Theatrical co-creation with children and young people is a common thread throughout the career of actress/theatre maker Sanderijn Helsen. All theatre projects she realised in the past with young target groups, were different in design, form, duration and framework, but always had the same mission: challenging young participants of various profiles to artistic autonomy in a theatrical context. From there Sanderijn has evolved to cocreation with young people within her own work, in which teenagers function as muse, outside eye and target audience.
Throughout her artistic and artistic-educational practice, a unique working method emerged.
With this starting project, Sanderijn is taking some crucial steps to define her intuitive approach and make it shareable. This is a preliminary study in which she will position herselve internationally, identify the frameworks SHE USES within a theatrical context with children and young people and make the vocabulary explicit. This is to allow the implicit embodied knowledge to grow into a shareable methodology for peers from the theatre, the art-educational sector and the teaching of artists from various performing disciplines.
This pilot study will lead to a follow-up study in which Helsen evolves from description and retrospection to experiment/application.