Autobiographical Theatre fiction as innovative tool to help people with migration background re-elaborate their experience and integrate in society.
If we wish to know about a man, we ask “what is his story - his real, inmost story?”. For each of us is a biography, a story. Each of us is a singular narrative, which is constructed, continually, unconsciously, by, through, and in us through our perceptions, our feelings, our thoughts, our actions; and, not least, our discourse, our spoken narrations. Biologically, physiologically, we are not so different from each other; historically, as narratives, we are each of us unique. ― Oliver Sacks, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales ATENEA - Autobiographical theatre fiction as innovative tool to address the human vulnerability is an Erasmus+ project based on the Methodology of Autobiographical Theatre developed by the Spanish playwright and actor Domingo Ferrandis.
The project aims at sharing this methodology with European organizations who work with different target groups who have to do with vulnerability. Les Cultures is one of the partners of the project. It is a non-profit organisation based in Lecco, Italy, and it works in the field of integration of migrant people. Autobiographical theatre has soon been seen as a chance for its beneficiaries to integrate and to transform a condition of marginality into art. Autobiographic narrative has always been present in human history: since ancient times every man has felt the need to fix his own experience, not only in an attempt to overcome the caducity of life, but also to reflect on his own path, understand its meaning and acquire new vital momentum.
Over the past few years, the autobiographic approach has grown its presence in pedagogical and treatment practices because it is considered as an educative method, capable of encouraging and supporting the feeling of self-esteem that underlies the proactive ability to redesign one's personal life story - both in terms of re-understanding the past and in planning the future. These aspects of the autobiographic approach are also shared by the art of theatre, which can be a mean to accomplish self-esteem, to work on stress management and to raise awareness of verbal communication as well as nonverbal communication. These skills are useful for everybody: for migrant people, who are required to adapt to a socio-
cultural context strongly different from their own, but also for citizens to engage in a different attitude and become more welcoming towards new citizens. Theatre can change the image that people have of migrants. It can build a new meaning of inclusion through a non-conventional and universal language. It is the opportunity of creating situations of aggregation out of the ordinary that can promote social integration built on the collective experience of "doing" and "watching" theatre. In the field of Atenea project, a key role is played by directors. Their task is to build a shared and safe space, to fulfill new personal and collective experiences by working on empathy, emotional awareness, gratification – and to eradicate prejudice and moral judgment. They also stimulate the narration of the beneficiaries’ stories and take them in their custody. Listening is a key word in this process. The different vulnerabilities of the beneficiaries can make them feel isolated and excluded by the rest of the society, where no one has the time nor the will to stop and listen to them. Theatre can be a place where we can finally rest and get in touch with other human beings. People who take part in the theatre workshops become for each other a sort of new community based on mutual trust and a space and a time that fills, even if only in part, the void left by the abandonment of relatives and friends in the country of origin. New friends, new bonds, new goals to achieve together, the discovery that you can still do something about yourself even after the trauma of separation, suffering, violence, loss. To create and maintain this environment, a certain rituality in the workshop is very important: a moment of greeting at the beginning and at the end, taking care of each and everyone of the participant beyond the creation of the artistic process, listening to and respecting the needs of others, but also finding a space for conviviality such as a lunch together or a walk in the nature. Sharing is caring they say, and only when we take the time to listen, carefully, to other people we can put ourselves in their shoes, having the opportunity to get rid of prejudices towards the “other”, the “foreigner”. In conclusion, Atenea methodology has proved to be a powerful tool to address people with migration background, who became more self-confident, had the chance to do new and stimulating experiences travelling abroad for the international workshops and met people they can rely on.
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