This Is Who We Are

THIS IS WHO WE ARE was a youth exchange project which used theatre, dialogue, film, and artistic collaboration to explore young people's understanding of their identity as European citizens. We worked with 10 Norwegians, 10 French and 20 Irish young people aged 15-18. It occurred in Newbridge, County Kildare, Ireland (mostly in Riverbank Arts Centre and The Liffey Studio) between the 22nd and the 30th of June 2013.

Each group brought a prepared creative presentation that was staged on the first day for the rest of the participants and for invited audience members. All of the presentations explored the theme of self-image and identity.
During the week, the 40 young people worked with 7 artistic leaders and 5 facilitators and youth workers from Norway, France, Ireland and Scotland to further develop their understanding of identity. They participated to skill workshops on dance, stage combat, Viewpoint technique and physical theatre. They also got the chance to split into different groups in order to create devised pieces of theatre that were shown on a public creative presentation and a discussion forum at the end of the week.

With this project, we :
- explored issues of self image and youth identity using creative methods of youth-work and group-work
- brought young people together with professional artists and youth workers to create collaborative presentations based on the themes explored during the project
- built on previous relationships between the promoters and the young people to further integrate each group with their European peers.
- raised awareness of factors that have an impact on youth identity and self image (such as popular culture, music, all types of media, peer groups, national culture and tradition, gender stereotyping, family, and school).