“The spectator assumes the protagonist role, changes the dramatic action, tries out solutions, discusses plans for change – in short trains themselves for real action. In this case, perhaps the theatre is not revolutionary in itself, but it is surely a rehearsal for the revolution.” Augusto Boal, Theatre of the Oppressed, 1974
The revolution begins in the imagination, not on the barricades. Rehearsing the Revolution shows us how stories make the world, what our possibilities and responsibilities are in relation to the stories around us. To what extent do we tell our own story or do we let our thoughts be dominated by the dominant narratives?
Rehearsing the Revolution is a collaborative storytelling game, in which we can experience reality from different perspectives and truths and discover what binds us. During the game we practice imagining a radical change, a revolution.
The Rehearsing the Revolution game is an immersive and activist art experience that brings together theatre, spoken word, experience design and visual arts.
We believe that change starts from within and are convinced that co-creative art experiences can cause cultural shifts, enable fundamental changes and collaborations, even in circumstances where nothing else seems to work.
In Rehearsing the Revolution we want to learn to listen to the voice of the other, to people but also to other forms of life such as the animals and landscapes around us. We want to develop a new way of dialogue that helps us to dare to think in terms of connection. We no longer want to avoid conflicts, but rather enter into them through the imagination, thus creating a fertile soil for resilient future stories that ensure the growth of the quality of life.
With the awareness that the stories we create now will soon determine the reality of our (great) (grand)children, we want to take responsibility for the future.
Warning: Mechanisms such as long-term thinking, depolarising, questioning history, not avoiding conflict, empathising with others, discovering that we are not so different from each other, are the pillars of the cultural change that you can experience during the Rehearsing the Revolution game.
“Stories surround us like air; we breathe them in, we breathe them out. The art of being fully conscious in personal life means seeing the stories and becoming their teller, rather than letting them be the unseen forces that tell you what to do.” Rebecca Solnit, Call Them by Their True Names
Rehearsing the Revolution: Online series
The ‘BIOTOPES’ where we play the game and develop in co-creation:
– Tolhuistuin, Amsterdam Noord (NL)- Pilot & Warming Up Festival
– Buffer Fringe Performance Art Festival, Cyprus (CY) in the buffer zone at the House for Cooperation about decolonizing the past, present and future
– Rotterdam District Theatre, IJsselmonde Rotterdam (NL)
– Budapest, Hungary (HU) with at Füge.
– Online
Rehearsing the Revolution and Common Ground Dialogues
The project started in 2020/21 as part of the Culture of Solidarity call of the European Cultural Foundation. In this preliminary research phase of the project, called Rehearsing the Revolution, we developed and tested a social impact storytelling game with different communities and partners in Hungary, Cyprus, the Netherlands and online. The Rehearsing the Revolution game is an immersive storytelling experience that works with elements of theatre, spoken word, movement, experience design and visual arts.
In 2022/23 we plan to continue the research and develop a methodology based on our experiences from the preliminary research in 2021 in collaboration with an international team of scholars and experts from the social field, artists, and local communities.
The research and methodology development will be practice-based and carried out by a hybrid expertise consortium. We have already established connections with communities (hybrid expertise, rural and urban), artists (interdisciplinary) and scientists from e.g., behavioural sciences, narrative psychology, sociology, communication and history and professionals from the social domain such as teachers, activists and social workers who are interested in joining our research team as partners or associate partners.
In the final phase of the project (2023/25) we want to develop a format based on the methodology that can be widely implemented and applied in all segments of society on an international level.
Project website: https://www.rehearsingtherevolution.org #rehearsingtherevolution
“The journey of the hero is about the courage to seek the depths; the image of creative rebirth; the eternal cycle of change within us; the uncanny discovery that the seeker is the mystery which the seeker seeks to know.” Joseph Campbell, The Hero’s Journey
Partners and provisional venues of Rehearsing the Revolution and the Common Ground Dialogues:
Climate Clean Up, Grond van Bestaan, De Gezonde Stad, OBA, UvA, VU, Central European University, Narratopia / Plurality University (F),Buffer Fringe Festival (CY), Rotterdams Wijktheater / ICAF, Füge (HU), Theatre Corrosia-Almere, Tolhuistuin-Amsterdam, De Generator-Leiden, Tropen Museum-KIT, Over het IJ Festival and Bánkitó Fesztivál (H)
The team:
Petra Ardai – concept, directing, scenario, performing/ guiding through the game
Esther Verhamme – concept, online storytelling, webdesign and acting
Rebekka Fries – concept, visual design
Jörgen Unom Gario – poetry and performing/ guiding through the game
Tamara Zsófia Vadas – choreography and performing/ guiding through the game (HU)
Maria Varnakkidou – storytelling and performing/ guiding through the game (CY)
Judit Böröcz – European connections and dramaturgy
Constantina Georgiou – European Communication
Marta Pisco – production and community building
This project is made possible with the support of:
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