What do you see? What is the story?
Imagination and story are at the core of what makes us how we are, of our own humanity.
Since sitting around the light First Fire until holding of billions of shiny screens, we are hooked on stories, stories we hear and stories we tell. Our stories who we are and who we might become.
October 2019, I joined my first NowWhat!? Experience (www.nowwhat2019.com) I was interested in exploring creatine theatre online and with Jenny Hegland and Ben Roberts, I held Poetics of Generosity sessions as well as the first Unlock the News open workshop. NowWhat showed me that it is truly possible to create a sense of community and deep connections with people you never met before. I could sense that theatre can help transform the attention economy to an economy of collective awareness and social solidarity.
In February 2020 as I was sensing what would be the next steps to Unlock The News* Sessions COVID-19 came into to front stage of the news and our lives. Living in Italy, I could sense the risk and possibility of these times very strongly, and I was called to act on various fronts. Holding Social Presencing Theatre (SPT) practice group in Italian and English, teaching Newspaper Theatre online to German University students, co-organizing international practitioners exchanges with Theatre of the Oppressed community (Joker Exchange Online), co-creating and exploring online performing with Terra-Adama-Earth, and holding space for Arts-based research and sense-making during the Gaia Journey (Gaiajourney.org) by the Presencing Institute.
Unlock the News in a way went into to back-burner as all of this and more was going on. Now that the 2nd NowWhat!? Of 2020 is about to begins Unlock the News is returning! Open Jam sessions, which also provides an introductory window to Unlock the News – Facilitator Course, which is meant for those who feel to enter a new world of Social Arts Facilitation.
In the Unlock the News Jam Sessions we will explore Newspaper Theater in the 21st Century and discover new ways to support community well-being and facilitate theatre online and offline. It is inspired by the Brazilian visionary theatre maker Augusto Boal and Theatre of the Oppressed, a groundbreaking praxis of liberation, which brings a fresh approach to why and how to do theatre.
The sessions are part of NowWhat2020 and Facilitation Week and happen on a Zoom video conference call. Some of the questions and social inquiries we will make include:
Why is it, and how is it that certain type of news stories gather more attention the others?
Are the images we see on News and Social Media representing our reality or our imagination? What if we could start telling the story from its end, from the future we want and know is possible?
Please register at bit.ly/UnlocktheNewsJAMS to get the Zoom link!