Report of the motivational meetings held by Associazione Uniamoci Onlus
In October, the first three motivational meetings were held tstimulate participation in the T.O.U.C.H. project. The meetings took place on Monday and lasted an hour and a half and the average number of participants was around 8 to 10 people with different kinds of disabilities: physical disabilities, people in wheelchairs, intellectual and cognitive disabilities and mental illnesses, or a combination of these different disabilities.
Motivational meeting
To better understand what we will organize during the theater workshops, we worked with improvisation, implementing some creative movement activities and theater of the oppressed exercises. First of all, we played a lot of energisers and icebreakers like sending a clap game or dancing your body joints. It was worth it because they allowed the participants to relax and to introduce other games. The sessions were demonstrative: the idea was based on the importance of learning by doing (to better understand), an inclusive strategy which is useful if you want to involve disabled people in your activities. Most of them didn’t know what theater actually is, even if they already have experiences with theater, because they had some stereotypes about drama courses. They believed that theater was just about learning sentences and to repeat them many many times before the performance.
We introduced the topic of gestures and improvisation to let them understand what creating an applied drama performance actually means. Some of them were ready, with their bodies, to improvise on different kinds of topics but all of them have some issues with abstract topics. Other participants are intellectualized and think too much before the action. Just two of the participants can really understand what is happening inside themselves and they did reflect on their inner selves during those games.
The three sessions included energisers, getting-to-know-each-other activities, body warm-up, group building activities and finally we introduced two tools of applied drama. Participants were very satisfied and after these meetings, the motivation of future participants to the international company has increased.
Since the first meeting, the number of participants has grown and so has the active participation and the desire to be part of something creative and new for them.