Rhythm & Recycling

Rhythm & Recycling is a workshop series for children in changing formats (orchestra - as a concert, silent film setting or combination with acting, singing, storytelling), in which music techniques around the topics of sustainability are teached.

In the workshops together with the children an orchestra from recycled materials is built up. What others declare as garbage is used as material for instrument making - the children collect usable waste parts - such as plastic cups, canisters, pots or tin cans - from which each child designs its own drum instrument. These percussion instruments are used to create a composition using the technique of sound painting - a multidisciplinary sign language - with an emphasis on improvisational practices. Working closely with local associations, the project aims to strengthen communication and empathy between children from different neighborhoods and backgrounds. In doing so, it is very important to create an open, inclusive and collective offering, a space where participants feel free and safe and supported in their individual personalities and interests, while experiencing being part of a community. The presentations are staged for other refugee and local children. The workshops are process-oriented and the performance is part of the process, which should enable the audience to participate.

Social art combines awareness with mutual understanding - society and its inherent disadvantages are subject to dynamic change, so artistic approaches are adapted in the workshops, taking into account interdisciplinary needs. Great importance is given to participatory action and non-violent communication, and the structure of social art is constantly reconsidered during each implementation - aesthetic and social practices, interdisciplinary artistic skills, pedagogical knowledge (taking into account people who have experienced violence, migration and discrimination), contemporary alternative and non-violent communication, trust, awareness, search for sustainable results, inclusive and participatory interactions.