ACT OUT project in Colombia
Activities
From Dec 2-11, the steering group members of the ACT OUT project met for a training in Germany, with the aim to exchange best practice and learn theatre methods of how to develop a theatre play with young people at the edge of society.
The participants, all professional youth workers from six different countries, were enjoying the creative atmosphere and very fast in learning how to develop theatre plays.
“Theatre of life” is about learning how to listen to the stories and extracting the core messages, giving the kids space for their own creative expressions and including all of them at any time on stage.
As a director of a “theatre of life” play you only have to channel all the creative input and get together the structure. The rest is done by the kids. They love to act their stories when they have space to exaggerate and when they can really bring out their emotions without anyone criticizing them. “Theatre of life” is free of therapeutic points of view. It brings out the pure creativity and zest for life. With this joy and motivation it can give impulses to other kids who see the play. It portrays life as it is. The director only has to make sure that we see the life stories from different perspectives, so that we can include humour and laugh at them. Humour is crucial!
Back in their home countries, all youth workers have now been working with a group of young people at risk. The idea is that these young people play their life stories and thus manage to tackle their problems, develop self-esteem, learn team-work and motivate other young people at the edge of society to change their lives.
The youth workers follow a certain guideline that we developed in our steering group meeting: First there is a circle where the adolescents can talk about their life situation and their experiences. Then we have developed some exercises that help to warm up the body and the emotions at the same time. With music they act out archetypes and connect them to their real life. Then the theatre piece is developed. In this process, the young people are asked to give ideas and help develop the storybook. It is crucial that they develop their play. Acting is only effective when you act your real story and not someone else’s.
The challenge in this process is to include humour in the play. Humour is essential for an audience to open themselves for the process. Without humour the contents of a play may be shocking and provoking, but they do not really touch the audience’s hearts.
The final conference took place from Oct 11-14 in Lima/Peru. More than 150 people attended the conference and travelled from all over the country to be able to attend the conference. The most touching was for sure the performance of two groups of street kis who showed their theatre of life shows to the audience. It was a very special moment for them as they had never acted in front of so many people. They felt that there was someone listening to them and their problems and life visions. This gave them a lot of self confidence.