I n 1994, Hutu militias began the systematic genocide of the Tutsi people of Rwanda. In just 100 days, an estimated 1 million people had been butchered and whole families, villages and towns destroyed. Once Tutsi rebels regrouped and took control of the unstable country, many of the Hutus responsible fled into Democratic Republic of Congo, where they continue to wreak havoc among local villages.
How would you deal with these atrocities? How would you continue to live your life? For performer and director Dorcy Rugamba, whose family was massacred on the first day of the genocide, you make it your mission in life to show and educate people about the events through theater. As Rugamba said, in a telephone interview with The Japan Times: "I had a great necessity to say something about Rwanda and this world. Theater was a way to survive."
His troupe, Urwintore, bring their production of "The Investigation" to Yokohama's BankART Studio NYK this week. Written by acclaimed German playwright Peter Weiss, of "Marat/Sade" fame, "The Investigation" was based on the 1963 Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials. Seeing the play performed by a European company in 1999, Rugamba was shocked by the startling similarities between his experiences and the accounts by survivors and executioners involved in the horrors of the concentration camps.