Young IDEA - a cross-cultural young theatre event

Project summary

IDEA stands for the International Drama/theatre and Education Association, and arranges world congresses every third year. At the congress in Australia , 1995, there was an attempt to engage the young participants in theatre workshops and theatre production during the congress. This was continued in Kenya in 1998 as Young IDEA, but due to limited economical resources, many of the objectives were not reached. This is why Young IDEA was given its own working group in the main committee for IDEA 2001 in Bergen, Norway. As leader of this group, it was my assignment to develope Young IDEA to be an independent, artistic and social project for young people under the congress umbrella. The voice of the young theatre people should be heared in the organisation. Therefore, we sent them a scenic assignment about cultural identity and welfare, closely tied to two of the UN's Human Rights. These performances were to be shown for each other once in Bergen. In additon new material was to be produced during the congress week. A professional theatre instructor, Mr. Kjetil Skøien, was the artistic leader of the work, and the 11 group leaders were also involved in the workshops. Together they created a new performance by producing a common closing performance called "Dependancy" for the congress closing ceremony in the Grieg Hall. The Norwegian theatre group Theatre Young from Bergen was engaged in carrying out an extensive socisl programme, which was of great importance to their understanding of and insight into the different cultures. The youngsters also took part in the general congress programme, like the opening ceremony, the theatre festval and the student festival. Future work will deal with establishing a net site for Young IDEA, where the groups can keep up the contact; invite each other to natioanl seminars, etc., and continue to develope Young IDEA as an important forum for young theatre voices within the IDEA organisation.