“Otherness stories” workshop in Le Raincy (93)
The “Otherness stories” workshop took place in the framework of the Open European Societies project. This project is supported by the European Commission and the EUROPE FOR CITIZENS programme. It is coordinated by the NGO Jugend- & Kulturprojekt e.V. (Dresden, Germany).
“Otherness stories” is an intercultural and intergenerational theatre workshop. It took place on 9th February 2020 at the Lycée Albert Schweitzer du Raincy (Seine-Saint-Denis). 20 participants worked in collaboration to imagine and perform stories of otherness. The main objective of the workshop was to gather people from different backgrounds to debate, create and play together.
During the 3-hour workshop, participants were able to imagine and perform stories together using the 6 box method (inspired by the Grow From Seeds project, Erasmus+). The method is based on a writing technique inspired by the traditional structure of the “initiatory journey”. In groups, the participants design a story: first by drawing 6 boxes with written comments, then by dividing the roles and finally by creating short performances made of animated scenes. This framework is a proposal for the groups, but they are also invited to personalise the process as they wish.
The aim is both artistic and civic:
To create together a story in which the group recognises itself,
Living the reality of cooperation and creating “common”,
To have the satisfaction of quickly seeing a performance that embodies the approach
Feedbacks from participants
How did you like the workshop?
– Extremely interesting: enrichment of the experience by the presence of people of all ages: sharing of different perceptions
– Sharing with others + guidance by Bruno, when you see the result of the stories created
– A pleasant moment of research, improvisation and cordiality
– It was very interesting to share ideas with people of all kinds
– The collaborative creation of a story is a perilous and humanly rich process
– It allowed reflection on contemporary issues + several people of all ages to work together
– Discovery of participatory writing
– It allowed sharing ideas, reflecting, building together, developing a common story and making it evolve with others
– Working with familiar partners and other interesting “strangers”!
– Idea of opening up to the encounter
– Confrontation of personalities and points of view
– Theatrical play, collective expression, confrontation with others
– Exchanging scenario ideas and learning how to make the most interesting decisions to move the story forward
What did you like best about this workshop?
– The warm-up: broke the ice and allowed us to get to know the personalities of the participants
– Creativity with at the same time a common thread (the method)
– Research on improvisation
– The moment to link the stories together, because we had to listen to each other even more!
– Group work: different ideas that end up coming together
– A mix of creation and improvisation: a leap into the unknown and discovery. Fits in well with the theme of the workshop: meeting the other
– Group brainstorming sessions: allowed testing everyone’s imagination
– Confrontation of ideas + reflection on the theme
– Installation of synergy between each member of the group quite naturally. Everyone has found his or her place
– Grouping of stories. This means that you have to revise your choices in order to merge with the other groups and be “flexible”.
– Unlimited group reflection
If the workshop were to be repeated, what would you change/add/maintain?
– Nothing: the aim of the workshop was fulfilled with the different performances
– Positive: number of participants/sharing with others/good leadership
Negative: lack of time
– Same by adding an hour
– Join the last 2 groups to become one group
– More time before a final staging
– More specific time for the creation of dialogues that were missing in the projects
– More time + more stages + more young participants!
– Perfect
– Leave as it is
– Very good as it is
– Repeat in the same condition, satisfactory
– More time for the construction of boxes 5 and 6
– Written support (flipchart) to support the writing process
– Maybe organise it in a theatre?
Acknowledgements
Thanks to the participants Annie, Binta, Catherine, Claire, Emmanuel, Géraldine, Hannah, Isabelle, Jean-François, Marion, Pascal, Pascale, Pauline, Philippe, Sonia, Sophie, Stéphanie, Tom and Virginie.
Special thanks to the Lycée Albert Schweitzer – Le Raincy (Seine Saint Denis), Sylvain Ricci – Vincent Muller – Eric Tabourier – Marie Eyer – Mr and Mrs Bolève.
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Directed by Bruno Freyssinet
Trainee Marion Pollet
Camera Tom Boissy
Proposed by La Transplanisphere in the framework of the Open European Societies project
This project is supported by the European Commission and the programme EUROPE FOR CITIZENS coordinated by Jugend- & Kulturprojekt e.V. (Dresden, Germany)
