THE distance between Glasgow’s Tramway, where young performance company Junction 25 are based, and Theater An Der Parkaue, a state-funded youth theatre in Berlin, is 1,210km.
That’s also the name of their collaborative show which premiers at Tramway on August 10 before transferring to Berlin. In it, the 30 young people involved explore the question, “what is the space between us?”
The culmination of months of working together on themes of distance, division, cross-cultural identity, connection and belonging, 1,210km is the first time the two youth companies have joined forces. It’s also the first international exchange for Junction 25, an award-winning company made of young people aged 11 to 18 producing work since 2005.
Young people are at the heart of everything Junction 25 does, says associate artist Gudrun Soley Sigurdardottir, pictured, who leads the company with Rosie Reid.
The pair co-direct 1,210km, alongide Sarah Kramer of the Berlin company, and these debut performances are part of Festival 2018, the cultural programme of the European Championships which are currently taking place in Glasgow and the German capital.
“We had wanted to do an international exchange in the Year of Young People and it coincided with the [European] Championships and Brexit, so we thought it was a brilliant opportunity to approach a theatre for young people in Berlin,” says Sigurdardottir, an Iceland-born performance artist and facilitator based in Glasgow.
“Because we had the title right from the beginning, we immediately started working with themes of distance. We would give the other group creative tasks to get to know each other. We talked to each other about belonging, of where you feel at home, how you are when you are by yourself.”
From September onwards, the two companies communicated via the internet, on Skype and through old fashioned letters. They shared photographs, music, sound clips, texts, ideas. The first face-to-face meeting came in February, when Junction 25 visited their new German friends over a weekend in Berlin.
The real experiment, Sigurdardottir says, will be the few days the two companies share at Tramway before they present their work to the public for the first time on August 10.
“It’s very exciting,” says Sigurdardottir who begins the final leg of work today. “We have a structure and ideas but we won’t know exactly what it will be like until we’re together. It’s two companies with 30 young people; 30 creative voices of young people with their own ideas about the world. It’s about holding all their different voices at the same time, giving room to them all.”
She adds: “It’s been important to us to explore all these ways of communicating, but I think the most important one is the what the audience will see, of them being a space together and holding all these ideas and differences.”
Certain themes were common throughout the exchange, such as academic pressures, pop culture and language. This was a difference Sigurdardottir noted in the young people from Glasgow was a concern with their future after Brexit.
“The young people from Glasgow are definitely more aware of it because they are surrounded by it,” she says. “The young people from Berlin are aware of it, but it’s not in the forefront of their minds.
“The show isn’t going to be about Brexit, but when you speak about connection and division and cultural identity, it’s hard not to. Especially for young people, who weren’t able to vote, but are anxious and confused by it, as I think a lot of adults are.”
The show is likely to include elements of acting, movement, dance, voice, music and text, she says.
“We speak about Junction 25 as ‘a group of young people who make and conduct their own performance’,” Sigurdardottir says. “So it can include any of those things, none of them, or all of them. There will likely be lots of ensemble moments, as well as individual voices, say if someone has a family relationship involving people who live in different countries or who are speaking of distance, or connection or belonging from a personal standpoint.
“We also have a band, so there will be live music. But the young people themselves will be the main focus. That’s what will fill Tramway 1, these 30 young people performing togther, thinking about the future and the relationships they have formed with the young people from the other company.”
Kay Wuscher, director of Theater an der Parkaue, comments: “Art plays with the world, or rather with worlds, infinite worlds. And at their centre are people and borders. And through playing, these become visible, are transcended, questioned, examined and changed.
“Exchange creates novelty, through questions, ideas and passion. That is why I’m very happy about bringing together young people through art with 1,210km.”
August 10 and 11, Tramway, 7.30pm, £12.50, £9 concs. Tel: 0845 330 3501. www.festival2018glasgow.com www.tramway.org www.junction-25.com www.parkaue.de
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