Question! Encounter! Play! has been a theatre project, and so much more...
by Beatrice Veronesi
Question! Encounter! Play! (Frage! Begegne! Spiele!) 2023 has been a theatre project, and so much more. In just a one week program, I - together with the organizers and participants - have been blessed with much questioning, encounters, and playfulness.
Question!
Guided through the tools of Biographical journey, we dived into the discovery of the Self and of the Self in relation to the Other, trying to answer the guiding question “What is your story?”. While remembering our toughest life experiences and shifting perspectives upon them, we were met with the need to question our beliefs, as well as the story we tell to, and about, ourselves. In a continuous dialogue, in a perpetual metamorphosis of limits and borders, we managed to meet ourselves and the others at a point of acceptance, compassion, and love that felt healing.
Encounter!
Coming from 20 countries spread all over the world, encountering each other with welcoming arms seemed effortless. Day by day, we managed to build a deep sense of trust and belonging to a newly found community that many participants would define as “family”. A chosen family of people who decided to question their role, accept the challenge, and simply - but honestly - be themselves. A cause and consequence of such bonding were all the moments in between the theatre production spent laughing, singing, dancing, and exchanging bits of personality and cultures. When encountering the audience at the final performance, it was clear that they, too, witnessed the magic we created as a group of strangers who got to share and build so much in one week. Diversity is indeed what allows us to thrive, invent, create, and grow!
Play!
The outcome of the program was indeed a theatre play, but that was certainly not the only time we played: we played as children, too, creating imaginary worlds of wonder and beauty, laughing out loud and taking ourselves a little less seriously than usual. We also played when we decided to put ourselves in the game and live to the fullest an intense and rewarding week, for how hard it was to share the pain that life can bring and the obstacles of a society that too often chooses to build walls instead of bridges. Play has served us as a pedagogical tool, a fresh perspective reminding us to live life more light-heartedly and rewrite it through new words and new meanings.
Question! Encounter! Play! (Frage! Begegne! Spiele!) is not only a pedagogical project of individual growth in the setting of a small, temporary community. It is a political project, too: an example of how diversity is fundamental and inborn in our human experience of the world and of how easy it can be to understand and accept each other in light of the differences that make us unique. We managed a theatre production translating the instructions into three and more languages and still, when we danced, sang, and played together no words were needed to communicate and connect deeply. I wonder what the world would look like if all were to experience such a program like Question! Encounter! Play! (Frage! Begegne! Spiele!): a place of trust, experimentation, and creativity, where every individual can shine - not in spite - but thanks to the group that supports them.
Beatrice
FBS 2023 participant and teacher in training
at DNS - The Necessary Teacher Training College