Wednesday 2012 November 7th

With :

ALA de Nun' Álvares de Gondomar PT – Portugal
Poetry Circle Nowhere / Stichting Nowhere - NL – NETHERLANDS
Österreichisches Trainingszentrum für Neuro-Linguistisches Programmieren und Neuro-Linguistische Psychotherapie - AT-Austria
Ass. Alpha Centauri IT-ITALY
Uniwersytet Wrocawski Uniwersytet Trzeciego Wieku - PL-Poland
ELEPHANT MUSIK FR-France

Day one

The meeting was at 8H30 am at the 3rd age department of Wroclaw University . We were warmly welcome by the Polish partners around coffees and teas which were perfects to break the shiness of a first meeting.

At 9 am Aleksander suggested that each association made a presentation of its own activities :

First, the french partners represented by Guy Khalepsky, made a presentation of « elephant musik » through the association website . He explained to the participants the art conception of « ELEPHANT MUSIK », the adults and children learning that elephant musik provides and also others aspects of its activities : artists production, concerts.

Alcedio did the presentation of ALA NUN’ALVAREZ DE GONDOMAR association which activity is in particular to provide several and various cultural and sports activities. He explained us that it’s made possible by the voluntary works of a lot of teachers and trainers.

Bab’s, one of the holland partners did the presentation of their group :« THE POETY CIRCLE OF NOWHERE». It’s a poetry group based in Amsterdam who question mostly the contemporarly aspects of poetry : slam, music and rythms in their performances. They showed us videos on youtube of ther works and shows in particular one who took place in a plastic performance festival last year in Holland.

Italy partner, « Alpha Centauri » was represented by a single member in poland: Dora Ferrarra. She is an administrative manager. And you coud notice that by her amazing sense of organisation. Alpha centaurii association is interested by how Theater changes over the years.

The Austrian group was represented by Kathrin who, by the way, speaks french very well. She is a development free lancer coach. And she uses neuro linguistic program for that.

The polish group was managed by Aleksander, a director who teaches in the Wroclaw University. Alksander’s assistants exposed us what kind of works they perform in the 3rd Age University (U3A) of Wroclaw. This part of the wroclaw university seems to be very connected with young students. The 3rd age is not totally isolated from other departments which very interesting for the exchange of experience from old to young obviously but from young to old too.

We took a break to have a coffee and one another to have a lunch together.

In the afternoon, participant of the polish group started by explaining some of their experiences of their works in the 3rd Age University which was translated in english by a talented and very expressive student.

Then conferency continued with a interesting brainstorming about the meanings and the frames of the project « TELL ME A STORY ». How we are going to promote a long lasting relations between the partners involved. and between the generations
But also we discussed about the kind of myth that lives or lived and in the differents countries involved, how the myth travelled over the years. The question were also : Is this about some old myths who continues to live among us nowaday or modern urban legends and fables. And how do people exchange its, the way they communicate the fables from elders to youngers people.

The discussion went also very concrete. We had to choose the forms of the meetings and to fix the dates of the three next others meetings. We reached to the point of fixing two dates in may the 16th and 17th 2013 for the second meeting at Gondomar in Portugal and for the third meeting in Amsterdam October the 1Oth and 11th 2013.
About the forms of the wokshops, the questions were in particular : do we have to make some duals, trios in order to participate on differents workshops or do we have to stay all together on every workshops ? Who is going to organize the first workshops.

We debated and exchange about all these topics to finaly get to a consensus at the end of the day at 6 pm. Then we came back at the Hotel.

Day two

We met at 8h30 am at the 3rd Age University like. The Dutch suggested to organize a small training workshop with the entire « TELL ME A STORY » group. That proposition was a actually a great idea to make us meet with each others in a non verbal way.
At first we began to try to communicate exchange with a partner who do not speaks your language without using an another language but your own. For example, a french person had to speak french with a polish one and the polish person had to response to this french one in polish. By reading that we could say that it was laborious at the first moments but also very enriching and exciting then. We had to take attention of the intonation and the body movements which could give you a lot of informations of the meanings of your current partner. Anyway it was a journey in the cultural exchange by using theater.

Then, the dutch particpants separated us into two groups, one was in charge of the rythm, each person had to make a rythm with his body (in particular drumming with the hands, chests, legs and foots for example) and the others were in charge of the melody. It’s a useful exercise to increase the concentration on what you have to perform and keeping your mind open to your partners ‘ action.
A the final part of the studio, we made a circle (not a dutch poetry one but still). And the instruction was to express alternately a improvisation by saying this phrase « I put a seed in your hand». This kind of exercise are instructive. In deed we could look how each person take the instruction and traduce it in his personal and artistic way : exuberant style, melodic way, rythmics, comic, touching. Some used the phrase by saying it, others don’t, some by choice, some becauce they understood something else. But every one had a common point « expression and exchange » by using theatre as a pretext for art and cultural communication.

In the afternoon, the Polish Group took us to visit historical and cultural sites of Wroclaw. The day ended on visit of the Grotowski institute which is a institution who combines artistic and research projects in the perspective laid down by Jerzy Grotowski, a famous polish director and theater theoricien. A speaker from Grotowski staff took time to explain us the meanings, the aims and the personnalities who works with and /in the institute. In order to keep having some news about their activities she adviced us to take a look on their webside. (http://www.grotowski-institute.art.pl/index.php?lang=en).