Acting Up: International Training course in Newbridge

5th - 12th July 2015

We were sad to say goodbye, on 12th July, to 32 wonderful theatre-makers from France, Greece and Norway who had been working with us all week on our international training programme called Acting Up.This was a course we designed and hosted in Newbridge for adults working with youth. Acting Up aimed to increase participants’ abilities to develop creative youth work and group work projects, especially in the field of international youth work.

Our partners in the project were Rogaland Teater (Norway), Le Grand Bleu (France), Peirama (Greece) and Hellenic Theatre/Drama Education Network (Greece) who each selected 8 participants to join us.

The training showed different methods of theatre that can be used effectively with young people. The methods were grouped in Training Modules, as follows:

Module 1: Using Theatre of the Oppressed methods with young people (with Christina Kritari and Christos Karystinos from Greece). Focusing on questions of social justice, equality and marginalisation, this method helped participants raise awareness of an issue they felt strongly about.

Module 2: Using site specific and site responsive work (with Darius Ryan Kadem from Ireland)

Participants explored a number of methods for devising theatre that comes from a groups’ own experiences and situations. They created stories with a social-justice focus based on their own understanding of issues they cared about and set in the environemnt around a school.

Module 3. Using movement as a language of expression and exploration in work with young people (with Maude Leroy from France). The group looked at how we can use various forms of group and individual movement to create short scenes which raise awareness of issues the group feels strongly about. They will look at integrating music with the movement, and explore how to set these pieces in spaces that are not theatres (school classrooms, public toilets, small rooms etc).

"Crooked House is a lovely place to be for young people! Local people just rush in and out making it a home for everyone. The wonderful studio over Johnson’s offered us a space to perform and discover each other, while the town is so welcoming and friendly. We loved the music in the bars, and the gorgeous display of flowers all around the town. Everyone’s very friendly and eager to help you. The performances created during the week were absolutely amazing!” - Acting Up participant.

Acting Out took place with the help of the Patrician Boys' Secondary School in Newbridge - we are extremely grateful to Pat O' Leary, george and the PBS staff for the use of their lovely school.

Acting Up is funded by Erasmus+