Tamador Gibreel's Sudanese Play "The Epic of Violence"

Tamador Gibreel, Sudanese activist, playwright, and former Holyoke resident, returns to Western MA. to share her play *The Epic of Violence*, a powerful collection of real stories from Sudanese women, on Saturday, September 8th at Holyoke Media at 8 pm. Along with her daughters who grew up in Holyoke, the production includes 8 women from Sudan who bring to life actual experiences that women in Sudan are still today enduring under the current military government.

In the program of the play she writes: “We thank you for joining us, the women from Sudan, as we share real stories of governmental violence, institutional racism, and intentional economic ruin and neglect. Our characters are based on real women and their real stories. Some survived, some alas did not.

We present these stories to you as a form of group therapy to alleviate the trauma that these women experienced at the hands of the Sudanese police and military, all arms of the horrific government, We invite you to come to our teahouse to share these stories and in this safe environment may your pain be lightened and eased. We are not alone. You are not alone.

We have created ‘Daughters of Awareness,’ caretakers we might say, who will be your guides to awareness about the path of pain that takes us from Darfur to Khartoum to the Nuba Mountains and on to South Sudan, from the desert to the city to the farms to the villages, where women have experience racism, rape, beatings, economic hardships, horrendous conditions…we also offer a bit of comic relief that too is an offer of therapy and healing.

May our ‘Daughters of Awareness’ take you on this journey through the past and ultimately into a lighter future where we together light lamps to lift ourselves up and out of these nightmare experiences and into the light.

Again, thank you all for taking this voyage. You are brave and we appreciate you so much.”