Alithia Drama Workshop

Young Innovators ran a free drama workshop for our last Alithia gathering in June.

Improvisation in teams helps to:

• create a safe, trusting environment with the families
• stimulates imagination and creativity (story telling, connections)
• introduces collaborative innovation

Groups created stories to act out to one another. They were encouraged to be expressive and creative in an environment that was free from judgement.

Our mentor was a qualified  drama teacher, Rachael.

Her 13 year old assistant and two daughters where the perfect helpers to hold space for the different age groups. We found that when children act as co-mentors, the families (all ages) were open to stepping out of their usual comfort zone and entering into a space of play, letting go of their analytical and self-judging mind that would otherwise hold them back.

Everyone enjoyed themselves as they eased into sharing their imaginations and creations freely. Loads of laughter filled the room as parents found their inner-child and connected with the play, much to the delight of the children.

These workshops create a democratic environment between adults and children as they work together to create stories to act out, and share ideas on what actions will illustrate their story, all learning and being inspired from one another, free from convergent thinking (and concepts of a right / wrong ways to approach things).

We found that drama encourages people to create in the moment, their body moving before they have had time to analyse the idea, allowing them to physically brainstorm as they act out different ways to portray a story. This translates to our process for collaborative innovation, which is used in group meetings when developing ideas. Our process involves brainstorming ideas while suspending judgement, and bringing in analytical practices at a further step, ensuring that convergent and divergent thinking are separated. Drama may be used in the future, prior to brainstorming, to help create this environment and support this mental sift.

All together another wonderful morning developing our processes. Building the Alithia community, networking, and learning from each other.