Blog post from Ung Scen Norr/Norrbottensteatern 2019-10-14
Photos by Magnus Stenberg
Ung Scen Norr is part of the regional theatre Norrbottensteatern based in the region of Norrbotten in the most northern part of Sweden. Ung Scen Norr makes professional theatre plays for young people and tours around Norrbotten with every play. The region in large and population is small. A part from touring around Norrbotten, we also make specific actions to create possibilities for young people to engage in making theatre themselves in their cities or villages. We have in the past trained more than twenty theatre trainers in the region to serve as leaders for young theatre groups.
During a weekend in the end of august Ung Scen Norr/Norrbottensteatern arranged a weekend camp for young theatre groups called “Crash-camp”. The invitation to the groups was to come to Luleå and take part in a workshop for a weekend. The program consisted of theatre based workshops with other young people, time to spend with likeminded, networking and sleeping over.
Ph: Magnus Stenberg
Three theatre groups signed up for the workshop and they arrived in Luleå midday on Saturday. During the workshop on Saturday we used several exercises from the Fake it method to empower the participants and to get them to learn to know each other. The participants were between 10-15 years old and everyone participated fully during the whole day. The exercises from the first day of the workshop served as a base for the following activities on Sunday when the participants were to prepare their own show based on their own written texts. The short writing exercise is one used in the Fake it method. During the camp we tried out this exercise for the first time with people as young as 10 and found out that it works well!
Later on Sunday the show was being performed with the group itself as an audience. The participants showed great courage on stage and used the elements from the exercises done the previous day and they were well supported by the others watching and cheering. The small shows were funny and touching.
During the camp we learnt that many of the exercises used in the Fake it method can be used even with younger people if the circumstances around the participants are safe and everyone feels they are included in the process.
Ph: Magnus Stenberg