Fifteen-year-old Greta Thunberg might be the living definition of what is meant by the term ‘youthquake’. In 2018, she protested outside the Swedish parliament building to raise awareness about the climate crisis facing our planet.
Before long she was sailing across the Atlantic in a solar powered boat to address the UN climate change conference, and bravely holding governments to account for their inaction against the imminent threat to our global community. ‘You’re never too small to make a difference,’ she said later that year, inspiring young people all over the world to follow her lead.
The term ‘youthquake’ was actually coined in the swinging sixties to describe significant cultural, social, or political change enacted by young people, but rose to prominence in 2017 when it surrounded the Labour party's better than expected performance in the general election. As a result, it became the Oxford dictionary's word of the year.
Inspired by the politically engaged youth of today, Zest Theatre Company have taken this buzzword and made a show which puts young people and their opinions centre stage.
While Youthquake makes its way around the country for a Autumn 2019 and Spring 2020 tour, a local cast of young people will join the show in every town that it visits.
This is a singular challenge for the two professional actors on stage with them who not only have to perform and tell the story, but also facilitate the rolling cast who might have only rehearsed together for a few hours or so before the curtain rises.
An eclectic company
Part performance, part TED talk, and part gig, Zest have been redefining performance since they became part of the key creative team at the Lost Village Festival in 2015.
Artistic director Toby Ealden says that working as theatre makers at a dance music festival has been incredibly inspiring: ‘It's an immersive experience, so for the duration of you being at the festival, you’re submerged in this fictitious world of this village that's lost outside of time and space. We bring a cast of 20 performers each year to do a whole load of weird and wonderful things around it, so as you are moving through stages, you come face to face with our characters.’
As artistic director, Toby Ealden directs all of the company's touring work
Ealden describes the festival as a ‘beast’, which takes a huge amount of energy and dedication to pull off, but for a theatre company that doesn't receive any core funding it's extremely important for them.
He is the first to admit that the term ‘immersive theatre’ is not totally satisfactory when it comes to defining what Zest Theatre does, but projects like this bring them face to face with non-traditional theatre audiences, which does go to the heart of what inspires them as a company.
‘High quality work that anyone can access no matter what [their previous theatre experience has been’, he says, is ‘what [we are about…a lot of our Lost Village audience, for example, don't go to the theatre. They come to a music festival but then have these amazing experiences, that they almost don't consider to be theatre, because it's just part of the experience – and I think that's where the exciting opportunity is.’
Toby's advice for communicating with young people:
- Be clear about why you are there. Frame the conversation as a genuine desire to hear what the participants think. Many people enjoy the opportunity to share their opinion on wide-ranging subjects.
- Unlock the barriers. Breaking the ice can be a real challenge. Games, gentle encouragement, and patience are worth remembering. Have a strict plan but be flexible.
- Artists, chill out! Don't get tangled up in your own feelings of artistic self importance. Concentrate on keeping the conversation accessible, relevant and engaging.
- Remove your own filter. If you want to create genuine, balanced discussion, then you need to provide a safe environment where all voices can be heard, even the ones you don't agree with. That means actively listening and letting everyone speak.
- Say thank you. This one is simple. Thank your participants for sharing their thoughts.
The Lost Village Festival has a national profile, putting Lincoln on the cultural map. Zest, also based in the city, feel their values chime with that of the festival, ‘As a regionally based company we are creating work of national importance but in a place that is outside of the M25.’
They were initially led to the concept of producing ‘immersive’ style performance off the back of an idea for their first touring play, which was set at a house party. But what makes them especially difficult to pin down is the fact that the creative direction of the company is one that shifts and morphs organically depending on what fires them up as artists.
Youth first
Claire Gaydon and Harris Cain (pictured) will play Becky and Jack
The idea of using the real-life voices of young people to form the basis of an entire show came about when they were making something else. ‘Back in 2017 we were touring a show which was about young people's response to Brexit, and when we were researching it we were recording voices,’ Ealden explains, ‘we realised that what they were saying was so articulate and brilliant that we had to put their voices into the show as well. On touring the show, it was those voices that seemed to resonate most with the audience.’
Youthquake was born out of that audience response, and the interview process was the means to achieve it. ‘The process of meeting those young people was to really try to understand a generation across the country, to understand what the national and local narratives were. And I think what we’ve taken away from it is that there just isn't the space any more for that age range to be heard’
Gathering this raw material meant inviting groups of young people to workshop sessions all over the country. Their creative mission was to get a sense of the local narratives that were affecting young people, as well as the patterns that were emerging more broadly.
What they discovered became the show which is now on tour, but they also learnt a lot about how to engage with young people, what they can do to ensure they feel comfortable, allowing them to share what bugs them, what makes them laugh, and what really matters to them.
‘It was a pretty intense experience, and one that we’re hoping the show can capture – of course with 800 voices it's really hard to do that! We definitely feel a great responsibility, because they’ve given us so much.’
Youthquake is on tour through Autumn 2019 and Spring 2020. A free education resource to accompany the show is available on the website: www.zesttheatre.com