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Made Corrections Workshop in Lithuania

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In advance of the Improvisation/Image Theater workshops held in October 2014, Ellis established contact with Laurynas Zakevicius Choreograher/Director of Vilnius-based Low-Air’ Urbanistni Soki/Contemporary Urban Dance who agreed to collaborate in the workshops. Artist Lena Fisheye proposed her own ‘engagement’ with the young inmates, whilst also documenting this unique collaboration. This video is the result of that collaboration.

When it was time to begin I stated what I wasn’t. I wasn’t a social worker, therapist, or psychologist. I stated that I had no knowledge of anyone’s convictions, received no briefings on individual profiles, etc. I said I’d be applying the same emphasis on improvisation as I would with professional performers. No more, no less. I would however be openly challenging the perceived version of masculinity, that I’d be insisting they take the risk of being ridiculous. No safety net.

As always I’d jotted a few notes on some basic theater games and warm-up exercises tailored for the group of boys taking part in the workshop based on the Theatre of the Oppressed. Within two minutes of entering the gymnasium I’d thrown the manual to the side. In 10 minutes the word ‘workshop’ was being redefined. In 15 minutes I was restructuring everything. WE were restructuring everything.

Whatever you’d structured in advance, put down on paper etc. will surely be altered, be redefined, and so it should be. If not? Nothing’s happening.

The boys began to ‘undo’ themselves, to play, to edge towards a sense of their own different personalities, the nuances behind the mask of ‘being men,’ and a gradual and obvious sense of their own value.

No one, least of all someone from the ‘outside’ should underestimate how ‘intelligent playfulness’ works inside a prison.

They asked if I’d be back.
I said I would be.
I said WE would be.


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