Report Staging Humanity:
At the beginning I visited almost all the camps in northern Greece that were still open and I had many meetings trying to coordinate a collective creation between several camps. There was much interest in doing so, however many camps where closing and/or people was displaced to other places; so organizations working in camps where mostly exceeded by the situation. Most of the refugees were now spread throughout the country, and it was logistically impossible to bring them together to joint activities. So at first, I concentrated more than anything on working with the Nea Kavala theater group, Escosirak, formed in the summer of 2016, with whom I had worked before.
The members of the group were looking forward to the project. When I arrived at the camp, also many people from there were moving to all over the country. The UNHCR advised of the move from one day to another, so we never knew how many people we could count on. It was impossible to think of a mid-term creation, -even on a short-term … maybe on the next day there would be no one left! To make sure of having results from what we were creating together, we decided to create video material. During those days, new people from the islands suddenly arrived at the camp. The creation of audio-visual material would be based on the theme of “arriving and leaving the camp”. Among other things we staged each one’s response to the question «what are you ever going to forget about the camp?» Also everyday situations of the camp and each one wrote a message for the new people arrived. In addition we did acting-training exercises that led to the creation of characters. The resulting audio-visual material was edited in the video called «Welcome to Nea Kavala».
Once we finished the video, most of the members of the group were still in the camp, so we decided to make a performance, also of welcome, in which the video produced would be shown. Apart from that, everyone had written “my dream play”, which was the play they would make if they did not have any kind of limitations; if everything is possible, what would you do? We worked on staging these writings in a personified way, and then we combine it, as a collage, with other stage creations and the projection of two live cameras. We tried everything together for the first time in the same performance and because of the lighting the performance video is not very good. The performance went well, everyone was very happy afterwards and we went to dinner together to the nearest village restaurant. At the next meeting we saw the video and it was a bit frustrating for everyone, because of the quality of the video, and many had received criticism that the story had not been understood, because there was actually no narrative thread to understand. They expressed their desire to do a play with a narrative thread, which the public could understand and follow. The problem was always the same: how many will we be in the next meeting?
Miraculously most of the members of the Escosirak group stayed in the camp just until the project finished. Only two people were redistributed to other places during the project. As they wanted to continue working with the group, we organized a transport logistic with bus and car trips to arrive together to the camp (one of these people made a total of 6 hours of travel each time we met to work).
At that time I was thinking of opening another group of theatre training and creation in Thessaloniki, to fulfil the goal of a collective creation with people outside the Nea Kavala camp. I got in touch with an organization that had moved from a camp to the city, which invited me to give a one-day theatre workshop in their new activity centre. This organization arranged the place and the people and that was a good opportunity to offer a more continuous work to people living in the city or surroundings.
The oldest of the Escosirak group participated on that workshop together with many other young people who had lived in different camps. Immediately they began to exchange stories while we were waiting to begin and then continued at lunch break. The day was very fun, full of creativity, movement and laughter, and the Escosirak members were happy to interact with such a large group of grown people. When it was time to leave, they decided to extend their stay in the city until the night and that they would go for a walk together to the centre and the promenade. They were very excited and overflowing with happiness to be outside the camp, free to go wherever they wanted, to walk, to laugh, to take selfies, to see unknown people … everything that is actually normal for any teenager.
From the participants of that workshop, apart from the escosirences, there was only one person interested in following a creative process and participate in a collective performance. So instead of opening a new group, we add this person to the transport logistic and to the theatre group of Nea Kavala. It was a very beneficial addition for both parties.
We were starting a new stage of creation based on the desire of the group to stage something with a narrative thread. The issues they wanted to talk about were: How was Syria before, what happened in Syria, the war, injustices and rights, the end of war and the new world. Some wanted the audience to cry, others to laugh. We added situations that staged humorously the most terrible situations of the camp.
We were lucky to work with an enthusiast and lovely translator, who got very involved in the process. Because of that we were able to make a forward leap in the creative process. We no longer had to stop after each instruction to try together and with the help of Google to make the best translation possible. We could do works of instant improvisation and thus enter into the terrain of the expression of the unconscious. The process was very creative, emotional and healing and greatly strengthened the bonds between the people who participated in it.
A few days after starting this new stage we were told about a great festival organized for 4 different camps in Thessaloniki and some of the organisers invited us to participate. It was two weeks away; the event would be for about 1000 people, with activities all day, everything paid and a great stage for the presentations. The organization of the festival and the whole technical team was very high quality and it was also related to football, which is the greatest passion of most of the members of the group. We did not hesitate to accept. Luckily, it coincided with the school holidays of the youngest ones who had otherwise more limited schedules. So we started a very intensive process of preparation of the play. One of the last mornings we dedicated to the production of the wardrobe. It was very exciting to see how they all gave themselves to the work of the crafts with great care.
Finally came the day of the presentation. Everyone was excited and nervous about having to act in front of so many people. The play was a great success, the audience cried with emotion and laughter and the boys were more than happy. They received excellent reviews and had even a filmed interview later.
On the last day we met, we watched with enthusiasm the video of the play. We also made a very emotional closing circle in which each one said what he/she was taking with him/her from the process and received a constructive feedback of my point of view. We knew it was the end of something very important for everyone.