After two productive years, RIOTE 3 has come to an end, but it has created a significant legacy.
Between October 2020 and September 2022, Take Art has been one of eight partners in the Erasmus+ funded programme that built on the success of RIOTE 2 with its focus on rural and outdoor performance.
Coordinated by SINUM Theatre Association (Hungary), the other partners are Shoshin Theatre Association (Romania), UtcaSzAK (Hungary), Kud Ljud (Slovenia), Teatro Nucleo (Italy), Protagon e. V. (Germany), and Une idée dans l’air (France).
Through working together, one of our main aims has been to develop material for two innovative books.
The first of these, The Myth behind the Community, provides an anthology of our collective experiences; the covid pandemic opened up eight very different ways of approaching community theatre and crisis intervention on a social and cultural level.
In October last year we co-produced Journey Exchange, an intergenerational, international project that brought together local people from Burnham and Highbridge, Somerset theatre-makers and artists from Hungary, Germany and Romania. The first part of Chapter One focuses on the story behind this project. The other chapters focus on the fascinating and insightful experiences of the other partners.
A pdf of this publication can be downloaded here.
Marco Luciano, from Teatro Nucleo, writes in the introduction:
"..it is necessary to state that it is precisely in the incorruptible link between the creative and educational process that the many possibilities to cross complex and fragile scenarios, to experience places and languages in which actors and spectators confront ‘otherness’ and to produce new images, that new visions open, starting from history and memory."
The second book, The 9th Sense, written by our Hungarian colleague, Balázs Simon, focuses on the innovative use of a life quality measurement toolkit for practitioners who want to implement technology-based feedback in their community theatre work with groups and individuals.
A pdf of this publication can be downloaded here.
Other highlights of the project have included several training events hosted by each of the partners. Most recently, this summer has seen a flurry of trips with Abby Young, from Tall Tails Theatre Company, participating in Une idée dans l’air’s programme in Villars, France.
Mark, Take Art’s Director of Theatre, travelled to Pécs, Hungary, for a partners’ meeting in June, shortly after returning from an inspiring training event in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in June. You can read more about his adventures in our news article.
Last year, Abby Young travelled into deepest Borsod country on the Hungarian borders with Slovakia to work for a week alongside theatre practitioners from the other parters as well as the local Gypsy Roma community. She said:
"this was an incredible life-changing week...so much learning, kindness, generosity and culture...I have never had an experience like it."
We have been extremely pleased and proud to have worked with such generous and inspiring partners over the last two years and enjoyed the cultural exchanges that have enriched all our respective practices. We hope to deepen these relationships in the coming months and years.
