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LIFE  WITH  MASKS

 16.06.2017 at 18h (free admission)

National Museum of Military History,

92 “Cherkovna”str.

 “Life With Masks” is the public presentation of the 5days collaborative work of people with special needs, professional actors, psychologists and support staff, who deal with the problems of disabled people from Croatia, Belgium, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Turkey and Bulgaria. Coming from their own experience, actors share some of the problems faced by people with disabilities in the labour market and social life – and potential solutions to these obstacles.

The goal of the workshop is to help the participants to discover their true self and thus to increase the employability of persons with disabilities; to encourage them to learn new skills and to continue the fight for their rights on the labour market and social life.  They explore the possibility of replacing the roles in an employer-disabled persons relation and define the actions that go beyond the stigmatisation, both external (public messages), and internal (personal skills and abilities).

The workshop includes techniques from the educational drama, puppetry and forum theatre. The masks help the participants to live and understand the character with whom they identify or criticise. Puppetry techniques allow them to change the significance of factors included in the case study according to their personal perspective. Forum theatre techniques allow them to look at the problem with the objective view of the side observer and probably – seek a new solution.

Starting from the known sayings of all marginalised groups and individuals, “Nothing about us without us!”, participants will actively create the performance and cross the path from stigma and persecution to inclusion and equal opportunities, explore institutional discrimination and architectural barriers – in order to, in addition to defining the problems, define the potential solutions and cease to be the social “link without the chain”, actively promote inclusion and employability of people with disabilities in work and social life and the benefits of an equal and intense interaction between people with disabilities and the rest of society.

At the end of the performance there will be discussion between the audience and performers, where you will be able to learn from the problems faced by disabled people

The event takes place in the “Educathe +” partnership that is funded as part of the Erasmus + KA2 Strategic Partnership in seven European countries, but also their solutions which can potentially be applied in Bulgaria.

ALL ARE WELCOME!

HOSTS, ASSISTANTS AND VOLUNTEERS:

Maria Atanasova, Violina Vasileva-Alexandrova, Vasil Spasov, Tsvete Yaneva, Yanko Velkov, Vera Megdanova

PERFORMING:

Amateurs and professionals from Croatia, Latvia, Greece, Italy, Belgium, Turkey and Bulgaria – educators, theatre practitioner, dancers