The Atenea project began in the summer of 2021, where several partners from European countries joined in. The goal of the project was not only social inclusion, in which field our partners are widely experienced, but also assistance to adults in addressing issues of equality, non-discrimination, vulnerability, trauma, relocation, employment, personal and collective social issues. In this year, the project itself offered not only the expertise of the Method of Autobiographical Theater by Doming Ferandis, but also several informal methods of learning, developing social skills, recovery and improving the way of living.
Partners from Spain, Italy, Germany, Lithuania, Greece and Slovenia worked with their target groups last year and this year on dramatic expression, communication, aesthetics, but mostly how to use the method of autobiographical theatre to deal with vulnerabilities.
Our group consists of a group of people who have survived and experienced several difficult situations in life sharing their experiences and stories with us, were we can all find each other and learn something new. This was the goal of the project, to use autobiographical theatre to talk openly about our personal experiences in a way that liberates us, how we faced changes in our lives and how we came out victorious. These are both individual and collective stories that we not only watch on television but happen to us, we process them and in the end we are ready to tell others about them, to advise or to convey a message that we will do on April 28 in our city, Novo mesto, where we will have our first performance in front of the local audience, our family, friends, associates, neighbours and casual passers-by.
How did the method of autobiographical theatre and everything we learned on the project affect us?
Initially, the group met twice a week. With our experts, as well as colleagues, we tried to conduct several workshops where we got to know each other better, learned storytelling, developed creativity, writing, practiced emotional expression and applied the Methodology of Autobiographical Theatre taught by Domingo Ferandis.
Of course, it was not easy to go through this process because we talked about our personal experiences, which in some examples were difficult. Mostly, because of that trauma or experience that individuals carried within themselves, it was difficult to find words on how to express, how to tell, how to open up to others we don't know so much, how to show our vulnerability. However, the group worked closely together, began to trust each other, to work on visualization, to connect the stories, especially when they recognized similar themes or experiences or simple compassion.
What we noticed during the creation of our story "One way ticket", is that emotions were changing, the way that we have experience dour stories from the very beginning until now. It happened that we had a clear picture and a vision of how we would tell the story, how we would act it out and when we told it out loud and showed it in front of everyone it happened that we heard, also, "Um, somehow I don't feel like I should tell my story this way "," Eh, now I see that this part is not important that I need to dedicate more time to this part". Not only have we transformed ourselves but our stories have transformed, in fact our experiences, we have felt that transformation and maybe recovery.
We used to sit for hours and work on a story, other hours we would spend creating scenography. Telling our stories, we looked for a common line, a red thread that would unite all our stories into one. At the beginning, we focused on words that could be a thread that connects the whole story, for example, fear, transformation, traveling, making a map on which our stories would move back and forth.
At that moment, we opened the storyboard and put together our stories, ideas and made connections between them to built the final story. We met a couple of times and everyone read and finished their stories, we listened to what others thought about our stories, performances, how they experienced them, did they understand whether, did the make connections, how they felt while telling, acting, presenting ... We did work a lot on feedback which helped the group to build trust and work in supportive environment. Soon we arrived to the point where evryone was satisfied and proud of the final story. We have decided, story will start at the airport, somewhere where we all have been because travels and relocation was something that almost has happened to all of your actors.
The airport has become a synonym or metaphor for what happened to us, some had to leave their homes due to war, others for personal reasons, some due to economical instability, everyone had to and maybe wanted to go foraward. In that crowd we will notice people moving and if we stoped for a while we would notice that each of them carries a story and although being dragged in the rush, at one point one of our players will stop and pull everyone to listen to her story of recovery from a serious health condition. Of course, the airport will still crowded, everyone will be waiting for the flight and the time to pass, at that moment, our attention will be taken by a girl who passes by with a suitcase and you will ask yourself where does she comes from until she tells as her story, too. It wont be a classical storytelling, she will tell us her story through dance. At some point, we will all be speechless because dance and music will take us to the story of relocation and life in the new state. Sound of warning that someone is already late for their flight will bring us back to reality, although our passenger might not hear it and lose her ticket in one direction. However, there are others at the same airport who want to tell their story. At some point an audience might notice, in a crowd a young man with a guitar, maybe you wont even pay attention to that because this is quite normal scene while travelling. We might think that he does this to pass time, but if you listen to his song carefully, you will see that he is talking about his youth, difficulties and salvation in the same song. He will talk about growing up until you hear how the sounds of music will cause nostalgia and take you to another story about family, parents, loss, forgiveness and a new life. After telling their stories, sharing them with us, they will return to their daily lives, travel on, families, work as new people, heroes, winners in this game called life.
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