The Gong Theatre in Sibiu
Since March last year, in the context of the coronavirus pandemic, the Gong Theater for Children and Youth in Sibiu has initiated a series of online activities and workshops.
Corina Cristea, 22.05.2021, 13:34
Since March last year, in the context of the coronavirus pandemic, the Gong Theater for Children and Youth in Sibiu has initiated a series of online activities and workshops in order to remain active and close to its audience at a time when performance halls were closed.
Adrian Tibu, director of the Gong Theatre: “We continue the series of creative workshops coordinated by professionals. We have painters, sculptors and tailors who aim to develop the imagination of children, starting from the plays staged here, and allow them to have a glimpse of the behind-the-scene activity. Children will be challenged to tell stories with the help of homemade objects, such as dolls made from socks or recycled bottles for instance. At the same time, they will sketch hand-painted pots while children aged 6 to 10 will be challenged to develop their writing skills through workshops on themes from the shows. It is an attempt to reinterpret classic stories and to achieve, in the end, a chronicle of the reality around us. We try to create a world full of joy, to bring some light during a difficult period. We also try to offer them a nice way to spend time with families because both parents and children are invited to attend out workshops, which can give them a starting point to discuss more sensitive topics. Through these workshops, we also want to convince children to spend less time in front of computers and TVs, because it is not healthy for them. However, we want to continue these workshops when we return to a certain type of normalcy, because the feedback received from the spectators is very good, and for us it was essential to keep in touch with them. I say this because theater is, after all, a living institution and we need this relationship between children, parents and actors. ”
The workshops and activities initiated by Gong Theater are designed for children of all age. Adrian Tibu: “We also have closed circuit workshops for kindergarten and middle school children. These are real-time activities held on zoom, with children either at home or in the classroom. At the same time, our actors have a portfolio of recitals from Romanian poems and texts, to help pupils and students take a different approach to the texts for the national assessment exams and baccalaureate. Another type of workshops we hold for teenagers is public speaking. So far, we have had modules only for 12th grade students, in order to prepare them for the baccalaureate, because oftentimes they get overwhelmed during oral exams and cannot use their full potential. These public speaking workshops combine various acting techniques, to help those who are preparing for exams.”
In an attempt to offer an alternative to live performances in theatre halls, Gong Theatre also created a podcast with stories entitled “The menu with whispered stories”. These are stories from all over the world, performed by Gong Theater actors. All recordings are available for free, on teatrulgong.ro, and the list of audio files is updated daily. The first story was a Romanian one, a story about fairies written by Petre Ispirescu and read by Lucia Barbu.
Adrian Tibu: “We tried to bring to the attention of children a universal portfolio because many times these stories are forgotten, are no longer republished or searched for in libraries. Thats how we came up with the idea to create this virtual file that already contains over 150 reinterpreted stories, because its important to keep this connection with our audience, promoting interaction even in the digital environment. When we created this podcast, we thought it was important for children to have a restful sleep, which is why these whispered stories are often used as good night stories. These stories will remain available online for free, just like the workshops, on teatrulgong.ro. I can say that we have a generous virtual library, which is useful to children of all age, because we want an active audience, with critical thinking, who can understand the world around them. And all these stories from more or less distant areas, offer various cultural models that make diversity and reality easier to understand.”
The Gong Theatre resumed its activity with the public starting on Sunday, May 9th. The first show presented on stage since a number of restrictions were lifted has been “Gagaga and others like him”, an interactive educational show with dolls, created by Raluca Răduca, which brings together several stories inspired from universal literature. (EE)
