Dear friends,

We are delighted to announce Dunedin’s award-winning Ake Ake Theatre Company has been accepted for Creative NZ’s International Collaboration fund for WW100.

Women at the Front (working title) honours NZ’s first women war surgeons, Dr Jessie Scott and Dr Agnes Bennett who studied at Edinburgh Medical School circa 1910 and served in the Suffrage funded Scottish Women’s Hospitals on the Serbian Front.

Our collaborator is renowned Serbian actress Sanja Krsmanovic Tasic of Hleb Teater, Belgrade. Our Serbian heroine is Sanja’s own great grandmother, Sergeant Sofija Jovanovic, hero of the Serbian Army WW1. Sanja works extensively throughout the Balkans using theatre as a tool to help her people process and heal the ongoing wounds of civil war.

WW1 began with Austria’s declaration of war on Serbia, 100 years ago. Women at the Front premieres in Belgrade this September and at the Otago Festival of the Arts in October.

Sanja arrives in Dunedin this Sunday for two weeks initial rehearsal. During her time here we are holding a blessing for the project at St Paul’s Cathedral in the Octagon. Sunday 2 March at 7pm during Evensong, blessed by Bishop Kelvin Wright. For those of you in Dunedin, we cordially invite you to attend the blessing. We are inviting the members of the RSA, the Peace and Conflict Dept. at Otago and Dunedin’s dance and theatre community. Join us for a cup of tea and a chat afterwards! We appreciate your support and would love to see you there. RSVP.

Warm regards

Jessica and Rhys Latton, Ake Ake Theatre Company.