Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Burning feelings in Social Theatre


 

Fifty people, eleven countries, one mission – to build a community which gathers multiple views, cultures, traditions, bringing on stage the powerful message of social theatre.

 

FIVE Ws and ONE H

Based in West Lexham, in a welcoming environment, the project twined young minds from the 13th to the 23rd of April, 2015. To be part of this youth exchange, the participants arrived here from all over the world: UK, Turkey, Spain, Romania, Portugal, Palestine, Serbia, Jordan, Israel, Tunis, Peru and Italy. 

 

The purpose of this project is to share theatrical and cultural experiences between fifty different artists, encouraging team work, freedom of expression and the ability to find solutions for social problems through theatre.

The participants got to know each other surprisingly fast, in spite of political, religious and cultural gaps. That was achievable due to intercultural nights when each country brings an insight into their traditions, food, dance, music and lifestyle.

 

The project is built from a variety of sessions, workshops, activities and debates on issues like social exclusion and inclusion, marginalisation, poverty and intercultural relations.

So far, the members of the project worked prolifically on building trust through unifying activities such as energizers, improvisation and concentration exercises.  They experienced different types of emotions through sessions as psychodrama. 

 

An important part of the workshops is the ´Reflection Group´ where everyone gets to share their thoughts, their feelings and new skills acquired.

 

The next step to enforce the connections already built is organising a Treasure Hunt in the heavenly surroundings of West Lexham.

 

 

FINAL MISSION

 

To approach concepts like self and collective awareness they create constructive sketches, improvisations and short theatre scenes, preparing themselves for the final show, represented in the Westacre Theatre under the name of ´Heroes´

This play puts the attention on human warfare conflicts and shows haw unnecessary and absurd they are. It presents a bunch of people with different personalities, cultures and ways of being, who work together to build a world based on harmony, trust and peace.

 

You are all invited to contemplate and enjoy their performance on the 23rd of April in the Westacre Theatre at 19:00.

 

 

´What you get from achieving your goals is not as important as what you become on the way to accomplish them.´

Text Alexandra Spatarelu

Photo Ionela Flood

Sent from my iPhone

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