Meaningful encounters, art and trust: a theatre project

This October, "Question! Encounter! Play!" will be taking place for the fourth time at the Goetheanum.

"Question! Encounter! Play!" is an artistic project that aims to bring together young refugees in Switzerland and young people from Europe and around the world. During the project, we work intensively to make what at first seems impossible: the production of a play in just one week. It's a week where we all go through the experiences of being on stage, hammering wood, building stairs, painting the depths of the sea and sewing a starry sky. We work from scratch, collaboratively creating the characters, the music, the costumes and the scenography.

During the week, we also work on other stories besides the play. Through guiding questions, different activities and, as always, art and poetry, we embark on a journey into our own biographies, our own stories. The cultivation of this environment has accompanied us throughout the project these past three years. We never know the result in advance, but it is always the same: a space for listening with an open heart, where each story is shared and celebrated, regardless of the language.

In a certain sense, we as organisers have always been pleasantly overwhelmed that the project works and is so special. But even though this will be our fourth year doing it and that so far we have been blessed with beautiful experiences, the truth is we always have to step into this new unknown with a certain quality of abandon, allowing the new year and new community to be met in honesty and freedom, without any expectations or preconceptions. We have always prepared ourselves with the same aim, the same programme, the same enthusiasm, the same spirit. But in reality we don’t know who or how many will come and what might happen.

Nevertheless, each year we manage to build a community where there is genuine love for the other in only a week’s time, with around 35 people who are new to each other from close to 20 different countries. It seems improbable and yet, like magic, "Question! Encounter! Play!" has proven it is possible.

Maybe our preparation can be described with an analogy. Imagine a small child passing through a small forest. The child will rarely follow the beaten path, but will play and discover the way guided by curiosity as he or she goes. An adult, on the other hand, mostly wants there to be a track to follow.

In our project, there are no trodden paths to follow. We mostly don’t know who will join us and what their stories are. So as a team we can only discern a general direction and general destination, and then set out relying on each other’s moral compasses to get there. This takes a lot of trust in each other. We must put our egos aside and place ourselves in service of the agreed upon imagination and in service of one another. In all of this, taking care to not step into the snare of thinking that “I,” myself, have done anything particularly special and well. As an organising team this lives in our hearts. And perhaps that is what prepares the ground for magic to be invited. We don’t expect it to happen and neither do we see it as our task to expect so. Ours is to be prepared to host whatever emerges.

Our experience so far has been to be part of a group soul that is far greater than any that one of us could invoke from just our own individual capacity. The body of this being is the temporal community we form and its substance in which we are allowed to dwell for a while, is love. This has been immensely healing for everyone who has participated thus far.

In this sense we feel that it is a future oriented project belonging to the new mysteries, as we as organisers together with the participants become equal shareholders. It is an attempt at merging horizontal and vertical leadership.

We do not know how it will be this year, but we welcome the journey and invite you to join.