Tower of Babel
Bird & Bat is a part of the european network Participate in your life.
Participate in your life was established by five theatre and dance companies in 2018 and they have since explored interactivity in children’s theatre through discussions and workshops in Budapest, Reykjavík and Kaunas. In the autumn of 2021 they hosted an open conference about interactivity and participation in children’s theatre in Bergen Join In, Norway, where they invited a broad spectre of artists from all over Europe.
The network then took their next step and decided to make an interactive performance together. The Tower of Babel was written and directed by Norwegian director Hilde Brinchmann who worked closely with her long time collaborators Signe Gerda Landfald, set designer, and Helena Andersson, make-up and costume designer. The piece Tower of Babel: Planet Earth, Game over, Reset premiered in August 2022 at the National Drama Theatre of Kaunas in Lithuania.
Hilde Brinchmann, Signe Landfald and Helena Andersson visited Iceland in January to work with the icelandic actors Snædís Lilja Ingadóttir and Sigurður Arent. Prior to that Tinna and her collaborator Aude Busson had taken in depth interviews with icelandic teenagers to get the thoughts, hopes, dreams and ideas from the relevant age group to inspire the work.
The team at the National Drama Theatre in Kaunas has made an educational package that can be used for teachers before seeing the performance with their class. Read more about that here.