. She went on to make a book from the 336 lines that were cut from the textbooks, part of which is featured in this article.
Read the full article here.
Dame Janet Suzman: Stage directions in South Africa – June 2014 vol. 43 no.2
Dame Janet Suzman’s 1987 production of Othello in South Africa caused a huge amount controversy due the production showing a relationship between a black man and a white woman during the apartheid. Many people left the production in protest and sent threatening letters, however the play escaped being banned or censored because it was Shakespeare. In this article Suzman discusses why she chose to put on such a controversial production and how through Shakespeare they escaped the censors.
Read the full article here.
The fate of Tang Xianzu
November 1998 vol. 27 no. 6
The long awaited revival of a 400-year-old classical opera, in rehearsal at Shanghai’s Kunju Theatre, was called off by the Shanghai Bureau of Culture. It accused the director of introducing “archaic, superstitious and pornographic” elements into his production and vetoed its export first to New York and subsequently to France, Australia and Hong Kong. Mu Dan Ting, (Peony Pavilion), had not been performed in its entire act since it was written by Tang Xianzu in 1598 during the Ming Dynasty, as it was written out of classical repertoire under the communists. However director Yang Lian believes this time round its banning has more to do with political manoeuvering than the nature of the opera itself.
Read the full article here.
Theatre Censorship
August 1980 vol. 9 no. 4 23-28
“Censorship in the theatre has always been more petty and strict than censorship in general – that of literature, for instance. Sadly, it has often been the finest examples of Russian drama that have not reached the stage until several years – sometimes decades – after they were written.” Anna Tamarchenko discusses the censorship of Russian theatre throughout the years.
Read the full article here.
Order your copy of Index on Censorship here or take out a digital subscription via Exact Editions (just £18 for the year, with a free trial).
