Talking Young Men, Session 9 in Exeter

Ben Yeger, Creative Associate of Encounters, who is facilitating the Talking Young Men project, writes -

The themes of the session were  trust, the spectrum between violence and non violence, and ending this phase of the group. In addition we had a visit from James Bond who works with wood and its transformative potential with community groups and we are hoping he will be doing a session or two with our boys.  He gave an introduction to his work which the boys seemed captured by and interested in.

We then went into doing some trust work and all the boys felt safe enough to walk from one to another with their eyes closed allowing physical contact as they guided each other from place to place. It was very heart warming to see how far the boys had travelled.  We then went into an exercise where they are invited to take a list of things (a soldier, a boxer, a father who is never around, hitting a woman as examples) and place them on a spectrum from violent to non violent. This produced some good discussion and presented quite a lot of challenge in some places. The notion of intended or not intended violence was discussed. There were a few points where some had to agree to disagree with each other which they were able to do in an amicable way. I observed that one boy found this activity very challenging and it seemed to bring him to an edge that he might not have been ready to come to. He chose to isolate me as being the cause of his upset and kept on projecting this onto me in a variety of ways. It seems to me that what he was trying to say is that the whole arena of violence is too much for him as it has been virtually normalised in his every day life. I felt that it was good that he was able to at least listen to others explore this territory and mask his involvement and how it was affecting him by projecting his anger on me, after all that is part of my role.

In the closing circle we reflected on what they had remembered from the last 8 weeks which was mainly positive – they seemed to be ready for new group members to join and I look forward to the next phase which will start on Tuesday the 24th of April and will run for 8 weeks.

Talking Young Men, Session 8 in Exeter

A different dynamic this week with Ben Yeger away and the group facilitated by Henrietta Ireland from the Devon Youth Offending Service with Daryl who always supports Ben, Emilio Mula who is filming the process and Ian Blackwell who is doing the project evaluation.

The aim of this session was to reflect illustratively the boys’ experience of being in the group and this would include their journey into the group. The symbol or metaphor for the group was a river. Their individual journeys to the group were tributaries running into the river. They were able to draw, write or use collage.

The objective was that each individual would be able to reflect on their own journey but that there should be some collaboration between individual members as to the life of the group through identifying feelings, the atmosphere, the dynamic and the process that may have occurred over the last eight weeks.

While participating in this activity, the boys also went upstairs to be interviewed in a pair and as a small group with Emilio and Ian.

One of the boys was initially reluctant to participate in the activity, his reluctance often expressed by saying that he is bored or “doesn’t know”. This reluctance seems instead to be a lack of self-confidence.  He spent a little time sussing out the task and then he engaged completely. He used all the pens, crayons, chalks and paint to illustrate his journey into the group, whereupon it sort of came to halt at about week 3 (or half way down the river.) He also stuck a face that he made into the river.

Another chose to express his journey in words at the side of the river but was happy to have assistance with his narrative by sticking bits on to the river for him. He was in a low mood at the start of the group but improved at about the half way point. He didn’t much enjoy an artistic approach but engaged on his own terms and didn’t disrupt any one else.

The third boy engaged well and was very amenable and sociable. He chose to keep his tributary separate from the main course of the river and only chose to join half way down the river, this was a conscious choice as he said he felt a bit “outside” at first. He became very engaged in making a “masked man” which sat in the river, and then in making his own, very carefully constructed mask.

All the boys joined in with the physical activities that we did. One found the trust exercises hard…physically as well as emotionally. This did not distract the other boys from participating.

The boys found it hard to illustrate a group approach to their group experience, their focus was much more around individual journeys that ‘just happened’ to come together.

 

Exploring Inner and Outer with the Transition Youth Theatre

Sophy Banks of Transition Network writes –

Six o’clock and a group of eight young people are gathered in Studio 20 in Dartington for an evening of the Transition Youth Theatre – a project run by Encounters to explore their lives and times through theatre skills and performance.

I was asked to do a session on Inner Transition for them, a new kind of audience for me! I planned the session with Ruth, one of the directors of Encounters, to be about exploring some of the polarities of inner and outer, and reflecting on where those qualities arise in their own lives and where they see them in the world around them.

Ruth did a great warm up using something called Tension States – numbered 1 – 5 and with a special 6. State 3 is neutral –walking around the room just present, moving, feeling ok. When she called out Number 4 we moved in a state of hurry, some tension – somewhere to get to. Number 2 is a place which is quite relaxed, moving maybe from the hips, leaning against a wall or on a chair and then moving again. We often returned to state 3 to get back to neutral. Then we went from 4 to 5, which is frantic – there’s a bomb in the room and we’ve got to find it before it explodes! Manic rushing around, frenetic activity! Back to 3, then we tried state 1 – everything’s floppy from the ankles up, it’s hard to even hold yourself up.. After calling out different numbers to play with the different tension states Ruth took us from a 5 to 6!! When the bomb’s gone off – what happens? Freeze? Shock? We ended back with neutral, coming back to self and the present.

I started with a little bit about Transition – I talk about the “Transition Animal” now – with a very vague drawing of something four legged. It has ears alert so it knows what’s happening in the world around it, a wagging tail – it’s excited and having fun – and it’s looking towards a positive future it has clearly in mind. The four legs represent the four activities I see as core for a successful transition project – which I suspect are the same for many processes of engagement and change:

• To work in with others, and to have groups working well together

• To be in relationship with what’s around in the locality – building networks and partnerships with other local organisations, projects, and government and through these get to know what issues matter locally.

• To raise awareness of the need for Transition through events, conversations, discussions.

• To do practical projects – grow food, insulate houses, print money!

It could have been a dog, a cow, a fox.. Perhaps not quite wild enough for a wolf, but I like the idea that it knows its territory which is neither too big nor too small, and that it tends to run in packs. Or perhaps it meanders in herds.

I talked a bit about the inner and outer aspects of Transition – that it’s both a process of internal change, seeing the world differently, getting a different sense of my identity, what I care about, what the future will be like, as well as having a lot to get done. Some people are very drawn to the outer kinds of activity – the practical doing stuff, while others are really drawn to inner, reflection. Most people like some of both – and many people I’ve met find it hard to keep a balance. So we went on to explore the themes of inner and outer, and words that tend to associate with them – I suggested pairs like this:

Inner Outer

Being Doing

Love Will

Feminine Masculine

Receptive Active

The group split into pairs, each choosing one pair of words that give a polarity. The group was asked to find some kind of movement for the active word they’d chosen, and take some time really inhabiting that quality. They called out words that expressed something of their experience. Then they explored exaggerating that – taking it to a really extreme place.. and again to find words..

In pairs they asked each other where they’ve experienced that quality in their lives..

We repeated the exercise for the other word – finding a movement for it without words, calling out some words that expressed more about that quality, and then going to an extreme state with it.

Places these qualities had shown up:

Outer / active – getting really busy.. what it’s like in my head when there’s a lot going on..

Inner / receptive – when I’m playing music.. when I take time for myself..

Then in pairs they played with moving the opposite qualities, seeing how it was to gradually pick up a movement from the other person, having both qualities, and then gradually swapping over. They also explored the two extremes at the same time, finding it was really hard to bring them into relationship at all.

Some of the reflections on this exercise – that it’s like life. That sometimes you have to get to an extreme before you can change state – you keep on going until you’re really tired before you stop. That sometimes this tension is going on inside me – one part of me is wanting to go fast while another is wanting to stop or slow down. It’s hard to even notice the other when you’re in an extreme state – for the fast part the slow bit is in the way, or maybe I don’t even see it there. The inner part isn’t noticing the speedy outer one at all, or maybe it’s being disturbed by it.

After the break we put out the four lists of words around the room and pairs went to each station in turn exploring more where they see this quality in the world around them, in their lives, inside themselves. Again there were some interesting reflections – what would it be like if we brought more of our inner to the outside, maybe we’d understand each other better?

As a final piece they formed two groups and each came up with a performance of a moment, a situation where people are in these states..

One gave a performance of a family getting ready to go on holiday, starting calm, getting very stressed when they couldn’t find the passports, the teddy bear, the keys.. getting manic and rushing around, then someone shouting for calm to think clearly and solve the problems more slowly.

The other group showed one person in a state of stillness being circled by three who were very busy, saying busy words.. the still one increasingly unhappy till she shouted “I’m lost! Help me” – and then collapsed, caught by the others who had stopped. They ended sitting in silence together.

Some saw that as what happens inside – when my mind is so busy that I can’t hear myself think. For others it looked like a dynamic of one person needing help, but having to get really desperate before the other busy people around her took any notice.

I found it a fascinating evening, really appreciating the way the group experimented with these ideas, and saw how universal they are – that these qualities of inner / outer, being / doing and so on would be there in any culture. For some it was an insight that there is a healthy and extreme form of both – and useful to feel what those were like. Working with movement alone as a way of exploring something and finding the words from the movement was new. Some felt a good place would be to be to bring both states together at the same time – like playing music, which has qualities of both being and doing. For others it meant more of a flow or fluidity between states.

We also talked a bit about how this might relate to Transition and the times we’re in – that we’re going so fast that we aren’t stopping to check out what’s happening, or who might need help. I reflected that when I was young many people thought that mechanisation would mean there would be lots of leisure time for everyone – but in fact we’re working harder – not only to produce more stuff, but also to enjoy it, or at least consume it, and then to dispose of it.. How would it work to get to a place where everyone could work less – the whole system would have to shift together.

Talking Young Men, Session 7 in Exeter

Ben Yeger, Creative Associate of Encounters, who is facilitating the Talking Young Men project, writes -

All 4 boys present and 1 boy turned up 1 hr late. Following on from last weeks drumming session, the focus of the session was community and exploring how we interact within it. One of the boys turned up in a very low mood and his attempts to hi jack the session was met with silence from the other two. This seemed to communicate to him that despite his efforts to disrupt and bring negative influences to the session, the group (community) is strong enough to stand up to negative influences.

The boys took the opportunity to engage in some dramatic play expressing high emotion through still embodied images. They did this well and worked very effectively as a group. The intention was then to invite stories related to their own families and to create still images as a way of sharing what their family dynamic is and how they participate in it. The rationale for this comes from a notion that our family of origin is the first community we have to learn how to relate within and that how this formative early experience is informs much of our behavior. The boys found this very difficult and in fact were quiet clear that whilst they were willing to tell a story about their family to one other person they were not willing to make a group image. I felt that their ability to clearly hold a boundary was positive.

We ended with appreciations and they were able to find something to appreciate others for.

Talking Young Men, Session 6 in Exeter

Ben Yeger, Creative Associate of Encounters, who is facilitating the Talking Young Men project, writes -

Three of the boys were present from the start of the session and one was over an hour late as he missed his bus from Sidmouth and yet he still got on the second one and came straight into the session and joined in! We thought that was pretty impressive. The other boy from Sidmouth reported that he saw the boy who was late at school and that he was unusually well behaved (this despite the fact that he is now in residential care and not very happy about it…) So it seems that something is happening…

In this session we had a guest – Iwan,  who is a musician and he brought African drums for us to play with and on. My intention was to introduce the notion of a collaborative community activity through the drumming and then follow this up next week with some reflections and work around community and individual and how we interact in that context. All the boys seemed to enjoy the drumming and the challenges it presented – keeping rhythm, sore hands, repetition, fitting into what everyone is doing, being the same as others, being different than others, being together, being alone. By the end of the session the group were able to produce a short rhythm with two different types of breaks.

There were moments in which boys gave up and in all cases came back and joined the drumming and the main motive seemed to be to remain part of the group and not be left out.

All in all a good session which felt like another step in the right direction.

 

Talking Young Men, Session 5 in Exeter

The focus in this session was to explore how to relate successfully. In some quite intense pair work we purposefully paired together two boys who find each other challenging. This strategy paid off in abundance and by the end of the session both these boys had shared with and listened to very personal stories, had made physical contact (in making each other into sculpts) and in the final round of appreciations praised each other for the work they had done and for the new respect and acceptance they had found. We were very encouraged by this shift and impressed with how they were able to make a choice to act in such a relational way for their own benefit and clearly for the better of the other and the whole group.

The other boys also did some rich work and remained focused and fully participative throughout the session. What was really strong and apparent was that disruptive elements of past sessions were simply taken over by an energy of commitment from the majority and a sense of purpose and willingness to get down and explore another way of being. This was very heartening.

We used a tried and tested Encounters story telling technique in which a participant chooses from a set of story topic cards (words such as love, change, belonging, hope and loss) and asks their partner to tell them a personal story inspired by one of the words. They both do this and then they are invited to tell the other person’s story to the whole group as if they were them. So the exercise invokes and invites deep listening, trust, courage and allows for the sharing and hearing of very personal stories. All 4 boys engaged fully and some of the stories were very touching and told with the greatest respect to the original teller and the level of listening was very high.

We then moved on to looking at some still images of different kinds of male relationships.  Again working in pairs the invitation was to choose an image that the boys felt interested in/drawn to and tell their partner -

1) What do you see in this image, the actual facts?
2) What do you imagine the characters in the image are feeling?
3) What does the image make you feel? And then choose one word that sums the image up for you and shape your partners body into that word.

We were keen for them to embody some of the emotional and in depth work they had done. They were tired but they were still able to follow the instructions above and seemed to enjoy the opportunity to create the physical images which we can build on in terms of the dramatic form and using it to express feelings and situations.

So the shifts have been significant in terms of their displayed ability to – listen, empathise, trust, share, recognise that what they do affects others, be creative and expressive through more than just spoken word, step into the shoes of the other overall, relate more effectively.

Overall it feels like we have really landed in this session and that there is a real platform to continue going deeper with the hope that they take more and more ownership of the process and really take the opportunities offered within this context.

Talking Young Men, Session 4 in Exeter

Our 4th session with the Exeter group was a mixture of surprises and some challenges. Two of the boys arrived 1hr earlier and they came completely independently, which felt very positive.

Our overarching aim was to move from a focus on facilitators/boys/identity into relationships and what makes them work and what gets in the way of them working.

We began asking a simple question to the boys -‘Why do we come here?’

The answers were very candid and telling, and we certainly felt encouraged by the comments -

“To try new stuff”
“Help me clear my mind”
“Learn to get along with others”
“To sort our lives out”
“Talk, Give a different view on life!”
“Help each other”
“To stop fighting and to stop getting into trouble at home”
“To meet new mates”
“To try and stop self from getting into trouble”
“Understand each other”

We spent some time bringing the group together to do some practical pair work. This consisted of mirroring and follow the leader which after some resistance they all managed to engage with well. We then went on to do a brainstorm of different kinds of relationships there are and what makes them work best and what gets in the way of them working, and then creating still images of these.

We ended the session with a round of each boy appreciating another boy for something they had done today – this was done by everyone at least once and some of what was said was very heart felt and genuine.

Next week we will continue to look at relationships and bring in emotions that affect them positively and negatively.

Transition Youth Theatre, Reflections

Our Transition Youth Theatre is a professionally led Youth Theatre for 13-18 yr olds to create performances that respond to the joys and challenges of being human today.

This is an opportunity for young people to express through drama, writing, music and movement their inner-most ideas about our world in these times. We use a variety of theatre approaches including clowning, physical theatre, improvisation, live art, forum theatre and verbatim theatre to do this.

What is it like to live now? What are your hopes for the future? What makes you smile? What do you fear? What would you change? What will the world be like in 2030?

From November 2011, the Youth Theatre has worked weekly with highly experienced theatre director Ben Yeger, to create a public performance this June.

Reflections from Kelsey Agnew, supporting Ben Yeger in facilitating the Youth Theatre –

First evening with The Transition Youth Theatre was lovely on many levels. We were working with stillness, and embodying emotions in the still form. How often do we discredit the still, and think that space is only useful when it is full or actively active. But it’s in those still moments when we can connect to ourselves, the inner essence of who we are. I certainly struggle to sit still, when thoughts and ideas come I don’t respect their space and try and rush them into materialization through action and movement. But stillness and space is not an absence of, or a void of anything. Stillness is the ability to be receptive, or actively passive. A practice in holding the paradox of still and passion, or still and active – still/action.

I saw a group of 8 teenagers who willingly have come to the Youth Transition Theatre. I’ve been told a big motivation for their attendance is to be in a performance. I saw a comfortableness and an ease between all of them, a focus on the group itself, not on the individuals. I sense that the journey they have all been on together is one of significance, either consciously or not. I was amazed at how easily they shared with the whole group, especially with me there, a newcomer, their letters to their future great great grand children would have written to them, Joanna Macy work. The group is certainly a space that has been well held, a space to be honest and senstive and receptive. The power of the Transition Theatre is that is can take the practices used towards theatre and transcend them into our every day lives. And because of that similar pattern, it then makes it easier to engage with the theatre work, which then makes the theatre work more personal and meaningful, a beautiful double-bind.

The students embodied an individual stillness that is so precious pre-20 – an age when everything is so exploratory and ambiguous. An age where the natural stillness inherent in everyone is so organic too. Something that, unfortunately, gets lost in the fast pace of life, but something that is so essential to a life of meaning.

There was a beautiful stillness among the relationships in the group, the in-between, the spaces. The aether of the group was vivid, safe, still and felt not seen.

By the end of the session you could tell that the common theme in the groups’ response to the night was one that wanted more. As though something was not quite complete or fully realized yet. As though we had only scraped the surface of a group much deeper. Maybe it was because it resonated so deeply with an aspect of self that isn’t paid much attention. Or maybe it was because they wanted for action… Regardless, I think it is a beautiful and lovely practice that could not only add to their final production, but add to the journey in and out of the group as well.

 

Talking Young Men, beginnings

Talking Young Men is a creative and therapeutic project working with young men at the risk of offending, re-offending and anti-social behaviour in Devon. This project has been funded by the Big Lottery Fund and runs in partnership with the Devon Youth Offending Service. Our first of three groups has been running with weekly sessions in Exeter, exploring issues including Male Identity, Fatherhood, Friendships and relationships, Roles in the community, Trust and empathy. The group is led by Ben Yeger, creative associate of Encounters.

A challenging first session at the end of January included a discussion about authority and different styles of authority and also an interesting exchange about the possibility of the boys not having to behave as they were expected to as ‘bad boys’.

The second session focused on some more personal sharings about who these boys are and setting up a personal timeline for each participant. We also explored some physical trust exercises and played with a more directive approach to containment, where Ben adopted a slightly more SGt Major persona (mixed with humor and warmth of course) which seemed to work well. It was encouraging that in the final round of talking one of the boys who had come to both sessions turned to a new boy and said – “It is safe here, you can talk.”

In the third week the group continued to explore identity, trust and empathy with an emphasis on building a strong group field. The boys responded to three questions:

How do I see myself as a boy?
How do I think I’m seen by others?
How would I like to be seen by the world?

This lead to some interesting and telling insights into what’s going on for them including a very expansive conversation about homosexuality and their feelings about it.

We also introduced our film documenter, Emilio Mula, and his camera, who will be filming some of the sessions to create a short documentary about the project. Knowing that the introduction of the camera was slightly scary for them we decided to introduce it at this early stage so that they could have time to get used to it.

In this session, one of the boys was fully vocal about what he wants from the group “I have come to this group coz I want to sort my life out and I think that the group could work for us”. In general he seems to be a key member of the group in terms of keeping it on track.

Combatants for Peace UK visit, September 2011

Dear friends,

As creative associate of Encounters and CfP UK representative I want to take a few minutes and paragraphs to share the richness of our last Combatants for Peace visit, this September.

Encounters are the UK hosts for Combatants for Peace (CfP) – a movement of Israeli and Palestinian former combatants now engaged in a non-violent struggle to resolve issues of conflict between Israel and Palestine. At the beginning of September we were very pleased to be able to invite a group of 16 members of the CfP steering group from Israel and Palestine to the UK. We secured funding for the trip from The Evan Cornish Foundation, and J.A Clark Charitable Trust, The Amos Trust and other private donors. The project was conceived and made possible through a close association with Amnesty International UK.  We would like to first of all extent our deep gratitude to all our supporters and Partners.

The focus of this visit was to create a space for this group of leading CfP activists to regenerate, replenish, strengthen relationships and plan for the ongoing work back in Israel and Palestine.  The other clear intention was to create some theatre scenes that reflected the real process that the group would undertake during the week, culminating in three public facing events in Exeter, Totnes and London.

CfP operates within the harsh reality of the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the complexities of the conflict.  This means that time and space to dive deeper into the process of understanding the other and really building the joint work are very limited.  The opportunity to have an intensive week in the beauty and spaciousness of Dartington Hall was very welcomed and for some slightly overwhelming. As one of the Palestinian members said after a morning walk along the river “I really got a taste of freedom this morning” and another said “…and it felt too much like a dream I will never experience in my everyday life.”


The group spent the first 5 days working together in Studio 20 on the  Dartington Hall Estate.  In these days I led the group through a series of workshops that focused on deepening trust between activists and checking in with members’ levels of energy, commitment, clarity and motivation.  I drew on a variety of creative approaches including Sesame Drama therapy and Joanna Macy’s ‘The Work that Reconnects’. This process proved to be very apt and needed, as it seemed that many of the activists, and as a result, the group, were running on a very depleted tank. This seemed to reflect the harsh reality of struggling together as a bi-national movement where there are so many obstacles and reasons to give up.  These workshops enabled the group to both ask each other and themselves deep questions around purpose, communication, commitment, process, sustainability. Most importantly, it gave an opportunity for the deepening of individual relationships between activists on both sides and across the Palestinian/Israeli divide.

As one member of the group said “The inner group work we did during this week, and the strategic contribution it will make, is no less than amazing.”

We had a very deep and challenging session from Silke Deker around deep and compassionate listening. On day four of the process, before we set off to Totnes for the public event, we had a two hour movement workshop led by YaAcov and Susannah Darling Khan, co-directors of the School of Movement Medicine. This really provided the group with some much needed release and joint creation and dreaming which was very moving and profound. At the end Yaacov guided us through a visualitaion of the future and in it a child appeared to give us a drawing of what the future looked like. For me what appeared was a detailed drawing of all of us dancing together, Israelis and Palestinians, men and women, older and younger – making a difference through personal transformation. In this moment it felt to me that we were really creating a new reality, a new possibility of creating a bridge for peace for deeper understanding.

In London we had the privilege to have a wonderful workshop with Adrian Jackson, Artistic Director of Cardboard Citizens Theatre Company and we were joined by 30 local people to explore the conflict, and our projections onto it, through the rich methodologies of Theatre of the Oppressed.

The creation of two Forum Theatre pieces explored three separate personal stories that emerged from the inner group process and captured some aspects of the realities of the conflict and the personal struggles that CfP face in its work. These Theatre pieces and the expert facilitation of Chen Alon (founder member of CfP) formed a huge part of the success of the public events. These events were attended by over 600 people and over £1000 was raised directly for CfP and its activities in Israel and Palestine.

I was really struck and encouraged by the high turnout at all the events and was particularly heartened by the long queue at the entrance to Totnes Civic Hall. Some of the audience contributions during the Forum Theatre were quite extraordinary. For example – when one woman chose to rally others support to try and stop the bulldozers from demolishing Palestinian houses within the scene. In another instance an Israeli peace activist (in the scene) torn between her political conviction and her parents demand that she comes home and stop meeting with the enemy was replaced by a member of the audience whose response was to simply sit down and demand that she be allowed to live her life as she sees fit.

Overall, the process ran deep. We worked together, we played together, we ate together, we even danced together.  Sometimes we argued and got really worried that it would all fall apart!!  But then we had enough time to make up and gain a deeper understanding of each other.  We told each other some personal stories and as a result were inspired to create some extraordinary Forum Theatre that audiences could relate to and interact with very effectively. We went on a walk in nature together. Some people took walks near the river and in the woods and some people swam in very cold waters.  We traveled together and then negotiated the temptation of the big city together, some people went shopping and some went to see the Arsenal football stadium. We all got very tired, cried and laughed together.  We managed to create some very strong connections and it seems that the whole visit has enabled leading activists to feel more motivated to continue the work on the ground.

As one of the founder members of the movement said -  “The echoes of the visit to England are still with us now (a month later) it seems that all those who came really have a deeper understanding of their and our purpose.

“I want to thank all of you who came who came and supported the public events, Thank you Jo, Ruth, Toni and Ben from the Encounters team for all your support and hard work, Yaacov and Susannah, Silke and Adrian Jackson and other staff from Cardboard Citizens for their contributions building up to and during the week. To Tony and the rest at The Mint in Exeter. I want to once more thank all those who funded the project and made it possible- thank you all. And last but by no means not least I want to thank my fellow Activists- you who dare to dream and struggle together – I feel truly honoured to be part of such a brave and extraordinary movement that I believe is and will continue to make a difference in a place where hope seems such a rare commodity.

“Really great!!”

Here are some of the audience comments from the public events -

“You are an amazing group of people doing courageous and transformational work. You will never measure the full impact but take confidence from you inner knowledge and belief in the power of theatre to transform people bit by bit but absolutely.”

“Thank you from the bottom of my heart… there IS hope and heart.”

“I was very moved by the fact of seeing real people struggling together.”

“It’s inspiring to learn that former soldiers and warriors are putting down their guns to live in peace and protest peacefully against the occupation.”

“It made me feel how difficult it must be to swim against the tide of violence, both personally and politically.”

“I would like to support this group and what they stand for. Standing up with them is standing up for our own humanity as they stand up for theirs.”

Ben Yeger

Encounters creative associate and CfP UK representative