XCP to launch theatre on stilts training in Kosovo

 

In August, Xchange Perspective e.V. (XCP) launches a preliminary training in the run-up of the ‘Merula -- Multilingual dialogic theatre on stilts in Kosovo’ project, which will commence in January 2014, if sufficient funding can be secured.

 

 

 

MUNICH - The five-day workshop in Prizren will provide an introduction to theatre on stilts in public spaces produced and preformed by young adults from different social, ethnic and religious backgrounds in Kosovo.

 

Isen Bobaj (on stilts), Felix Remter (left),
Afrim Melinchevitch (centre) and Peter
Pruchniewitz (right) during the Dokucamp
on July 13, 2012.At the end of the workshop a first performance will be staged during the Dokufest Prizren 2013. The content and form of the performance dramatises actual social dynamics of identity guided by the perspectives of the participants.

The experiences and lessons learnt of this year’s preliminary training and performance will guide the MERULA project, which seeks to support the participating youth to express their issues of concern and forge common solutions with the audience through multilingual dialogic street theatre on stilts.

 

Theatre in this form, without stage and on stilts in public spaces is an up-to-date enhancement of traditional elements and contemporary forms of expression. The marketplace as an ancestral meeting place becomes a theatrical forum.

 

The innovation lies in the appealing potential for engaging the audience. In the debates on migration and integration “culture” is often perceived as a static differentiating factor between social groups. The project perceives culture as a dynamic process, negotiating knowledge, thus arousing a great potential for group identification.

 

Participants discuss with Fjolla Hoxha and
Isen Bobaj the upcoming workshop, June 15.

Therefore the project develops an artistic form, with different traditional elements and languages, that matches the often complex feelings of belonging in Kosovo, as documented in XCP’s exploratory research ‘Kosovo: mending grievances and bridging divides’.

To realise this project XCP put together a competent team from Germany and Kosovo. Led by the project team leaders Felix Remter and Isen Bobaj, Peter Pruchniewitz, co-founder and member of the theatre company Die Stelzer, Fjolla Hoxha a drama-writer from Kosova and Afrim Melinchevitch, a youth psychologist and conflict trainer from Kosovo, will facilitate the preliminary workshop and performance in August.

 

Please support the preliminary training and the project ‘Merula -- Multilingual dialogic theatre on stilts in Kosovo’ through Betterplace.