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CapacitArte transnational meeting in Belgium
On February 3rd and 4th, the International Yehudi Menuhin Foundation hosted the 4th CapacitArte transnational training meeting in Brussels.
During this 2-day meeting, artists from Belgium, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Portugal and Spain gave workshops in order to exchange good practices.
CapacitArte is a training project for professionals in the artistic-pedagogical world that allows them to extend and develop their skills in non-formal methodologies active from art, creativity and culture.
The first day started with an introduction word from IYMF Executive Vice-President, Marianne Poncelet who emphasized the importance for the Foundation to be part of and organise such projects where we give the possibility to artists from different countries to participate to trainings and share good practices. During these kind of events, the artists provide each other with innovative and creative new ideas that they can adapt to their own art language.
As IYMF’s input in the CapacitArte project are artists from Homelands, places of belonging, Sergio Roberto Gratteri, Homelands artistic director also gave an introduction word. The Homelands project promotes social inclusion by creating a sustainable dialogue between Belgian citizens and newcomers through one of the most powerful tools of each culture: ART.
To follow his words, the first workshop was given by Leandro Ramirez, Homelands artist of 2020. During his workshop, the participants had to reflect on what meant “home” to them. One of the main objectives of his workshop is to create an environment where everyone can express themselves freely through drawing.
Afterwards, Angela Peris Alcantud (Spain) gave her theatre workshop on zoom. Through different exercices she wanted to work on our point of view on diversity and how we sometimes have prejudices.
Next were two presentations from Italy. Silvia Iossa shared the good practices of META Participatory lab and the role of MoCa Future Designers as evaluators of the project. Barbara Marcaccio gave a presentation concerning Montepacini which is a social cooperative that aims to give job opportunities and guarantee an autonomous and independent life to fragile people through work in the countryside.
Later that day, Judit Hochrein from Hungary gave a music workshop. The goal of her workshop is to strengthen the participants desire to experiment, to encourage individuality, their manifestations, the free expression of their ideas. We discovered the joy of creating together and “in-the-moment” music using percussion, body and voice.
The first day finished with a cartoon workshop given by Evamaria Deisen from Germany. Through small subject ideas, we had to share in small groups stories related to it and then put it in a cartoon. This is a great way to show how art can be an impulse to create a dialogue but also to learn the participants to use their imagination and promote their creativity and artistic expression.
The second day was a little bit less intense but still very interesting.
Two artists coming from Portugal started the day with their workshop. Claire Honigsbaum was first with a music workshop. Using their voice and the tools at hand, the participants created a unique sound. Efthimios Angelakis followed with a dance and drama workshop. He proposed several exercices that promoted listening, cooperation and sharing of a common space.
And last but not least: Patries Wichers, artist from MUS-E Belgium gave a workshop called “Sharing moments” which also a good way to call the 2 day meeting.
The meeting concluded with a roundtable. What mostly came out from everyone is the appreciation to participate to this project and how connected everyone felt to each other after just 2 days.
All the workshops had a common tool: art. All the workshops had a common goal: create a connection between people.