Taboo

At my school GRG 23 Alterlaa in Vienna, my colleague and I run a project called Drama Club. This year, 15 children aged 12 to 15 participated in an elective subject. In October, it was decided that they would be the “Theaterklasse” (theatre class), partnered with Dschungel Wien and that my Connect Up partner Elif Bilici and I would aim to have a presentation ready by the end of the school year. This meant we did a lot of free writing on topics such as bullying, racism, gender, and prejudice. We also worked on creating texts and songs for the project week in Forlí, Italy. Elif came to lessons at school occasionally and we spent three consecutive project days at Dschungel in February and then we had rehearsal days in June before the presentation. The children also saw several shows at Dschungel, participated in workshops and had a backstage tour. They had fun and learned so much, it was amazing to see them flourish throughout the year.

The process itself was a mixture of our usual afternoon drama club lessons and working on the final presentation. We played with texts, and as well as the children developing their own scenes, which became part of the final presentation, some were altered and some we did not use at all. The challenges we encountered were that I had a clear idea of what I wanted the children to work on, whereas Elif was more spontaneous during in the process.

At school, we usually work on scenes and a play throughout the school year, so the students have a text they work with. I asked to compile a booklet that we could work on and develop further until June, but this was not what Elif’s creation process was. The difficulties we had were that I wanted to work with the children the way they were used to working, namely with a script and ideas that we can alter, and Elif wanted to work more spontaneously, and so we sometimes collided. Nevertheless, we created a great final presentation and both Elif and I know we can work together, however challenging it might have been.

One of my favourite tools this year was definitely free writing. On the one hand, stimulating the creative writing process is something we hardly ever to in regular lessons at school anymore, on the other hand it showed so many varieties of text that can come from one sole input. It was also interesting to see how the children decided which texts to use and how to use them. Some didn’t want to perform their own writing; others were very keen on doing so. My conclusion regarding this tool or method is that everyone can contribute something, and the outcome is going to be very colourful.

In retrospect, it can be said that what I learned in theory in the online sessions about theatre for, by and with young audiences, was put into practice with our project and enabled me to dare and create something similar in the future. Elif’s work as a dramaturg and what she taught us will be very helpful for future developments and I believe she learned that working with a group of children is very different to working with a group of adults, whether amateurs or professionals. Schools and theatres work very differently in general and Connect Up brought those institutions together in numerous ways and I am grateful to have been part of this process and of the whole project.