"The Book of Life"

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Moss Arts Center at Virginia Tech

Rwandan writer and activist Gakire Katese Odile “Kiki” takes to the stage with Ingoma Nshya, the Women Drummers of Rwanda, for new theatre project The Book of Life, a deeply moving perspective on life, loss, and recovery. The performance is filled with personal letters, stirring shadow puppetry, and joyous live drumming from eight professional percussionists. At a time when the world is racked with disharmonies, hatred, and struggle, The Book of Life offers hope.

What makes humans go to the edge of the abyss, and then step in? In Rwanda in April of 1994, one million people were murdered in 100 days. The country devoured itself. As has happened far too many times in human history, something terrible turned in the collective unconscious of a people, and the unthinkable became commonplace. 

But then what? What happened next — after the worst thing?

In this new theatre project, The Book of Life, you are led through a remarkable journey. As Katese writes, “We still have the possibility of undoing the genocide in some small way, to bridge the hole that’s been left, not with bones or the clothes they wore when they died — but with their lives. The dinners. The lovers. The dates. The joy. How do we undo the un-undoable? We let them live again.”

The Book of Life is based on Katese’s years-long project of accumulating letters written by survivors and perpetrators of Rwanda’s genocide: ordinary people. These letters are addressed to those who are gone — and the sense of who they were, the lives they lived, is powerful. Unlocking life after trauma and finding a humane way forward, The Book of Life looks to the future.

Co-sponsored by the Black Cultural Center