OtherWise Theatre Group

We proudly present our Theatre Group!

OtherWise theatre group is an international participatory group that performs during public activities, and creates and designs workshops together to co-create Theate for Development.

‘Theatre for Development’ means live performance, or theatre used as a development tool -as in international development. It can be a kind of participatory theatre, that encourages improvisation and audience members to take roles in the performance, or can be fully scripted and staged, with the audience observing (Hurd 2004, Wikipedia).

Through discussions with various international students, OtherWise found that there is a demand for theatre amongst international students. Many students are new to Wageningen, the Netherlands or even to Europe. Theatre offers them a manner to express themselves creatively, to meet friends and feel better integrated in Wageningen. Moreover, the ideas behind theatre for development match nicely with the goals of OtherWise: namely an embodied dialogue for development through theatre games and performances.

Since September 2010 Matthijs Kool is coordinating a theatre group at OtherWise. Besides studying at WUR, Matthijs did for two years professional acting classes. The theatre group now consists of 10 international students, it is expected that new students come and go throughout the year.

The theatre performances are made by the students along themes and topics of the public activities at OtherWise. The Theatre group makes performances related to the debate, lecture or film which is shown. In this way OtherWise makes use of a diversity of communication methods, ranging from theatre to photo’s and movies, debates, workshops and lectures.