One week Polish-Lithuanian Youth Exchange project “Stage of Friendship” gave an opportunity for Lithuanian and Polish students to get to know with a theatre of improvisations. That week we had a lot of workshops and during this time we were able to get to know each other and ourselves better.
During the Improvisations persons face with the most common people fears. Almost all students were afraid to show themselves in front of others at the first days. After a few inducements of our leader Antoni we started more and more go to the stage. Some of us was afraid to change. It seems easy to act like other person, animal or even a thing but when you start doing it you feel a bit constrained and not so free. Later, doing it over and over it turned out that in our group there is a lot of potential actors! Also, it was difficult to go over language barrier, but after getting know each other we started not to think about it.
Secondly, improvisations opens minds. It releases imagination, empathy, raise self-esteem fully. Every time after workshops everybody were happy, motivated and full of energy so our communication doesn’t ended at that. When we had breaks during the workshops we came together in common places and chatted, made jokes, listened to the music, played with cards or table football. There wasn’t silent evenings.
In conclusion, improvisations helps people to face and defeat their fears, open themselves and find new talents, raise self-esteem and find new friends. This project taught us to came out from our comfort zones and fail happy, so big thank you for the possibility to participate.
