As the result of a seminar this last spring about European Voluntary Service, the youth circus Pimparello in Gschwend, from germany, published a guide to EVS.
This notebook can be used by youth circusses who wants to send or welcome volunteers from other European countries; as well as by youth who wants to prepare themself to volunteer in a youth circus organisation abroad.
It explains the main goals and the functioning of the EVS , present the roles and the responsablities of each key actors of the program, gives information about the actual host organisation involved in the program, and also alot of practical information to apply.
To download the notebook, click here.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
BIG BANG FESTIVAL
Big Bang is a festival, organised by Circusplaneet, from 13 to 20 July, based on an international youth circus exchange, between four different schools:
-Circusplaneet, Belgium
-Circus Poehaa, Netherlands
-Circus Keikaus, Finland
-Cabuwazi, Germany
It has been created with the support of the “Youth in Action programme", the EU programme for young people aged 15-28, “which aims to inspire a sense of active citizenship, solidarity and tolerance among young Europeans and to involve them in shaping the Union's future. It promotes mobility within and beyond the EU borders, non-formal learning and intercultural dialogue, and encourages the inclusion of all young people, regardless of their educational, social and cultural background”.
For 6 days Big Bang festival gave the opportunity to the youngsters to exchange their circus-skills, and experience an international meeting. It offered them the possibility to broaden their horizons, to discover new culture, to learn about other countries and other languages.
Combining circus exchange and collaboration with intercultural, informal learning was one of the main goals of the project. In this frame/optic, circus arts have been used as a tool for intercultural learning, as a stimulation to think about topics like collaboration on an international level, or like group work with people from different background.
Circus skills, like acrobatics for example, are based on values like trust, communication and an awareness of the abilities and problems of each other. Therefore by using circus as a common basis, the project aimed to develop sense of tolerance and understanding of each others abilities, as well as each others diversity.
So what’s big bang in everyday life? It’s almost hundred teens living all together, with their differences of languages and cultures.
I have been amazed to see how fast the kids found many different ways to communicate, how fast they started to share about their circus skills. That was just mad to switch from one language to another all day long, and to work with kids without being able to speak with them! But at least circus helps a lot in non-verbal communication. As an art of the body, it transcends linguistic barriers, and as team work it helps to establish trust and group spirit between all the participants.
The program was quite intense. Wake up early (to early for me!) and after a good breakfast, opening activities, as big group icebreaker and warming up. Then intercultural workshop, using a lot physical theatre and mime. After lunch, we split the group in several team for circus workshops, in circus skills like floor acrobatics, pyramids, German wheel, waveboard, slack rope, static trapeze and aerial silk, diabolo, juggling (never saw so much girl juggling), circus theatre, and steals. Then a little break, and dinner before the public events, which mixed performances from professional guest artist, and performances of each circus schools. After all these activities, some of us still found the energy for open training, and big group games, while some others enjoyed simple talk around card and chest game.
The festival ended with the participation of the whole group in the openings parade of the culture festival “Gentse Feesten” and the performances of each school on the stage of the Youth Circus Festival during the “Gentse Feesten”. The parade was a big deal: each school had to prepare a walking act and costumes on its side during the year, and we had only few days all together to transform it in a big common work.
Sometimes it was a bit hard to overpass cultural gap (about food, or security for example) and to find compromises. But when we started to work all together for the Parade, creativity was boiling and the mix of all of our ideas gave a wonderful result.
But at least that was the main goal of the exchange: to lead every participant to wonder how we can use our differences as a wealth, and not as a source of conflict.
Workshops:
Public Events:
Parade:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)