Very happy to have been offered a place on a week long residency with Helios Theatre as part of Dream: the joy of creating. It’s a unique event that Rose Bruford College’s TYA Centre runs in association with TYA the UK Centre of ASSITEJ, Ashford Borough Council and Kent County Council.
It aims to share the work of UK innovators in the TYA field, with established practitioners from the UK and Europe. A chance to explore, document and celebrate the best practice aimed at young audiences that the UK has to offer.
After attending a similar residency with Oily Cart in 2013, and knowing what an invaluable opportunity that was, I’m looking forward to a week to stop, pause, reflect and create with other practitioners and directors passionate about making theatre for young audiences.
More about Helios theatre.
“HELIOS Theater was founded in Cologne in 1989 by a group of professional artists from different art forms, moving in 1997 to the city of Hamm.
The company is headed by Barbara Kölling as a director and Michael Lurse as a puppeteer. In close co-operation with actors, puppeteers and musicians Barbara Kölling develops challenging theatre performances for all age groups that imprint the work of the theatre. The artistic process often starts from the material itself, a certain subject or a tale.
HELIOS productions have received many awards and are regularly invited to the prominent theatre festivals in Germany as well as throughout Europe. Within its repertoire HELIOS Theater have also developed performances for the very young, such as “Earth, Stick and Stone”, “WOODBEAT” and “H2O”.
In addition to performances, HELIOS Theater tries to foster theatre for the very young through research and exchange, e.g. within the Small size network, where the company has been an active partner since 2007. In the current project HELIOS is responsible for the annual “Artistic Directors’ Meetings”.
HELIOS Theater also organises the biennale festival for young audience “hellwach” and regularly hosts conferences and symposia dealing with current questions in theatre for children and young people. In 2009 HELIOS Theater received the German ASSITEJ Award for its artistic and conceptual approach.”