Ragaireacht is an Irish word for late-night wandering, or for sitting up talking long into the early hours. And a ragaire is someone who enjoys precisely that. This project is developed by Crooked House Theatre in Newbridge along with BiondekBuehne in Austria, Kinitiras in Greece, New Wolsey Theatre in the UK, and On & Off Teatro in Spain. Ragaire is about bringing 5 European youth ensembles together to tell stories and influence change. During the course of 16 months, 5 partner organisations will create or develop young performance ensembles and make a theatre piece about a political or social issue they have a strong opinion on, and that they would like their political leaders to hear. These pieces will be performed locally and nationally for policy and decision makers as well as in a festival in Dublin, where national and European representatives will attend. They will explore various ways to engage policy makers with their performance. They will hear about methods used by experienced political theatre makers. They will suggest their own ways to present their work, in council chambers, at conferences, in parliaments, and in other fields where the audience is composed of influential decision makers.
1) To engage young people in social or political dialogue with politicians, elected representatives, policy makers and people in powerful positions 2) To engage these policy and decision makers in a dialogue with this young people 3) To prepare young people to participate in public life 4) To give young people a better understanding on how decision making proceses work as well as the functioning of public institution at different levels (from local to European) 5) To share different approaches: a)theatre making techniques b)ways to engage with policy and decision makers c)ways to involve young people in decision making inside the organisations By running the Ragaire project as a Transnational Youth Initiative (TYI), it allowed participants the opportunity to take resposibility for allowing these objectives to be achieved. Most of our members in the Senior Ensemble have travelled across Europe and collaborated with other companies under the guise of facilitators before returning home. Conversly, the Ragaire project encouraged participants to devise and collaborate with themselves in charge, and allowing their own voices and work to come into contact with policymakers who they desire to meet.
Crooked House Theatre Company runs Kildare Youth Theatre, a project for young people aged between 11 and 25. This project was initiated by our oldest, 'Senior Ensemble' group in Kildare Youth Theatre, who are aged 19 to 25. The project was inspired by their desire to learn from the ensemble theatre-making practice of Crooked House’s European partners who work with young people, as well as vice versa. The project also arose from their belief that the theatre we make is often only seen by our audience of regular and appreciative supporters, many of whom are drawn from our immediate locality and who are generally our friends, family and colleagues. When, as is mostly the case, we make theatre about socially engaged topics designed to express our wish for social change, or when we make overtly political theatre designed to stimulate justice, those change-makers who have the power to effect political or social change are not often the ones who see the theatre pieces. It is difficult to get politicians, elected representatives, policy makers and people in powerful positions to attend theatre projects made locally by young people. The Ragaire project then aimed to offer an opportunity for work to be shown to these changemakers.