Beyond Borders and Boundaries will be performed during Refugee Week

‘Beyond Borders and Boundaries’, Acting Now’s winning project at the first Cambridge Soup, has come to life and its result will be performed by the participants of the workshop again as a Forum theatre performance during Refugee Week.

At Cambridge Soup, organised last February by Allia, Marina went head to head with three other pitchers to share her idea in front of an audience from the local community, and she won.  Her project, based on a Forum Theatre workshop aimed at raising awareness about the refugee injustice, has now been implemented in partnership with Cambridge Ethnic Community Forum.

The participants had different backgrounds and nationalities and hold various theatrical experience – from professional actors to first timers. But, they all had in common a desire to explore the possibilities and options that each of us as individuals and also as part of a wider society have to raise awareness and to take action about the refugee injustice.

“It has been a creative, intense and beautiful collective creation. It has made me realise that the answers are not obvious or easy, but we will only be able to take positive steps through collaboration and empowerment if we act together. It is very necessary that the conversation about refugees doesn’t stop and we need to turn it into action.” Dina, one of the atendees to Beyond Borders and Boundaries.

After an introduction to Forum theatre, they practiced group techniques such as Image theatre, where participants rapidly sculpt their own or each others’ bodies to express attitudes and emotions. Later, the participants sat down and talked about the refugee situation. It was an honest discussion in which attendees shared different stories that their family or people around them had experienced.

The group, divided in two teams, was then challenged to select some of those memories to create a performance about a refugee situation. They started with a handful of powerful images represented statically with their bodies, that  then placed together and ‘dynamised’ them. The result was two powerful performances about the same topic but from different perspectives: whereas one showed the problem of a family who has to leave their home and gets separated during the process, the other one reflected on the limited help that people visiting refugee camps can give, as they have to continue with their day to day lives after the trip.

As part of the Forum theatre technique, all members were challenged to analyze the problems raised in the stories, adding changes and suggesting different endings. However, not solving the conflicts, but reflecting on how the situations could improve adding small yet important changes. The participants found interesting how it seemed easy giving their opinion towards the resolution of a problem, but it was actually hard when they had to come to the stage to apply changes in the story by playing one of the characters.

During Refugee Week, which will start on June 20th, participants from Beyond Borders and Boundaries will represent their performances in front of an audience at Museum of Cambridge. Everyone will be able to join the discussion and to suggest alternative endings for both stories, by discussing and coming up to the stage to play a carácter.

A toast to 2015

If you are responsible for a company or project or even if you have children, you know you need to constantly have your eyes in multiple sides. You are not just worried about their performing; you also want to make sure everybody is searching for new challenges and dreams, overcoming difficulties, playing a meaningful role in the society, working on their happiness. This is a 24h job and sometimes you are so busy that you forget to just relax and breathe, to take stock of what you have reached so far. However, this is a task that comes naturally to us in this time of the year, it seems the right moment to summarize and reflect on what we have performed. We could also think about our mistakes, but they are part of our achievements, just another step that allows us to move in the right direction.

An important part of our activity has been the development of projects with people on risk of social exclusion, using Social Theatre as a tool of reflection and as a way to give them a voice in the society. One example is the project we run for the charity Make, Do and Mend, where after more than 56 sessions a group of people with mental health issues are ready to perform the theatre play You are not going to stop me next January. We are hoping the result to be as good as our last project with homeless people, when we created the play The Rise and fall of Mario Sanchez, performed in five different stages over the year, including Cambridge TV studio and the University of Warwick. The last project to be added to the list is part of our new partnership with the Arts Centre and charity Rowan Humberstone. The main is to help people with learning disabilities to discover their talents, learn new skills and gain confidence. Always using theatre as the main instrument, the ultimate goal will be creating a theatrical performance.

During the year, we have also developed Theatre of the Oppressed trainings, aimed at anyone who is interested in theatre as a tool for social transformation, and we have launched two new projects that we are hoping to see growing next over the next year. One is a performance about the consequences of the Spanish Civil War where Marina Pallarés, director of the company, plays accompanied by Frederick Harris on the guitar. You, me and the Spanish Civil War is a very unique performance, not only because it talks about real – historic and personal – facts, but also because it has been created to be performed intimately in people’s living rooms.

Finally, last 10th of December we presented Acting Against Bullying, a project to be implemented in schools in Cambridgeshire, Norwich, Essex and Hertfordshire in which Forum Theatre will help the students to take the challenge of reflecting and acting around the issues of bullying. After three professional actors present a situation where bullying arises, the audience is asked to get up on stage and help the protagonist exploring a range of strategies for dealing with the problem and positive ways of leading to empowerment.

Looking back to 2015, we are happy with the amount of projects that Acting Now has developed and with the number of amazing people that have trusted on us and worked hard and passionately to make it happen. Also we hope that the amount of seeds we have grown will lead 2016 to be an amazing year full of exciting challenges.

Thank you for your support now, in the past and in the future, whereas you collaborate, work or have some interest in the projects we develop. Happy 2016!