During the second Future Epics Lab, Devised Theatre and Performance, organized as a part of the Future Epics project, preselected participants worked on a joint peace, with the focus on forgoten and unexplored narratives with the idea that the results from the LAB can be used later in the creative process and also a way of creating a team that could work on the final performances that will be presented at the Dubrovnik Summer Festival in 2020.
The participants were given the opportunity to work with trained professionals, who worked with them on developing a unique story that was presented on a final day in a form of a showcase.
The main topics of this project’s narratives are mostly related to the cultural heritage in the widest context of this term – reconstruction, reevaluation, deconstruction, relativization and creating a tradition, in the sense of material and non-material cultural/historical heritage.
In the second Future Epics Lab, the participants were dealing with these topics in a two segment sections. The first part was more focused on exploring physical theater techniques and the second section was dedicated to the development of devised pieces, which are becoming an important and effective method of communicating and engaging audiences in contemporary social issues.
Due to the nature of devising, the most effective way of developing ideas and skills in this area is to fully explore a wide and diverse range of techniques related to body, emotion, voice, text, music and video. This diversity of these areas of creation is essential to fully understand the exploratory nature of devising.
During the Lab participants also with with theater director and dramaturg, who help them shape to showcase and match the developed stories in the meaningful and interesting way.
On a final day of the showcase the participants performed the peace in front of the audience, which was followed up by a joint conversation about the good practices in working with youth in the countries that are participating in the project.