Unga Klara: "Memories for use" Workshop
Unga Klara (Stockholm, Sweden)
A workshop for theatre students, directors, drama teachers, scholars, theatre colleagues, pedagogue etc.
It’s common to talk about the child within. In this workshop we go into the practices and deeper perspectives behind the phrase. Through the use of memories of situations and experiences from our own childhood, we gain insights about what can be made relevant, important and relatable in theatre for children and young people. The workshop also provides methodology in how, when and what we play theatre with children’s perspectives at its core. How can we create pedagogies and narratives that goes beyond the clichés, and tells more honest stories from the children point of view?
Performing arts for children and young people is often reduced to education or entertainment. The themes, aesthetics and the execution of the artworks testify of a view on the child that is full of prejudices. Throughout history, man has created and sought art to better understand herself and her world, to ask the most existential questions and to develop, challenge and comfort our minds and souls. Shouldn't art be that for children too?
Theatre for young audiences with a child's perspective is fundamentally revolutionary, because it differs to the norms of the adult world and society's view of children, which often reduces the child to a non-intellectual, independent and artistically uninteresting being. What happens if we create art for children that maintains at least the same high quality and artistic freedom as art for adults? A small – big - social and artistic revolt, we would say.
Photos by Milja Rossi
Unga Klara (Young Klara), from Stockholm Sweden, was formed in 1975, at the time as a division of Stockholm City Theatre, and has since then led world-renowned explorative activities in the dramatic arts with a focus on the conditions of children and young people. Suzanne Osten founded the company and was its Artistic Director between 1975-2013.
Unga Klara has explored what constitutes dramatic art from the approach that a young audience is naturally entitled to the same high level of artistic quality as an adult audience. Based on the conviction that we can best express a positive outlook on life by speaking truthfully about its complexity, Unga Klara has tackled serious topics in a playful form, and has combined the heavy with the light, has explored, examined and developed ideas with test audiences.