Kyle Collingwood, an Applied Drama student from the University of Wales Trinity Saint David devised and delivered a highly innovative Final Project for the end of his undergraduate degree where he worked with two youth groups in Carmarthenshire to facilitate a culture exchange project that resulted in a creative sharing and connection making event at Yr Egin on the Carmarthen Campus.
Kyle’s project, ‘Cynefin – Widening Bonds’ involved running a series of workshops with two charity organisations simultaneously – Dr Mz in Carmarthen and Young People Speak Up in Llanelli.
These were both organisations that Kyle has worked and volunteered with during his time as an undergraduate at UWTSD, and he had built up excellent relationships with both organisations and their directors.
Over two months Kyle ran weekly sessions in both youth groups, where participants curated a ‘culture box’ of items to share with the other organisation. Using these items, the groups were then tasked with devising a piece of drama to showcase at the final session (where they would come together). The scenes would reflect what they felt these items symbolised to the group that owned them.
Many of the young people involved had never done drama before they worked with Kyle, so he was not only creating a brave and safe space to explore specific youth cultures but also working with the young people to build their confidence and self-esteem.
Both groups decided to create a short film to show to the other group. The scenes were all based on the items in the boxes. The project culminated in a wonderful evening event at Yr Egin that was supported by the UWTSD Widening Access team. The groups met each other for the first time, played drama games and exercises together, shared their films and every young person was presented with an award for their contribution to the project, there was even some impromptu singing together to end the evening!
Eleanor Shaw, Creative and Business Director at People Speak Up said:
“We found this project so beneficial for both our young people and for us as an organisation. Our young people were totally engaged with the project, Kyle was electrifying as a facilitator – you could really see the skills that he learnt on his applied drama degree shine through! We are also in full support of creating opportunities for students to practice their work in a real-life situation, it’s the best place to learn. We have total respect and gratitude for Ali Franks at UWTSD, in training our future workforce in the fast growth arts and health sector.”
Applied Theatre provides such a unique way to engage communities in creative activity and projects like this open a unique container for exploring and understanding our own culture and that of others, finding ways to connect with others in a creative and potentially transformative way. Young people in this project would not speak in a group of their peers at the beginning ended up taking leading roles in the project, talking about their work in front of a large audience, and even singing in front of an audience. This work is essential right now in a world that is increasingly fragmented where we are experiencing more loneliness than we can remember.
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