Theatre By and With Children

BAG Spiel & Theater is active at specialist and political level in enabling children to act in theatre and increasing the range of participatory services.

The discussion about the significant relevance of early childhood education has entered many different areas of society. Cultural education as a lifelong learning process presupposes that it starts early (education from the very beginning!) and thus can be experienced as an integral part of life and education. It has been established that promoting a sense of the aesthetic at an early age plays a decisive and formative role here, as aesthetic experiences and sensorial, creative practice are the starting point for how we experience ourselves and the world in every different way. It is essential to awaken curiosity for art and culture early in children and to provide this curiosity with regular new impulses. Acting and theatre offer fundamental opportunities to shape things and promote the ability to create something new, objectively and subjectively, whether in thought, individual experience, social conduct or artistic expression. Identities can be fleetingly exchanged, taken on for a longer period of time or attributed to others. Roles can be rehearsed and exchanged in autonomous fashion. The world can be reshaped and reformed with imagination and creativity.

Acting in theatre makes empathy and closeness possible, but also distance. It implies reflection and a shift in perspective as a prerequisite for critical engagement with society’s contradictions. The entire process of acting makes a range of different social and aesthetic experiences possible.