Artists and scholars of Wednesday night's "Art & War: Testimony" testified to the senselessness of mass murder, the suffering inherited by the victim and the country which has transformed into a battleground.

The presentation looked at some of history's most critical and defining times. The performers, many of whom were University's faculty members, expressed their own interpretation of war through song, dance and literature. The goal of the evening was to explore "the dynamic relationship of art and the human communities that produce them," LSA Prof. Linda Gregerson said.

Opening the evening was Paul Shoenfield's "Sparks of Glory," a three-part instrumental celebrating the 50th anniversary of the completion of WWII. To tell the story of the Jews' courage during the Holocaust, Schoenfield chose written accounts by the Polish-Israeli journalist Moshe Prager as narration. In the program, Prager's intro to his collected accounts is included: "These are true stories . and if they appear to border on the miraculous, it is because they mirror an age of miracles. And if they make the soul tremble, it is because they are echoes of a terrible and lofty time."

Oud musician Rahim AlHaj, who has performed throughout the world, paid tribute to the sacred palm trees of Iraq that were destroyed during the Iran-Iraq war. His piece "Dance of the Palms" subtly combined traditional Iraqi notes with a contemporary style. AlHaj's repertoire stands as a reflection of experience encountered by a worn-torn nation and the musician himself - once an exiled activist of Saddam Hussein's 1990s regime and now a political refugee. "My music is not to entertain, but to communicate compassion, love, and peace," AlHaj said.

OyamO, an actor, playwright and faculty member in the University's department of theatre and English read an excerpt from "My Parents' Bedroom," a short story by Uwen Akpan. The story was told through the perspective of a child experiencing Rwanda's Civil War during the 1990s. OyamO's reading explored the diverse nature of war, its limitless ability to destroy and the need to face the ramifications.

"It's creativity that's going to save our world . we need a community of human beings who want to avoid human extinction," OyamO said during a question and answer session after the presentation.

Performers were also asked what purpose their art serves during a time of war. The purpose isn't to justify the consequences of war, but to express it in hopes of alleviating the difficulty of having to accept it. "For me, it means retaining some humanity," said Dance Prof. Amy Chavasse said.

As we enter the fifth year of the Iraq war, we're reminded of the need to speak out - and as Wednesday's performance showed, art succeeds as a way to do it. The need to voice these opinions is not a political one but one that expands into the right of personal freedom for all human beings. During such times of crises, the need for art is always present because it possesses an unyielding ability to move us into action and into some form of expression.

Wednesday, March 21
Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre