Understanding Pupils
Improvisations on Interculture
Playing cards / Photo: Ronald Kurt
Germany is a modern multicultural society. The way the people living here react to the opportunities and risks of cultural differences is key to the country's future, raising the question how intercultural understanding can be made to work in our society.
It's possible the Ruhr metropolis can provide answers. Intercultural communications have become a part of everyday life and interaction in a region where millions of people from different cultural backgrounds live together. The schools in particular are places where interculturalism is a way of life. That's why the project "Understanding Pupils. Improvisations on Interculture" talks to Ruhr metropolis students in their role as experts on interculturalism.
Can we learn more about intercultural understanding from Ruhr students? During two days of workshops, students, researchers and artists show how groups with cultural differences can live together, using improvisational theatre.
Three Ruhr schools are taking part in the project: The Ricarda-Huch Gymnasium in Gelsenkirchen, the Ludgerus Hauptschule in Duisburg and the Frida-Levy Gesamtschule in Essen. The everyday intercultural life at these schools will be visualized through improvisational theatre. On the workshop's first day, the students - supported by artists associated with the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation - will be able to convey their knowledge of the possibilities and limits of living with people from different cultural backgrounds on the stage. A panel discussion on "Improvisation as a method in art and science" will take place on the second day.
"Understanding Pupils. Improvisations on Interculture" will take place at the Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut in Essen. It is connected to "Intercultural understanding in the schools of the Ruhr region", a research project conducted by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.
February 6, 2010, 18:00: Theatre performance - STUDENTS UNDERSTAND.Improvisations on interculturalism
February 7, 2010, 11:00: Panel discussion - Improvisation as a method in art and science
The events are free and open to the public.
Auditorium of the Frida-Levy Gesamtschule
Varnhorststr. 2, 45127 Essen
You can find additional information (in German) at
www.kulturwissenschaften.de/home/projekt-55.html