International
There has always been an international dimension to NAYD's work. In addition to organising international conferences, siminars and training events, NAYD has hosted both the European Youth and European Children's Theatre Encounters. NAYD recognises the many benefits to be gained by youth theatres through engaging in international work and seeks to develop and promote opportunities for its member groups.
Making Connections European Training Course
In association with it's European partners, Vorosmarty Drama School (Hungary), Zagreb Youth Theatre (Croatia) and Promote YT (Scotland), NAYD organised the Making Connections training course in Dublin, June 2010. The course was organised to explore the world of youth theatre exchanges and to build relationships, skills and understanding amongst leaders working in youth theatres across Europe.
Making Connections explored theatre forms and processes, such as physical theatre, voice work and devising, which enable young people from different backgrounds to create, share and learn together during youth theatre exchanges.
The course provided opportunities for participants to share their work with each other and explore the diversity of practice within European youth theatres. It also provided information and guidelines surrounding practical challenges such as funding, programming and welfare. All participants on the training course were offered a Youthpass.
Download Course Report
You can download the Making Connections Report below. It includes an overview of Youth Exchanges under the the Youth In Action Programme, transcriptions of workshops delivered, advice on planning youth exchanges and suggested approaches to evaluation.
Download Making Connections Report (94 pages, 2.3MB)
You can also download an overview of the course as featured in Youth Drama Ireland 2011.
Download Course Overview (3 pages, 1MB)
Participants
Irish youth theatre were well represented at the event with participants from the following youth theatres:
- Ballina Youth Theatre
- Cabinteely Youth Theatre
- Co. Limerick Youth Theatre
- Clare Youth Theatre
- Griese Youth Theatre
- Nenagh Youth Theatre
- Fracture Youth Theatre
- Letterkenny Youth Theatre
- Roscommon Co. Youth Theatre
They were joined by participants from the UK, Hungary, Croatia, Italy, Finland, the Netherlands, Germany and Norway.
Facilitators
The course was facilitated by Dave Kelly, NAYD's Training Officer, and Geraldine O'Neill (NAYD Board Member, Outreach Officer Graffiti Theatre and Artistic Director of Activate, Physically Phishy Youth Theatres).
Other facilitators included David Grant and Neil Bettles of Frantic Assembly.
The development of this project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This information reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.
