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Activities for Young people

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Activities for Young people

Formaat focuses on those young people who are less privileged than girls and boys of the same age. Formaat uses theatre as a means to allow young people to develop their own view on the reality of today, to develop ideas to potentially change this reality and to rehearse for this change.

Formaat plays Forum Theatre shows in which the audience is invited to intervene in the scenes; students get the opportunity to try to change the outcome of the scenes. Formaat also gives classroom workshops on any social issue and/or makes Forum Theatre plays with students in a product oriented process.

The current activities are:

Forum Theatre
The audience is the Forum. Formaat allows people not only to watch but to intervene. The audience plays the main part. Spectators become spect-actors. Forum Theatre investigates, stimulates dialogue, incites people to think and act.

Under Pressure opened in November 2009. Under Pressure is a Forum play about everything young people don’t really want, but do anyway. The main issues are alcohol abuse, game addiction, unsafe sex/teenage pregnancy, discrimination and conflicts with parents. The play was directed by Hector Aristizabal of Imaginaction(US) and Luc Opdebeeck of Formaat. Under Pressure is targeted for at least 120 performances until mid-2011.

The most important target groups are students of special needs schools and young people in prisons.

Short Fuse
Short Fuse is a combined Forum Theatre/Image Theatre workshop about bullying and aggression for children aged 9-12. The main focus is on schools in communities where children have experienced violence at home, at school and in the streets.

Short Fuse started in May 2009 and already saw 90 workshops and about 1500 children until December 2009. The workshops will be available at least until mid-2011.

Legislative Theatre
Our first major LT-project for young people is Agenda Delfshaven 2020. Delfshaven is the district of Rotterdam where our centre is based. With as many young people as possible we try to compile a list of urgent points of action for the district council and government.

Agenda Delfshaven 2020 will be completed by April 2010. Young people also participate in our Lightning Legislative Theatre projects in neighborhoods around the country.

Theatre Empowerment Studio’s
During a period of about 3 months, a Forum Theatre play is made with a group of young people. All available techniques are used to create an anti-model which represents the view of the group on certain issues. This pieces is performed one time or several times in front of an audience of their peers.

Three of these Studio’s were completed in 2008 and 2009. More are to follow; our goal is to create a permanent Youth Empowerment Studio in our Workplace in Rotterdam.

Blagg! Workshops
Blagg! is a combination of Theatre of the Oppressed and cognitive psychology and contains elements of psychodrama. The participants create a fictional character which has committed an offence or broke a rule. Through a number of exercises and games, the group analyses the path towards the offence and finds a way of avoiding repetition of the offence.

With young people, we have worked with Blagg! concerning offending, public transport nuisance and alcohol abuse.