Annika Toyah Bode
Co-determination and artistic creativity lie at the heart of the 2020/2021 season at Drama Control, founded by Junges Schauspielhaus Bochum. On this youth board, 15 children and young people are involved in THEIR theatre and THEIR visions.
They are covered in goosebumps, offered tissues, unexpectedly find themselves in tears and are so moved they get up out of their seats.
An excitement caused here, in the theatre. Everyone in the space has left their everyday lives behind in the cloakroom and forgotten them the moment they saw the stage. Although this moment, this play, is experienced collectively, we are all different and independent of each other. The theatre has to be many-sided, otherwise it won’t work.
A place that is called a theatre for children and young people has to be able to offer them more than a seat.
We want to have a voice in the decisions.
I don’t mean young people as a group here: it would be arrogant to think that they could be represented even to a limited extent. We have no shared objective, we just happen to have been born at the same time, that is all that connects us as a generation.
If I do use the word WE in this context, it primarily applies to those who have devoted themselves to the stage and the arts and who want to create something that exists.
So I mean those people who want to be seen and heard, and presumably also the ones who have a huge fear of insignificance, as well as everyone who wants to make it possible for others to communicate their ideas and offer scope for exchanging views.
I don’t know if this WE has limits and who belongs to it. The ability to share art not only in analogue and local forms, but to be able to let everyone participate in what is going on through social networks makes it almost impossible to determine who is being talked about when there is a WE between two words.
However, in the first instance the term also serves as a rough ascription of a lived reality and it’s not possible to generalise there either because every existing and above all every developing art is complete in itself and the path to achieve it can be both a lonely process and a collective endeavour.
So we are not a collective rebellion by all young people, just by those who want to prove to the world that they aren’t too young to be able to create or see art.
We are not on the way to becoming people who are entitled to power and art, we do not have to become adults to be allowed to express our desires and ideas.
We are young and we certainly have a lot left to learn, but what we are now is worth being heard.
That art cannot function without dialogue is something people have been preaching for centuries.
Obviously, what good is a play without an audience?
But precisely this dialogue seems to be distorted every now and again though conjecture. What young people want from art and expect of theatre does not need to be imagined by anyone, it’s not even necessary to ask – you just need to listen to us.
In the case of Drama Control I can talk about a WE, knowing exactly who is meant by that.
These are fifteen people who collectively form a kind of board for the Junges Schauspielhaus Bochum. We consider what should be presented on our stage and who we should share the space we have with. We have the power we are entitled to.
Every remark we make is heard, our ideas are acted on. The Junges Schauspielhaus has created a new position of power for us, and we use it – with courage, freedom and a hunger to try out new things.
Huge numbers of decisions have to be made in the theatre: allowing more people to have a say means evaluating which is the best option from more perspectives.
An artistic institution that is pleased with large audience numbers and wishes to grow has to be able to expand in all directions.
We children have to be part of that.
Art can offer a journey away from the everyday to absolute freedom, but the danger of stumbling along the way over other power imbalances and hierarchies dressed up as traditional ways of us living together can be real, even in the most beautiful myths of self-determination, and more menacing than any enemy you can possibly imagine. We fight against this by placing control in the hands of many people, who do not hold on to it, but share it.
About the Author
Annika Toyah Bode was born in Bochum in 2003 and has been part of Drama Control at the Junges Schauspielhaus Bochum since 2020. She has been working as an artist in various fields on and behind the stage since 2018. She graduated from high school last year and co-facilitated an intergenerational workshop with ASSITEJ Germany at the AAG 22 in Helsingborg.
About Drama Control
Drama Control was founded in 2020 by Junges Schauspielhaus Bochum. The group of 15 children and young people aged between three and 22 years represents different realities of life for children and young people in Bochum and focuses on their perspectives and wishes regarding to the world of theatre. Drama Control plays a decisive role in the operation of the Junges Schauspielhaus: its members can suggest themes and projects, get to know artists and help determine the repertoire, artistic processes and communication of the theatre.
First published in IXYPSILONZETT Jahrbuch/2022, Theater der Zeit, 2022, p.6.
