Singing Survival: Performance and Memory through Lynn Nottage’s Ruined

On 12 June 2025, we hosted “Singing Survival: Memory, Theatre and the Afterlives of Violence” as part of the Words Beyond War initiative at the Facultat de Filosofia i Lletres (UAB). The event, framed within the Projectes d’Educació per a la Justícia Global (EpJG), and funded by FAS, invited colleagues from the Universitat de Lleida to reflect on how literature and performance can serve as ethical responses to war.

After a welcome by Dr Cristina Pividori, coordinator of the Words Beyond War project, the session opened with a brief presentation by Dr Andrea Bellot, who contextualised Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Ruined. The presentation explored the play’s engagement with gender-based violence in the Congo and its poetic power as a theatrical testimony of war.

The heart of the session was a powerful performance by Laura Jarque, actress and TFG student, who interpreted selected songs from Ruined—the very play she has chosen as the focus of her final degree project.

The event concluded with a dynamic Q&A session, which reflected on how this event ties into the broader goals of the POSTLIT and G4RoC research projects.

 Below you can see some photographs from the event.