A lot has happened ruing the weekend meetings with the young people. We began every workshop with some warm up exercises for the body and the vocal apparatus – it is part of every actors mastery, so we could not forget about it. Later through games and getting to know each other we introduced the etude on which the participants were working in groups on a given topic. I was nicely surprised with the imagination and courage of our participants. It was an unforgettable when the task was to play some sort of animal and in effect the room turned into a big zoo. The dog was chasing the cat, the cat chased a mouse and somewhere on the way someone stepped on the the ladybug. In all this chaos somewhere by the window the giraffe (Kinga) was standing aside this shouting and chaos, she alone with stoical peace was chewing gras with her neck stretched. I remembered this perfectly, because she used all her conditions to picture the character – she was a beautiful giraffe chewing grass.

For each workshop every participant had to prepare his own „internal monologue”. Kamil and Magda used their texts in the final performance. They were very deep and very personal words of young people. Good fun accompanied everyone, when working in groups the participants were performing short scenes giving a new meaning to various ordinary objects – their imagination and creativity in some moments surpassed the trainer.

Apli Papli – a mix of feelings… - the final performance

What was created on the stage was the work of everyone. The constant repeating of scenes, working on the emotions, on the movement – it may have been tiring, but when someone was giving up, the rest of the group immediately stood up to the task searching for some solution. At the end of our meetings I noticed the changes in them. Their skill to use the stage space, the awareness of others on the stage was clear. The main rule was trust and I think that through an approach of attempts and mistakes we managed to build a firm group.
We reached the end. Apli papli – the final performance about what we fear, what is deep inside us, the silence, the search, the love, the dialogue, the life and everything so confusing.
I remember the scene when during the final performance a woman sitting behing me said to her husband “Oh! This is so great!” – it was during the scene of Natalia, Anastasia and Agata, who were sitting in the chairs and were speaking their texts on Martha’s comman (who was touching their head with her hand a sign to begin). Marta was playing on the emotions of the girls like on an instrument. She was playing with them as with puppets. The scene was made in the form of an innocent game, what gave it a very interesting effect.
Sitting in the audience I saw young people full of passion, who were speaking about important, personal issues. I saw young people who will surely do many more important things in their life.

The project was co-financed by the European Comission within the “Youth in Action” Programme.