Back to search

YE - Drama Camp- Broke your limit

2020-3-NO02-KA105-0018052020Youth mobilityfinalized
Countries: NO|DE|NL|ES|IT|EL|FR · Grant: €63,718
Disabilities - special needsInternational cooperation, international relations, development cooperationCreativity and culture

Objectives

Europe knows a history of many Deaf theatres, at an average there was approximately one theater in each country. With those theatres, actors and actresses had a lot of opportunities to meet each other and to travel to international festivals for both deaf and hearing people. But those theatres existed only because of subsidies and grants. The later years one by one those subsidies have been cut off until there are only a handfull of professional sign laguguage theaters left. In Norway the professional sign lagugage tehattre "Teater Manu" receivs ing hundreds of thoundands euros of subsidies for their theater production and employing at least ten staff members. Other theaters in Sweden, Finland and France are somewhat moderate. But all of them have one similar issue: there are very few actors and actresses who are young. According to the theaters it is because those young people are not interested in theater anymore, but according to those young people, it is because young people do not receive the opportunities to train to become an experienced actor. Theatre as a form of art do bring people closer: shy people develop social skills to engage themselves with other people, people with a strong personality develop an understanding for other people and develop skills to be a leader and a role model. Theatre develops skills, but it is also a platform to show culture and language. As Deaf theatre does have different aspect than mainstream theatre, it is the perfect place to play with sign language and to show what Deaf culture is made of. With the closing of different theatres, there have been fewer and fewer places to experiment with different forms of sign language and having a place to expose Deaf culture. Until January 2018, when the first Drama Camp was organised in Norway. That Erasmus+ funded youth exchange attracted 9 project partners from 9 countries and worked together with each other to learn about theatre work and to develop a play in which the participants showed what they have learned. There was a big impact on some of the participants, who now have chosen a career in arts. That is why an informal group of young people from the same Drama Camp wanted to introduce this working method to other participating organisations, to bring theater closer to Deaf young people, giving them something to think about and giving them a chance to discover hidden talents. And at the same time a network could be developed, so there will be international links to young theater companies in the future as well as talents could be borrowed from each other. Giving Deaf young people the opportunity to learn about theater and building a stronger network is most likely to contribute to a broader audience, as it is likely that theater made by Deaf young people will also attract both Deaf and hearing young people to watch.

Project partners (7)