School project

A project with kids/young adults on what one can term ‘the creative impulse’; which means that working on people’s craftsmanship as actors comes second, while our main focus is on challenging kids/young adults to find their voice. We work with the assumption that before a kid/young adult learns how to act, shoot a video, or edit a clip, he or she has to have something to say. Something that is truly theirs; not a copy of the art they consume, or a ‘text’ that was fed to them by well-meaning adults. We don’t discount craft; we just found out that if a kid/young adult finds his or her story/voice, they will find a way to realize it. Many kids/young adults know how to use a camera; however, the stories they tell are copies of the films, TV shows, and video games they see day in and out. The same can be said regarding kids/young adults acting, which often looks like just another version of the adult stages or performances.

So, instead of working on a show as an end product, we spend time creating many “shows’ daily. We call it the story factory; which means, to us, a constant production of stories, ideas, abstract thoughts, movements, and talks with not so much emphasis on the ‘how’. At the end of the process, the body of materials we generate is immense; be it stories, theatre scenes, interviews, video clips, dances, and talks. We, the adult, are there to service the creative impulses of the participants, it is their job to come up with the ‘stories’.

With students of KMS 15 Schweglerstraße and KMS 7 Neubaugasse, Vienna

April 13 – 21, 2010