20 March, World Day of Theatre for Children and Young People — National Statement 2024

When the established idea of childhood draws its own boundaries, which of the child’s talents, inclinations and desires does it leave out? Which childhood experiences does it render invisible? While insisting on the boundaries it sets, what does it turn a deaf ear to, what does it restrict our access to, and where does it keep the child until they are “grown” into an adult? When we take such questions to heart, another question we might pursue appears before us: How do these boundaries change, or, “How does one thing turn into another?”

Boundaries can be stretched, crossed, redrawn. Rather than separating us from one another, they can become the expression of our meeting on the same level through genuine encounters. We know this, if from nothing else, from the art of theatre, which can give birth to limitless possibility within limitation and can turn one thing into something entirely different. And precisely for this reason, we refuse — both artistically and ethically — to settle for the boundaries drawn in children’s and youth theatre, or to assume we have “found it” and stop searching.

Although commercial interest in children continues to grow rapidly today, a fair discussion of living together with children — an approach that sees the child as valuable in and for themselves, not as a potential component of the future, society, the family or any other whole — has not gained the same momentum. It is a fact that the economic, political, environmental and other crises, wars, disasters and adversities in our country and the world affect children the most. Moreover, it is almost inevitable that we find traces of the same pattern, and even the veins that nourish it, not only in such large-scale events but also in the relationships we build with the children closest to us in everyday life. Without solving all these problems, the problems in children’s and youth theatre cannot be fully solved either. Still, theatre can dare to go beyond the boundaries drawn for it, take a step towards solving these problems, open a crack. And it does!

Could the key to this crack be hidden in a kind of idea of solidarity? First and foremost, in the idea of solidarity with children and young people. In plays that embrace a liberating, empowering approach instead of imposing on them what is good. In dramaturgical choices that trust that “children know unicorns aren’t real, yet also know that good stories about unicorns speak of truths”*. In staging ideas that centre the playful transformation that opens us to one another, and that lean on gaps and on collective imagination. In productions that sincerely believe children’s and youth theatre can be transformative for audiences of all ages. Coming together in empowering collaboration and friendly competition, with care, understanding and love, we can spend the next ten years — the next hundred years — launching a new wave of children’s and youth theatre that will transform them. Together we can experience the effect of theatre’s public nature on our ability to live together. With the children and young people who come to see our plays, we can have unfiltered, direct encounters through artistic experience, and learn from one another.

A theatre that provokes and respects the imagination, bringing new ideas, excitements and agency to today’s world from the child’s point of view! A freer and braver theatre — not for tomorrow’s adults, but for today’s children, young people and adults! This will no doubt affect tomorrow as well, but that is not our priority, and never should have been. Greetings to all the works of art, people and encounters that once made us a little more sensitive, a little braver, a little freer towards our own uniqueness, our surroundings, our societies and our planet!

*Ursula K. Le Guin, Kadınlar, Rüyalar, Ejderhalar.

Boş Sahne