13/05/2024
🌼🎭Cour'Age ended a few months ago and we have already started to miss each other!
🏵️Through these last 2 years we became so much richer in experiences, both educational and cultural, that our hands now are full of valuable tools to move us further.
🏵️Cour'Age has been a unique opportunity to observe and work in environments of other practice hubs and physical theatre companies, in different countries, but with the physical language intentions and on-stage toolset. This way, both teachers and students were able to become more flexible in working with each other, in different working invoronments, with a very diverse group of people, and exercise their adjustability skills.
🌼The language barrier was quickly eliminated, as our main language was physical work, and the students very quickly got acquainted deeply and meaningfully, letting go of their social norms or cultural barriers and delving deep into the practice, even from the early meetings in 2022.
Working with this group of students and teachers over the course of the program was deep and meaningful, and also getting to create and present an Ensemble performance piece at the end of every meeting was an indicator that the merging of practices and the co-creative spirit of a theatrical piece by our group of students actually works, and in fact was impressive!
🏵️Our students were positively affected by the program, they actually became friends over the course of the international training sessions, and the final Festival week in Brussels was the peak of their practice journey, because they got to finally create a full length Ensemble Theatre Performance, combining and threading their way to excellence.
🎭Being one of the aims of the Cour'Age program, the participants' self-confidence was enhanced since they developed an ability to interact with professionals and reinforced their faith in the value of their work - able to take it to a professional level.
In addition to that, as a result of the Cour'Age program, we have a network of Theatre professionals, all experts in their field, as a nest of future collaborations and new partnerships, as well as - and most important - a support by theatre professionals for the participants to work with, guide or advise.
Participants not only have been qualified with tools of theatre training and had the opportunity to expose themselves to a staging process in front of an audience, they also had the opportunity to work interculturally, to exchange ideas and co-create and to connect with highly skilled professionals in the theatrical field.
🌼In our final meeting in Brussels, hosted by the program's organizers Eco Culture Asbl , in ULB - Université libre de Bruxelles , we worked even deeper in the training tools that we were already present to, participants were guided to create their own short Solo Performances and we worked as a cooperative team to create the whole Ensemble Theatre Performance.
🎭🤸🏻It was presented to the audience of Brussels, a warm and open group of people. And finally we had the offering of the 'Europasses' diplomas to each participant, both teachers and students.
It was a lovely night, where we were all really touched , full of emotion of completion and appreciation.
🌼🎭We could not be more proud of them, as it really takes courage to embark on your own artistic journey as a professional performer and/or drama/acting instructor, and these people showed us and themselves that if you have the courage to make decisions and work for them, then the applause will just be the start of it.
Thank you all, it has been an amazing and very enriching experience!!!
Cheers to all of the friends and professional family we made along the way.
FUNDAMENTAL VALUES - OUR AIM - OUR COLLECTIVE VISION
We aim to help participants in mastering these training methods, so that students can grow and move towards creative independence and artistic freedom.
Life long learning cultivated in this Trans-european approach supports the transition where Art in a country is no longer considered as an isolated, local issue.
And as always, we continue with the exchange of methods between us teachers also, enriching our practice and interconnecting our theatrical approaches.
🔸Selected adult students from 5 European countries met in training and co-creation, coming into contact with the students of our hosts, the beautiful campus of ULB, campus Solbosch in Brussels.
🔸 As the creative team of the 'Cour'Age Erasmus' project we aimed to offer high level of Theatrical training methods and the experience of the theatrical creative process to adults that are choosing Theatre as a second pathway towards a professional development, wanting to enter a new life direction through the artists'craft.
🔸 Working with exceptional teachers, directors and founders of theatre schools, companies and institutes, the students for 5 different countries had the opportunity to practice again and further develop a collection of skills and to open up to new ideas and approaches to what is theatrical training and staging.
🔸By implementing the "Cour'Age" project, our five of us (Greece, Austria, Italy, Belgium and Germany) we managed to bring together theatrical, transversal and digital skills, comparing teaching methods, skills and reflections on pedagogy and aim to develop alternative multidisciplinary training for disadvantaged adult learners to enable them better socio-professional outcomes and integration into European society.
The teachers and artistic collaborators of Cour'Age Erasmus Project :
🔸 Colleen Rae Holmes, Peter Uhl
Open Acting Academy Wien
🔸 Margarita Khaskelskaia
Eco Culture Asbl Belgium
🔸 Aliki Dourmazer
Present Being Performer Laboratory - Physical Theatre Education
Θέατρο εΦ - Ομάδα θεάτρου
Areti Makrol Greece
🔸 Sabine Trötschel
Theaterwerkstatt Hannover Germany
🔸 Philip Radice
Atelier Teatro Fisico
Italy
