In the project "Transitions on stage" (TRANSIT), we share with our European partners local experiences, professional practices and reflect on the pedagogical methods we develop. It associates four European organizations at the crossroads between theater and education to promote social and environmental transitions at the local level. It aims to foster the development of sustainable socio-cultural projects conducted by performing artists, based on the concept of proximity and anchored in the local territories Mille et une scènes in Houilles, the European Theater and Film Institute in Brussels, Cours et Jardins in Berlin are developing since many years educational programmes using theatre to address multilingual and intercultural issues with their different target groups. They will join their efforts with Anazitites Theatrou in Thessaloniki to transfer their know-how to community's organization. 12 participants will imagine and discuss together innovative approaches that can help us reorganize our ways of creating and working with people under the pressure of the sanitary COVID 19 crise and its consequences: anxiety, social isolation, restrained mobility... They elaborate together an educational programme that they test in two joint staff training sessions, inviting each time persons from the local territory to participate. The TRANSIT project contributes to overcoming the negative impacts of the pandemic in our professional communities (educators using theater in their practices), opening them up to new fields of activities by reflecting and networking together. By exchanging with other professionals working with similar methods and values, but in different contexts, by visiting local initiatives that are already "transitioning", we can learn from each other and get inspired to find innovative solutions adapted to the needs of each partners and their local network of stakeholders. By supporting participation with the help of theatrical methods, we encourage and develop collective intelligence, thus critical thinking, to facilitate collective decision-making processes which are based on intercultural dialogue and citizen participation. To help them be more sustainable and inclusive, we propose local communities to use theatre to : 1. foster constructive and active debates about how to implement economical and environmental transitions at the local level; 2. address real community problems and learn problem solving methods built on transformative and empowering strategies ; 3. find creative ways of engaging themselves in the difficult work of imagining community's change and addressing the environmental and social problems they face ; 4. take greater account of the diversity of cultural and social backgrounds and interests that constitute them and add multilingual layers in the discussions and the theater exercises, introducing an intercultural dimension to the creative and communication processes ; 5. develop engaged and critical thinking as well as active and responsible citizenship through community-based and collaborative learning, relying on theater projects and supported by on-line coordination and mentoring. TRANSIT addresses three communities of practices directly concerned by the activities and the results of the project: - professionals working in the field of theater applied to adult education, - stakeholders operating on a territory (local authorities, territorial developers, NGOs, educational institutions, social workers...), - citizens engaged in local initiatives of "transitions". The objectives are to: - suggest and share practices which increase social and environmental awareness, creativity and cooperation, - train adult educators on how to design and implement activities based on theater in intercultural settings, - increase the capacity of adult educators as professionals through the improvement of their soft skills, - empower the implementation of successful practices of "transitions" at the local level. The expected results of the TRANSIT project are: - sharing of practices both within the partnership (our staff members, volunteers) and outside (educators, facilitators, professionals working with individual and groups, amateurs and volunteers), - addressing real community problems and learning problem solving methods built on transformative and empowering strategies, - development of citizen engagement and critical thinking through community-based and collaborative learning, relying on theatrical methods, - promotion of intercultural understanding and diversity among the direct target group and the indirect target groups; - strengthening of social and cultural European cohesion. We develop specifically for the project a collaborative on line platform, helping the participants working together remotely, exchanging and pooling resources and at the same time, informing, documenting and disseminating about the activities we develop and the results we achieve.
We implemented the project “Transitions on stage” for several reasons. First, we were seeking to promote the use of theatre as a pedagogical tool for developing participative projects, and to help local communities to envisage social and environmental change. We wanted as well to create a safe space for individuals to develop their creative potential. Our sharing of practices on a European level aims to inspire and create “transitions” in visible form onstage. We wish for these transitions to be reproduced and adapted in other venues. We are aware of the fact that the word “transition” is currently on everyone’s lips, in every area of life. Transition can be frightening, but we are determined to provide tools and a methodology which will allow people to develop listening, concentration and benevolence; competencies which are indispensable for collaborative creation, learning and non-violent communication. Our hope is that our project will contribute to making transitions lasting and positive.
The Covid-19 pandemic lockdown wreaked havoc our daily lives and required us to find a new equilibrium. The everyday citizen is torn between hesitation and anxiety over getting involved on the one hand, and on the other hand the desire to reconnect with the community and to share with others. It is thus important to propose what theatre can contribute to the transition process. Theatre can offer a safe space open to all, a place where each voice is heard and each body welcomed, a time to re-establish a “ground zero” to serve as a new point of departure toward transition, and a context in which trial is free of error. Theatre spurs cooperation, reflection on transition and analysis of the process it engenders (whether the transition be individual or collective), in order to direct movement toward new ways of living, working, producing and consuming. In these uncertain times it is more important than ever to create spaces where people can come together and reflect together on the means to face the challenges currently before us as a society.