Children’s and Young People’s Theatre Centre in the Federal Republic of Germany
The Children’s and Young People’s Theatre Centre in the Federal Republic of Germany is a unique institution, active both nationally and internationally in developing and promoting theatre for young audiences. Each child and young person in Germany should have the chance to experience the art of theatre and be able to play a part in theatre themselves!
The Children’s and Young People’s Theatre Centre promotes theatre for young people and with young people, supporting artists and educationalists in their theatre work and representing the interests of theatre workers in politics and society. In doing so, current topics are taken and examined, using this basis to initiate model projects, events, festivals and conferences and to offer further training.
The Children’s and Young People’s Theatre Centre assumes responsibility for the cultural heritage of children’s and young people’s theatre as a basis for its future. With its wide range of services, the Centre gives information and advice to artists, students, educationalists and all other interested parties.
The work of the Children’s and Young People’s Theatre Centre is cross-linked with activities carried out by theatres, associations, institutions, festivals and other partners in Germany and abroad.
The Children’s and Young People’s Theatre Centre in Germany, with its offices in Frankfurt/Main and Berlin, was founded in 1989 on the initiative of the ASSITEJ Bundesrepublik Deutschland e.V. (International Association of Theatre for Children and Young People) through the Federal Ministry for Young People. It is financed through the Federal Ministry for Families, Senior Citizens, Women and Young People using means from the Children and Young People’s Plan on a federal level, also by the State of Hesse and the City of Frankfurt. The projects run by the Centre also receive support from other entities.
The Children’s and Young People’s Theatre Centre in the Federal Republic of Germany is a member of the Federal Association for Cultural Education for Children and Young People (Bundesvereinigung Kulturelle Kinder- und Jugendbildung), representative of World Interplay and Interplay Europe, festivals for young dramatists in Australia and Europe, and cooperates worldwide with the International Association of Theatre for Children and Young People (ASSITEJ) and the Goethe-Institut.
Making the Art of Children’s and Young People’s Theatre Visible to the Public
An important aim of the Children’s and Young People’s Theatre Centre is to make children’s and young people’s theatre visible as a form of art and to examine and develop its quality. The Children’s and Young People’s Theatre Centre invites expert discussions as well as actively organising these. By doing this, it creates opportunities to discuss the artistic quality of children’s and young people’s theatre and to reflect on ways of developing its aesthetic. These processes will once again also be important components of the conceptual preparation for the 10th German Children’s and Young People’s Theatre Meeting “Augenblick mal! 2009.”
The Children’s and Young People’s Theatre Centre invites the expert public interested in children’s and young people’s theatre to contribute to the information and exchange process about the art of children’s theatre and young people’s theatre, about the education of children and young people, and about contemporary theatre as a whole.
Promoting Art and Creativity from the Start
The starting point of all experience of one’s self and the world in general for small children is through aesthetic experiences. Art and creativity are therefore two central strings of education in early childhood. The requirement of promoting art and creativity from the start arises as a result of this. The Children’s and Young People’s Theatre Centre therefore takes on a special responsibility to create recognition for theatre with and for very young children as an integral part of children’s and young people’s theatre. Because of this the Centre has been involved for some years in this form of theatre and has created a working structure through its project “Theatre from the start! Networking, models, methods: impulses for aesthetic education in early childhood”, which is funded by the Foundation Deutsche Jugendmarke, and on the basis of which a network for this theatre is to be built up in Germany and its social acceptance improved, helping German artists and educationalists to profit from the varied experiences of colleagues from other European countries. With the first Festival des Theaters für die Jüngsten (Festival of Theatre for the Very Young) with exclusively German productions, which will take part as the final event of the project in Dresden in November 2008, the aesthetic peculiarity, which characterises this form of theatre in Germany, will be publicly demonstrated and reflected.
Developing a Repertoire and Reflecting on Authorship
Since the foundation of the Children’s and Young People’s Theatre Centre, promoting playwrights has been at the heart of its work. This involvement in supporting authors and their work is based on the fact that the artistic quality in children’s and young people’s theatre corresponds closely to the quality of its dramatic literature. With writing workshops, the Paul-Maar-Stipendium (Paul Maar Grant), the Deutscher Kindertheaterpreis (German Children’s Theatre Prize) and the Deutscher Jugendtheaterpreis (German Young People’s Theatre Prize) or the exchange with other European playwrights, the Centre has developed a range of promotional activities which is crowned every year by the Frankfurter Autorenforum für Kinder- und Jugendtheater (Frankfurt Playwrights Forum for Children’s and Young People’s Theatre). In the 20 years of its existence, the Playwrights Forum has moved away from being a marketplace for playes to becoming a forum for intense dialogue on themes and contents of writing and producing for children’s and young people’s theatre. In this way, the real need of theatre practicians to be stimulated and inspired is taken into account, not only through the presentation of new dramas and the introduction of authors, but also through the discussion of the particularity of authorship within the field of children’s and young people’s theatre and the intense debate of new trends in its dramatic literature.
Strengthening Children’s and Young People’s Theatre by Networking and Exchanges
The Children’s and Young People’s Theatre Centre creates many different opportunities for national expert discussion and for an exchange of thoughts and experiences. Especially important is the interdisciplinary exchange which in particular is intended to be stimulated by training and further education offers.
With its initiative for the networking of theatre associations who are active nationwide in the field of children’s and young people’s aesthetic education, with its continuing “Kinder spielen Theater“ (Children Play Theatre), which has been in existence since 2004, the Children’s and Young People’s Centre has made a major contribution to a national structural model of cooperation across the different organisations. The continuing conference steers the actions taken to improve the conditions of creating theatre with children in Germany. The Deutsche Kinder-Theater-Fest (German Children’s Theatre Festival), which will take place for the third time in 2008 and whose preparation is to a large part coordinated by the conference, is a visible example of the efficiency of such a network.
With the coordination of the international exchanges, the publicity for German children’s and young people’s theatre abroad, the creation of exchange programmes and the collection and editing of information about international exchanges, the Children’s and Young People’s Theatre Centre wants to set up parameters for individual exchanges in professional theatre for children and young people and in theatre with children and young people. The Centre is the most important contact for international exchanges in children’s and young people’s theatre for the worldwide operation of the Goethe-Institut.
Conserving and Passing on the Cultural Heritage as Basis for the Future of Children’s and Young People’s Theatre
The archive, library and media centre of the Children’s and Young People’s Theatre Centre are stores of information and qualification instruments, and they are constantly updated with new entries, made accessible by means of lists and databanks, and also preserved. Almost 17,000 items including drama, literature, media, archives and internet links are mentioned in our online catalogues. As the most frequently visited web page of the Children’s and Young People’s Theatre Centre, they cover current information and give access to the history of the varied fields of art and cultural education, as well as to professional theatre for children and young people and theatre with children and young people.
By visiting the collection, questions on theatre practice or of an artistic, pedagogic or scientific type can be answered. An internet search of the Centre’s websites is recommended in preparation. The online catalogues can also be used for research purposes at the Centre itself. Dramas and literature are usually available to be handled by visitors; archived items can be made available on request. Introductions to the collections in Frankfurt on the Main and Berlin are an integral part of the list of events by the Children’s and Young People’s Theatre Centre. Guided tours can be arranged for groups.
