cambridge junction young company

In Autumn 2018, Barrel Organ collaborated with the Cambridge Junction Young Company to explore collaborative theatre practice, to engage with what it meant to make politically-engaged work, and to discover a unique style of being comfortable being yourself on stage.

The scheme of work was built around the young people’s responses to the question: “What is Truth?”

The scheme of workshops covered the following:

• Exploring a political provocation, where the young participants contributed what they thought, how they felt, and wrote their own stories about the topic of “truth”.

• Discovering how engaging it is to watch a person on-stage ‘not-perform’, but be themselves, and talk directly to the audience.

• Becoming more empowered as performers, becoming more comfortable to ‘just be you’ on stage, without the need for a mask of ‘character’.

• Focusing on telling their stories as opposed to someone else's - part of the nature of “being yourself on stage” is that it foregrounds you.

• Developing their skills in ensemble work, and alternative approaches to devised theatre.

• Experimenting with using improvisation and un-fixed elements in performance.