Kaatje De Geest | ASSITEJ International

Manon van de Water
member of the Executive Committee of ASSITEJ

Covid-19, the CRC, and the Right to Participate

Covid-19 has upended our lives but more importantly, perhaps, that of children and youth who are affected educationally, socially, economically, politically, and culturally, mostly through decisions and policies not of their making and not necessarily with them in mind.

Covid-19 has upended our lives but more importantly, perhaps, that of children and youth who are affected educationally, socially, economically,…
ASSITEJ International, Uncategorised

ASSITEJ Coffee Session in November: Stressmanagement & Empowerment

🌍 Online Language: English Most of us – as artists and individuals – are in a difficult situation. We have to…
ASSITEJ International

European Theatre Forum 2020: European Performing Arts in Focus

Europe’s theatre sector now has a strategic platform for exchange & policymaking. ASSITEJ gives voice to the performing arts for…
ASSITEJ Norway

Open Call: Norwegian ASSITEJ Festival 2021 – Talk to Me!

🌍 Kristiansand, NOR 🗓 22 – 25 September 2021 ⏰ November 8th, 2020 Open Call: Norwegian ASSITEJ Festival 2021 –…
ASSITEJ Canada

Open call: Beyond borders – New Play Creation Initiative

🌎 Online + Canada 🗓 2021 ⏰ Deadline: November 9th, 2020 Young People’s Theatre (YPT) is pleased to announce Beyond Borders – A…
ASSITEJ Germany, Uncategorised

Call for performances: Starke Stücke

🌎 Frankfurt am Main, DEU 🗓 2 – 14 July 2021 & 4th-15th March 2021 ⏰ 1st December 2020 Next year’s period…
ASSITEJ TYA/USA

Antiracism in TYA - Webinar Series

🌍 Online 🗓 5 November – 17 December 2020 Join TYA/USA, in partnership with Arts in Color, in a national…
ASSITEJ International

ASSITEJ Manifesto: Emmerson Sutton (13) at the Council of Europe

13-year-old Emmerson Sutton from the UK, one of Action for Children’s Arts (ACA) Young Supporters, introduced the manifesto at the Council…
Training

Open Call: Atelier for Young Festival Managers

⏰ 15 December 2020 🌍 Düsseldorf, DEU & Kampala, UGA 🗓 16-22 June & 7-13 August 2021 The Festival Academy re-opens calls…
ASSITEJ Sweden

Swedstage 2020 becomes Swedstage Online

🌍 Online 🗓 9 November 2020 Swedstage is the opportunity to see and experience the very best of Swedish performing arts…

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Open space for all members to share online resources

17 April 2020 13 h 13 min

By: Louis Valente

No responses

A group of ASSITEJ Centres have created “Upside Down World Day of Theatre for Young Audiences”. The slogan is “Take... Read more →

A group of ASSITEJ Centres have created “Upside Down World Day of Theatre for Young Audiences”. The slogan is “Take the THEATRE to a CHILD, Today!”
The Facebook group is an open space for all members to share online resources. Due to the unprecedented state of crisis in the world, we are going to continue to run this initiative for the foreseeable future.

We have changed the platform from an event to a group.

Go to the Facebook group here

Categories: Knowledge-Experiences-Reflections., Uncategorised
Recording of the UNESCO debate on culture in the face of COVID-19

15 April 2020 7 h 25 min

By: Louis Valente

No responses

See the recorded debate here Culture makes us resilient and gives us hope. It reminds us that we are not... Read more →

See the recorded debate here

Culture makes us resilient and gives us hope. It reminds us that we are not alone. We need a concerted and global effort to support artists and ensure access to culture for all.

The health crisis brought on by the novel coronavirus has plunged the global economy into a recession, costing the global economy US $1 trillion during 2020 (UNCTAD). While billions of people around the world turn to culture as a source of comfort and connection, the impact of COVID-19 has not spared the culture sector. More than 80% of UNESCO World Heritage properties have closed down, threatening the livelihoods of the local communities and cultural professionals. Cultural institutions and facilities including museums, theatres and cinemas are losing millions in revenue each day, and many have had to let go of their staff. Artists across the world, most of whom were already working part-time, on an informal basis or under precarious contracts prior to the pandemic, are struggling to make ends meet. Today, we are experiencing a cultural emergency.

This is why UNESCO is launching a global movement – ResiliArt.

ResiliArt sheds light on the current state of creative industries amidst crisis through an exclusive global discussion with key industry professionals while capturing experiences and voices of resilience from artists – both established and emerging – on social media. Together, it raises awareness about the far-reaching ramification of COVID-19 across the sector and aims at supporting artists during and following the crisis.

The inaugural debate will take place on 15 April 2020, World Art Day, in partnership with CISAC. It will be opened by Audrey AZOULAY, UNESCO Director-General, who will launch the ResiliArt discussions with Ernesto OTTONE R. (UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Culture), Jean Michel JARRE (Composer, performer, CISAC President and UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador), Yasmina KHADRA (Author), Deeyah KHAN (Musician, documentary film director and UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador), Angélique KIDJO (Singer-songwriter, CISAC Vice-President and UNICEF International Ambassador), Nina OBULJEN-KORŽINEK (Minister of Culture of Croatia and violinist) and Luis PUENZO (Film director, screenwriter, producer and President of INCAA).

Cultural industry professionals are encouraged to join the movement and replicate the ResiliArt series in their respective regions and thematic focus by following publicly available guidelines. The devastation brought to the entire culture value chain will have a long-lasting impact on the creative economy; ResiliArt aims to ensure the continuity of conversations, data sharing, and advocacy efforts long after the pandemic subsides.

Categories: Knowledge-Experiences-Reflections.
The desire to play. On childhood and universality

19 December 2019 21 h 03 min

By: Kaatje De Geest

No responses

At the Kids Culture Conference 2019 organised by Dutch Culture (Amsterdam), the director of the Crown Troupe of Africa Segun... Read more →

At the Kids Culture Conference 2019 organised by Dutch Culture (Amsterdam), the director of the Crown Troupe of Africa Segun Adefila held a keynote speech on the universality of childhood.

by Segun Adefila

Under the right condition, the arrival of a child is a thing of joy in most places. For most African marriages children are expected naturally after 9 months. Cursed, or perhaps unfortunate, is a couple unable to bring them up male and female. A child is welcomed with open arms. Now, that’s a daringly universal language. This perhaps may not be too disconnected from the fact that the arrival of a child suggests the opening of another new page of a blank book. As the child begins to grow, internal and external influences begin to come into being within and around the child. Friedrich Fröbel (1782-1852), pedagogue and the father of kindergarten, asserts that “the environment is the garden while the children are the plants. The extent to which the plant in the garden blossoms is determined by the gardener”. Character formation and world views are getting shaped at this stage. The child begins to view, feel and sense the world and this begins with the immediate environment, culture and all.

Merely a mirror

“Oju merin ni n bimo, igba oju ni n wo” is a Yoruba saying that may be instructive here. It simply means, contextually, that ‘a child is the product of the fusion of four eyes but the child is nurtured or trained by two hundred eyes’. This is merely a metaphorical submission. Though birthed through the union of a father and a mother, the child is trained by society. This is because the traditional African child has multiple parental care. The child is merely a mirror. A reflection of what he or she sees. Children don’t know there are cultures outside of their own culture. It is the curiosity of the child that guides and connects the child with other cultures. Friedrich Fröbel again attests to this in this quote:“Children are like tiny flowers: They are varied and need care, but each is beautiful alone and glorious when seen in the community of peers.”

Fortune darlings

In her speech accepting the 1996 Nobel Prize for Literature, the poet Wislawa Szymborska described some artists as ‘fortune’s darlings’, this being a select group of people who seek and find inspiration in the work they do. I believe I am one of those ‘fortune’s darlings’ because the challenges of doing what we do have never diminished our interest in doing what we do. I believe most of us here already know how children also help us to see some things more clearly through their prisms. In working with children, I consider it an added advantage to be guided by lores and norms of which I am a product. The most significant of these are African (Yoruba) proverbs, some of which I shall be sharing with you as we go on.

Sweet taste

Children are special, they are unique but it is the universality of their being and by extension, our being, that comes in handy when working with them. Let us make taste a case study. From their first baby sounds, children – if not every one of them – love sweet taste. Their tongues naturally rebel against bitter or sour taste. Cakes and other confectionery serve for them better purposes than those bitter syrups and medicines they are forced to take during bouts of ailments. Other common traits of children are their quest for freedom, innocent selfishness and most importantly, the desire to play. I shall touch briefly on these three.

Quest for freedom

Freedom: though children and young adults prefer attention to neglect, the desire to be allowed to do as pleased is almost universal. This, if well managed, reveals a lot about their potentials. So caging a child cages the mind and by extension, the imagination of the child. Mind you, the child’s imagination knows no boundaries and what is life without imaginations? Sometimes allowing ourselves to be guided on a creative voyage through the imagination of children and young adults often yields more exciting experiences.

This view is canonized in a Yoruba saying: “Owo omode o to pepe, ti agbalagba o wo kengbe“, loosely meaning that “the rafter is beyond the reach of a child, just as the mouth of a gourd is too small for the hand of an adult”. Contextually, this means that though adults can do so many things children can not do, children can equally do some things that adults can not do. Children and young adults have loads to contribute to story development if given the opportunity. By trusting and allowing them to take the lead oftentimes leads to great amazing revelation. There are exceptions in some cases as experience has revealed because while some children are happy to be led, there are others who will not shy away from taking the lead. All it takes is binary trust connection: earn their trust and learn to trust them.

Innocent selfishness

The second point is what I call innocent selfishness. Children tend to think and act more from what or how they feel. From their point of view. While these traits may be seen as selfish in adults, it is not always so with children. They just want their excitement. When we earn their trust by listening to their views, sharing with them and showing them more what we should be telling them, they tend to warm up to us. What I have learned from this is to sometimes let them have their way in order to make our creative voyage an easier but more robust and rewarding experience.

Desire to play

This desire to play comes in handy, especially when it is important to reach out to the child. Storytelling, games, dance, theatre, music, drawings and other forms of art help reach and teach the child. This is where culture plays its role to the hilt, for culture wellbeing is social wellbeing. Therefore culture curiosity, culture shock, culture adaptation or appropriation are possible experiences for the adventurous at heart. In working with children and young adults, it is not a bad idea to be guided by the culture that produced them. Now this may be problematic considering the global reality of culture hybridisation due to reasons like urbanisation, industrialisation, western education and geographic mobility of labour.

Celebrate human culture

Some cultures are for reasons such as these, threatened by pop culture. But this will always be so, because it has always been so. There are no pure cultures anywhere in the world and instead of despairing over this, maybe it is an opportunity for us to learn and share and ultimately to celebrate the human culture. Therefore, doing what we do should not be taken for granted because the opportunities have never been equal. But it will not be a bad idea to make it equal, by making the arts available to all. Permit me to end my humble submission with a speech I found incisive.

New Zealand’s Prime Minister and Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, Jacinda Ardern, says art should be for the many, not the few. Let me round off in her words but in doing so, I shall replace ‘country’ with ‘world’. She said: “I want to see a country where the creativity and joy that comes from the arts is available to the many, not reserved for a privileged few. I want to see a country where the arts flourish and breathe life into, well, everyday life. I want to see a country where the arts are available to us all and help us express ourselves as unique individuals, brought together in diverse communities.”

Thank you and God bless you. Ire Gbogbo.

Categories: Knowledge-Experiences-Reflections., Uncategorised
“Without youth theatre, I would never have won the Booker prize” – Bernardine Evaristo

21 November 2019 18 h 51 min

By: Kaatje De Geest

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Bernardine Evaristo won the 2019 Booker prize for her novel Girl, Woman, Other. Evaristo is a British author and a... Read more →

Bernardine Evaristo won the 2019 Booker prize for her novel Girl, Woman, Other. Evaristo is a British author and a longstanding advocate for the inclusion of writers and artists of colour. Upon winning the Booker Prize, she wrote an opinion piece for The Guardian, recognizing youth theatre’s importance in her own life as a writer.

“At the youth theatre, we learned to think independently and imaginatively while participating collaboratively in drama activities that developed our confidence and honed our performance skills. (…) It was the incubator of my early creativity, a safe space to spend my childhood. I would never have won the Booker prize last week, alongside Margaret Atwood, if the youth theatre had not nurtured what would become a lifelong career in the arts. ”

Read the full article here

Categories: Knowledge-Experiences-Reflections.

Tags: article