What happened

so far?

Young IDEA

It all started in rainy Rostock.

The problem: today’s generation is overwhelmed. So many things to do, to see, to experience. The stimuli of the digitalized and globalized world are endless. But where is the Family in all this?

The Idea: to bring families from all over the world together and give the children the chance to talk about how they are growing up, what they need to be healthy and what they want to be happy.

The Platform: Young IDEA, the world organization IDEA and theatre and art educators from all over the world.

How can we make this happen?

Step one

Young IDEA’s International Students Meeting

At the Hochuschule für Musik und Theater Rostock (hmt)

12th to the 27th of May 2018

Theatre educators, Visual artists, Dancers, Actors and theatre makers from

1. State University Columbia SC /USA

2. Amsterdam Arts University /Netherlands

3. University Reykjavik\ Iceland

4. UFMG Belo Horizonte/Brasil

5. Theater educators from Taiwan

6. University of Lomé Togo

7. Makarere University Kampala /Uganda

8. Hochschule für Musik und Theater Rostock, Germany

9. Theater makers from France

met in Rostock and worked together for two weeks on a proposal for an International Family Meeting in Togo, West Africa which would take place in 2020.

The goal: To create an international Team of art educators who would create and organize the family meeting in Togo.

Part 1: Input

The first three days all the participants, students and teachers had the chance to hear three different keynotes (from Prof. Dr. Bertram about the “Overwhelmed Generation”, Prof. Dr. Alheit about “Biographical work” and Prof. Dr. Dotse Yigbe about “Family and Family Policy in Togo”) and then reflect on what they heard in an artistic way.

Furthermore the participants got a lot of input in the form of workshops from the invited teachers and professors. The goal was to experience as much as possible from the art and culture, the knowledge and methods of the people of the meeting, and put it to good use in the second part.

Part 2: Creative work

The participants formed three work groups according to the topics that interested them most: Biographical work, “overwhelmed-ness,” and family. For the next ten days they worked creatively on their subjects and the question “how can we eventually work on these issues with families, in the context of an international meeting?”.

At first the groups needed time to find a structure and a way to work with each other, because they were working collaboratively. Every group had a mentor: a person from the organizing team, who was there to help them if they got stuck, or give them the time frame and answer questions. Other than that they had the freedom to work any way they chose.

All three groups met every evening for a Plenary Discussion and presented their work of the day with a short performance, speech or game. The plenaries were a very important part of the meeting because they brought everybody and every work subject back to the frame of “how can we work with an international group of families?”.

Part 3: The presentation

At the beginning of the 8th day working together an explosion of ideas happened. We were confronted with the question why Togo? And were met with the answer: the state of Togo is opening itself to the world like other countries on the African continent.

The theatre makers in Togo and Uganda want to establish a stronger connection to IDEA. And we Europeans want to learn more about Togo and its history, the colonization and the way the artists in this country live and create art. We want to try and combine our methods with their methods and establish a new platform for discussion, exchange and networking. We also want to work towards the desire of the University of Lomé to open a new studies program for theater education.

The work took a new dynamic and the emotions heightened our senses and the connection between us. On the last day the presentations provided clarity. We gathered many ideas, methods, proposals for workshops, and even a whole proposal for the schedule of the meeting in Togo. We presented to each other, to the Hochuschule für Musik und Theater, our host in Rostock, and to the city, the only way we know how: through performing.

Part 4: The Transformation

On the 10th day we tried taking all the creative work and dividing it into departments, to organize the Family Meeting in Togo. The group thought long and hard about what each and every one of us could contribute to the organization. We spent the day gathering all the ideas from the different groups of people, proposing new ones for the organization and planning the next steps.

Very important:

We now have an international Young IDEA team consisting of 30 young artists and theater educators from 10 countries which will organize the meeting in Togo.
We will gain even more when the participants return to their home countries and organize their team and colleagues there!
We are open for ideas, proposals, new members and more art!

The next day we visited a school, and played with the elementary school pupils of the drama class, on the subject of family. We were very happy to give the kids a little insight into our different cultures and see their eyes getting bigger with excitement. On the same day we travelled to the city of Berlin and settled into our accommodations.

The meeting concluded with visits to three different theatre performances in Berlin, and a very emotional last night in the backyard of the Gorki Theater there! We will miss everybody!

Step 2

Looking for financing and sponsors for the International Family Meeting in 2020
Looking for more members for the organizing team; in Togo and other countries
Gathering all the results of the Students Meeting and dividing tasks and departments for the organization