Debajehmujig joins The World Theatre Carousel

Debajehmujig’s Outreach and Education Department is honored to join the World Theatre Carousel, an International association among six professional creation companies that are engaged in and inspired by their cultural and environmental heritage. The purpose of the Carousel is to share experiences in process and to provide a forum in the language of theatre to promote a Global environment of theatre learning.

“ The Worldwide Virtual Theater Carrousel fosters and harbors artistic collaborations that are rooted in community and that also involve in-person and virtual transit across languages, geographies, historical experience, and modes of expression. The Carrousel also serves as a forum to discuss and formulate widely applicable guidelines for arts-centered advocacy and community consciousness raising. The Carrousel builds practical and thematic solidarity among all participants; promotes the use of technology as a community building enterprise; models affordable, arts- and media-based alternatives to world travel; and furthers a dynamic dialogue on difference and diversity as defined by a varied set of participants across the globe.” Sering – Artistic Director: Mia Grijp
Bruce Naokwegijig and Joahnna Berti will join colleagues in Antwerp, Belgium for a week of training and development in October, 15 - 24. This will be Debajehmujig’s first direct opportunity to connect with the other Theatre makers in the Carousel. The partners are a widely diverse group;
Arenay Esteras, an organization of Artist Leaders that are active in their community. They create art that contributes to human development, directing their activities at the most vulnerable groups in society. They work in Villa El Salvador on the outskirts of Lima, in Peru.

Sering, our host, located in Antwerp, Belgium is a social artistic workplace that integrates creative theatre sensibilities with people living in the community. Community members are guided by professional artists to explore and define a shared language of human creativity that all humans share.

Pregones is a latino ensemble located in the Bronx, New York. This group mines the connections between theatre and popular culture; visual and rhythmic work that generate lasting forms of community participation in the arts.

Tsweiopele is a group of performing artists located in Tembisa, South Africa. The group uses stage arts to bring together people of different cultures and backgrounds, encouraging them to settle their differences peacefully, using dance, drama, storytelling and poetry.

Red Zone Company is an Iraqi based company operating in multiple locations via the internet. The company has been unable to formalize its infrastructure and visa acquisition has been problematic.
The group will engage in a collaborative project with multi site locations over the course of a three year successive project cycle. Projects are partnered in schools where ever possible to support child and youth creative development under the themes of relationships with the natural environment, intergenerational creating as a means of transmitting human wisdom. Collaborations among Elder, Children and Youth will engage the primary focus. Each company will operate a satellite creation project in their home location that is informed by a Global perspective and engages in active interaction via the web.  One of the core intents of the project is to strengthen the global perspective in the theatre community, that is actively sharing and educating across diverse social elements within the larger societies in which they operate and express themselves.  The World Carousel is formed in recognition that we are creating in a very unique time. One in which we can share and articulate, not by merely performing in front of each other, but by exchanging the process and outcomes of our creation work, while still remaining rooted in our own environmental context.  Our ability to share ourselves and the diverse contexts within which we live and operate has never been richer. For a small professional company with community based roots on an Island in the middle of Northern Ontario, the opportunity to join the global conversation through theatre and the language of human creativity is unique.
The World Carousel has already completed three pilot projects in South Africa, the group created a work, Pepe’s Island; Peru, Arena Y Esteras collaborated to create Dream Travellers and in the United States, Pergones collaborated to create Brides.  The learnings from the three projects were very significant for creators who engage in unique processes to bring a work before an audience. Dream Travellers had to find solutions to working with very sensitive information, while maintaining the integrity of the material itself. Brides concluded that each member of the collective had to maintain their own process within the collective. Playing together can only happen when each part brings its own special uniqueness to the wider collaboration. Pepe’s Island demonstrated the significance and importance of being connected to something larger and outside the context in which the group operates.
 Today we know we have to open up our models, which inherently implies learning for all of us. As we share our models, our ways of bringing the story to the audience, we also intend to deepen our understanding of each other and what we share in common.