Project was played around different communities in Slovenia in the times of quarantine, to ease our and inhabitants’ anxiety https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbQUE08qIg8. We realized that it is good way to address the trouble of Slovenia – we are a small and closed society, quite negative towards foreigners, immigrants, different skin colors… By showing short engaged theatrical pieces under people’s windows, we aim to mirror our society and incite the encounters and discussions among neighbors.

In front of big apartment blocks and bigger communities with dense population around Slovenia.

Slovenia went through many geopolitical changes in last century. This left us with quite diverse population, all white skin, but of different cultures and religions. We never really made peace with these differences. On surface, a nice polished country while on the field far from ideal. Slovenians are quite negative towards members of non catholics, foreigners, immigrants, different skin colors… All this is more pronounced on community level. We do not have ethnical enclaves and people live in mixed societies. Two neighbor families can be absolutely different which brings out intolerance. With theatre art, we can reach all different audiences right in their homes and use it to start the process of knowing each other better. With dialogue we tend to ease the social tensions on the field.

In Slovenia, people live in mixed societies. Therefore, tensions between neighbors can be severe. Often this also causes many to feel left out, like older or more introvert people.
By performing in front of people’s windows, we can reach all of them in the “safety” of their own homes and show them different views of the world, society and the individuals within it. We can surpass the so-called “convincing the convinced” approach.

We noticed that after our performances, people express quite big interest in coming together, to socialize and discuss the event. We will use this fact to raise the level of getting to know each other better and start to communicate.
We will perform to the communities on city outskirts, all around Slovenia, where the mixture of inhabitants is more pronounced

- FDV Professors will conduct research workshops with students and locate main topics and most burning issues on the local and national level.
- Our artists [GAM] will create a set of short performances on the proposed content.
- GAM leaders and FDV professors will empower students to participate in the project in series of workshops - they will learn about individual specifics of the process (space, inclusive artist-viewer communication, use of dedicated modern technologies, etc.).
- Then we will start implementing concrete programs in various (socially sensitive) environments throughout Slovenia.
- Upon completion, students will write down their findings in the form of seminar assignments.
- We will draw the attention of reference media, NGOs and experts to the actions and results.

- We will bring theatrical art into areas that are usually culturally marginalized and reach out for new non-public for theatre, educate and invite them to attend the cultural events in the future
- We will strengthen neighborhood connectivity and social activity and dialogue between neighbors
- The process will be recorded and available for use as the Open Educational Resources (OER)
- A core group of authorized persons of various engaged profiles (artists, social scientists, representatives of the population, etc.) will be formed. The group will develop the project into a method and lay down the possibility for framing the foundation of the cultural mediation studies

It is our strong belief that dialogue and intercultural discussion is the base for democracy and fruitful coexistence. History teaches us that incomers are considered to have nefarious intentions. This is buried deep in human nature hard to surpass.
Nowadays there exist many successful examples of new technologies, which try to encourage communication between different and new people on virtual basis. We want to use our theatre art to do the same. Our approach is direct, opening dialogue between immediate neighbors, using art and humane approach.
The students from Ljubljana Faculty of Social Sciences will be there to help to deepen the relations and dialogue and formulate a platform for sustainability of the inter-neighbourhood multi-cultural dialogue.

We created the project in the times of quarantine, trying to help making everybody lives better. While doing it we realized that:
- we can address audiences in a completely new way – instead of inviting them to come to our events, we were able to address them at home, similar to TV, but alive and in direct contact
- we can touch people very intensely, since they feel safe and comfortable. Furthermore, after the show they felt the need to socialize and communicate.

One of the GAM missions is to help to make this world better and improve understanding between people by performing in public space. It is very important to us to explore further this new way of performing and socializing, since we sincerely believe that our action is just the modest beginning for possible good consequences.

Office, coordination & PR = 700 /month x 13 = 9.100 €
Artistic creation fees = 1200 / month x 13 = 15.600 €
Performe’s fees = 1.800 / month x 8 = 14.400 €
Research costs = 650 X 13 = 8.450 €
Costumes, props & consummables = 120 x 8 = 960 €

We would like to learn about international experience in the community work, specially if some organization has experience in combining art and neighborhood involvement.