Speech:less

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Migrants only rarely get a word in themselves, mostly others speak for and about them. The theater project gives them a voice and works with themes surrounding migration and living together.

0 €
0%
financed
€ 2.197
Budget
Cooperation with:
Call4Europe 2015
Implementation: 01.01.2016 - 30.06.2016
Country/Region: Austria/Vienna
Social Media:
Status: Financing failed
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What is the project about?

The themes migration and asylum are currently determining everyday life in Europe especially and are very present in the media. The people affected rarely have a say, however – mostly they are spoken about or spoken for. The theater project speech:less aims to create a space in which asylum seekers and migrants can present their stories and experiences in exchange with other people interested in theater.

For this, the method of statue theater, a variation of Augusto Boal’s “Theatre of the Oppressed”, will be employed. Situations of oppression will be portrayed by the participants, in form of human “statues” and will be dynamically changed through audience involvement. Statue theater is a low-barrier form of theater that is easy to practice. Irrespective of verbal expressiveness, themes, problems and conflicts can be made visible and common solutions and approaches found.

For the execution of 10 workshops with 20-25 participants as well as 3 performances under the guidance of a theater pedagogue, the project with require a financing amounting to 2.197 Euro.

What happens with the money if financing was successful

The funds from respekt.net are to be used for the following budget positions:

-      Fees for the theater pedagogue (1.800 €)

-      Costs for props and materials (100€)

-      Entertainment expenses for three final performances (100€)

 

The following budget positions will be taken from our own resources:

-      - Proportionate costs for space rent (300€)

-      - Printing costs for flyers and invitations (200€)

 

Relevance of the Project

The developments in the field of asylum and migration present Europe with great challenges and are currently polarizing the population – empathy and helpfulness are often pitted against fear and insecurity. Migration is especially seen as a problem when little is known about the backgrounds of flight and displacement, and when there are no points of contact in everyday life. Both on a large and on a small scale, projects that make intercultural encounters possible can foster the situation of people with various backgrounds living together and can contribute to a larger solidarity. This theater project aims at creating such a space for encounters.

 

Central Aims of the Project

 

Fostering Participation

The possibilities for societal participation in many areas of life are often very restricted for migrants, especially for refugees and asylum seekers. This does not only concern possibilities for political participation and the job market – societal participation is also further impeded through language or cultural barriers or through offers with high thresholds. Integration and participation often begins with small things – such as projects in neighborhoods that offer people of various backgrounds a space in which to learn new things and encounter one another. The theater project speech:less builds on experiences from such a space: Since 2014, in the Herbststrasse 15, a community center in Vienna used by the “Gebietsbetreuung Wien” and the “Caritas Stadtteilarbeit”, ideas and initiatives from the neighborhood are taken up and fostered. The theater project speech:less ties in with peoples’ interests and places a strong focus on migrants and asylum seekers who should be supported in terms of participation in cultural and social life.

 

Offering a Voice

Migrants and asylum seekers rarely speak about their experiences themselves – mostly they are spoken about or for. The goal of the theater project is to offer them a voice and create a space in which their voice is also heard. For this purpose, the project works with a low-threshold and easily practicable form of “The Theatre of the Oppressed”, following Augusto Boal. In so-called statue theater, situations of oppression and discrimination are portrayed nonverbally using human statues and the images created are then discussed together. Emotions and perceptions that cannot be expressed verbally come to light with the body and common action.

 

Making Change Possible

The „Theater of the Oppressed” always aims to make forms of social oppression and discrimination visible and changeable. The division between audience and actors is broken apart in this theater form – during the performances, everyone is invited to get involved in the scenes and show possible solutions. By playing together, possibilities to dissolve and change positions of power, hierarchies and moments of oppression are created through participatory group processes. New possibilities for action and resistant practices can thus be tried out and integrated into everyday life.

 

Project Planning

Starting in January 2016, weekly theater workshops are to be held, accompanied by theater pedagogue Gertrud Unterasinger. In the workshops, each two hours long, the group finds a concern to work on and discuss theatrically. After the weekly workshops are over, performances in a bigger space should offer the possibility to interactively discuss the situation with the audience, by allowing everyone to get involved in the scene and try out alternative possibilities for action.

 

Project Initiators

The project is initiated by Irene Strobel, part of the Caritas Stadtteilarbeit multiplier project “neighborhood parents”, and will be carried out together with theater pedagogue Gertrud Unterasinger.

 

Publicity and PR

Presentation on the website <link herbststrasse15.tumblr.com _blank>herbststrasse15.tumblr.com</link>

Promotion via a separate Facebook page

Mail distribution via Caritas (internal, Reach: 4.500 employees, and external, distribution via the Caritas newsletter and Facebook page)

Cooperation with the Caritas Fundraising Department

 

Sustainability

In the sense of sustainability, the final presentations can be shown time and again, for example during events in the neighborhood, and can thus reach more people. The initiation of the theater group should further serve as an impulse for members of the group to continue in a self-organized manner.

Projektstandort: , , Austria

Funding target:
€ 2.000,-
Handling fee:
€ 197,-
Crowdfunding amount:
€ 2.197,-

Cooperation with:
Call4Europe 2015