COMMUNITY ART WORKSHOPS FOR TEENAGERS FROM THE MIDDLE EAST AND ROMANIA
Rhea Platform organised NEST – Nurturing Expression and Social Togethernessa community programme offering free art workshops for teenagers aged 12 to 18 from the Middle East and Romania.
Art workshops::
- theatre (coord. Anca Munteanu)
- playwriting (coord. Ruxandra Simion)
- music (coord. Mohammad Hadi Mogouei)
- film (coord. Cristina Iliescu)
Mixed art workshops
artă
The art workshops took place every Sunday for 20 weeks at Activ Random in Bucharest. At lunchtime, the teenagers shared a meal together.
The activities we undertook together ranged from writing a screenplay to editing experimental films shot on mobile phones, from creative and dramatic writing exercises to stage play, and from playing the tar, singing, and playing the harp or percussion.
ANCA MUNTEANU
Anca Munteanu is an actress, trainer, playwright, and co-founder of the Rhea Association. She initiated and coordinated the Djerelo theatre group, made up of Ukrainian refugee teenagers.
Following her workshops with refugee teenagers, using theatre and creative writing techniques, the play What Does a Lullaby Sound Like? was created and presented at the 2022 Ideo Ideis Festival, Unteatru Theatre, and the Zi de Bine Community Centre in Bucharest.
RUXANDRA SIMION
Ruxandra Simion is a playwright and cultural producer and co-founder of the Rhea Association. Her work with vulnerable communities uses forum theatre methods combined with acting and playwriting exercises.
She has facilitated such workshops in Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Medgidia, Târgu Neamț, and at the Craiova Juvenile Detention Centre, working with teenagers and students on a range of important topics.
MOHAMMAD HADI MOGOUEI
Mohammad Hadi Mogouei is an Iranian musician who had been living in Romania for three years at the time of the project. He is fluent in both Romanian and Persian.
He has studied traditional Iranian music for 18 years, plays the tar and setar, and has taught music for 12 years.
CRISTINA ILIESCU
Cristina Iliescu is a filmmaker who explores the boundaries between real life and information technology in her short films and video art. A PhD candidate at UNATC Bucharest, she writes about the impact of the internet on cinema. She is also a university teaching assistant in the Film Studies Department.
She was a mentor and facilitator during the For Memory’s Sake residency.
The Final Event
Over the course of 20 sessions, we managed to:
- build a functional harp during the music workshop. It is musical, sustainable, and handmade;
- create the theatre performance Salvia, an original reinterpretation of the fairy tale Youth Without Age and Life Without Death;
- film and edit a three-screen video installation featuring short films created by the teenagers throughout the film workshop;
- attend together the performance 370 Costumes by the Royal Georgian National Ballet at Sala Palatului.
We presented these results at an event featuring a Persian classical music concert (Mohammad Hadi Mogouei playing the tar, Ciprian Baciu playing the tabla and Vlad Alexandrescu playing the Persian ney), as well as theatre and film. The event took place at ARCUB on 27 April 2025.
partners:
funded by:
Graphic design: Daniella Olaru
Photo credit: Alexandra Cojocaru
Project by: Artistic Explorations Platform RHEA
Funded by: În Stare de Bine
Supported by: Kaufland România
Implemented by: Fundația pentru Dezvoltarea Societății Civile
Main partner: Activ Random
#InStareDeBine #ImplicareaFaceDiferenta #KauflandRomania #FDSC
