Rural Inclusive Outdoor Theatre Education; Street theatre education methodology and network cooperation model in rural enviroment Erasmus Project

Project Title

Rural Inclusive Outdoor Theatre Education; Street theatre education methodology and network cooperation model in rural enviroment

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Social dialogue; Creativity and culture; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

Rural Inclusive Outdoor Theatre Education; Street theatre education methodology and network cooperation model in rural environment. RIOTE is an exchange in between European theatre-educational organizations. Teatro Tascabile di Bergamo (Italy) Kud Ljud (Slovenia), Soltis Lajos Theatre (Hungary), Control Film Studio Association (Hungary; coordinator), Shoshin Theatre Association (Romania), Broken Spectacles/Dartington Arts (UK).
The Project RIOTE was supported by Erasmus + Lifelong Learning Program for adult education selected by the Hungarian Agency called Tempus Public Foundation, for 12 months: from 1st of September 2016 until 31st of August 2017.
The cooperation of the six partners was a preparation for a second project called RIOTE 2, starting from 1 st of November 2017 until the 31 st of August 2019, which will create professional written and naudiovisual teaching materials for outdoor theatre and cultural management in rural settings for 2019.
The RIOTE 1 was a knowledge and skills exchange between the six performing arts organisations: one week long workshop in December 2016, held by Teatro Tascabile di Bergamo, and a second one week long workshop in April 2017, held by Kud Ljud in Ljubljana. Those two workshops where the main pillars of the exchange process, where the theatre expert /adult educators were able to develop their teaching methodology. Whilst the partners had five two days long organizational meetings, once in every partner country to further their research into the possibilities of outdoor theatre in rural Settings.
An important aim was to understand the English model of the rural touring network to create sustainability in theatre. We observed practices and in long term we will implement the model of the rural touring network in our partner countries especially in Hungary and in Romania through RIOTE 2.
Outdoor theatre has a great potential to reach our target group (who?). There is no institution in Europe (There is in Fai-ar in marseille) leading street theatre studies. It is, as an artistic activity and adult education, mainly sustained by non-institutional groups. Street theatre involves a new mass of public, proposing a new model of ’supply and demand’ in the field of theatre. Street theatre engages new, unsuspecting audiences and therefore demands a different kind of theatre.

Outdoor performing art as a form of adult education can take theatre to cultural cold spots trigger the imagination for social change and empower the community. In most European countries rural. communites have little cultural provision. We see street theatre as an innovative chance to solve this problem.
RIOTE, at the end of the first year has two video documentation about the workshops, three performances and two research study dossiers. The outcomes are all available on the partners’ websites.
The implementation of outdoor theatre competences and teaching methodology was tested in cultural cold spots: Kide (Romania) or Dunaszekcső (Hungary) this summer. One of the main concepts of the partnerships was “barter” by which we mean a cultural exchange between professional artists and local people who offer their folk songs, local history or other particular skills in exchange. This took place in Dunaszekcső where local inhabitants hosted the performance of Soltis as well as in Transylvania in the village of Bonchida where the local community performed in exchange for the performance of Shoshin Theatre Association.
The main prospective of the project RIOTE is on one hand the fallowing project RIOTE 2 (starting on the 1st of November 2017) on the other hand is the concept of network building using the reference of the English Rural Touring Network model. The Transylvanian tour involved 5 villages (Kide, Búza, Bonchida, Válaszút, Szék) what was already a littel rural tour kinde of a prototype of a Rural Tournig Network in a region of Transylvania (Mezőség).
The coordinator association Control has done an important work to document the project by a short movies and photographs:
http://www.controlstudio.hu/new/riote/video/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 58640 Eur

Project Coordinator

Control Stúdió Filmegyesület & Country: HU

Project Partners

• Soltis Lajos Szinhaz Muvelodesi Egyesulet
• The Dartington Hall Trust
• Asociatia Teatrala Shoshin
• TTB Teatro tascabile di Bergamo – Accademia delle Forme Sceniche soc. coop. sociale
• Kud Ljud