Tenth time with Young Voices at Showbox

In 2012, Showbox was for the first time visited by 5 young people from 10th grade at Nittedal ungdomsskole, who wrote, filmed and reflected through the festival. They discussed with professionals who didn’t like r a performance the young people loved, they talked to international delegates and they created a debate when scenekunst.no chose to print their review of Hege Haagenrud’s The Jury. Since then, Showbox has every year been covered by a youth editorial staff from Nittedal, and with Young Voices we have been part of the EU project T.E.E.N. where young people from several different countries together with festivals and organizers have developed various tools for reflection, conversation and exchange of opinions around performing arts.

No one is discussing anymore whether children and young people’s opinion should be heard. Everyone wants participation. Over the years, we have also become wiser, we have seen what works, where we can challenge and what we need to reconsider.

This year we take Young Voices a step further and we will use several of the tools developed by TEEN, both to curate parts of Showbox together with young people, to ensure safe, physical conversation rooms where we can all see each other in eyes and to use their expertise to be the audience.

Photo: Lars Opstad. Cas Public with Young Voices.