Right outside the Audimax in the Alice Salomon Hochschule Berlin, visitors are invited to actively participate. "What do you associate with 'silence'?", they are asked and it becomes clear that the answers could not be more different. From "lies" to "comfort" to "cemetery", there are plenty of impressions.
On January 23, 2025, a special event took place at the Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences Berlin (ASH): "Old people, students and a space in between. Intergenerational social cultural work in practice-oriented teaching". The hybrid event combined research with art and discussion. My first thought as the Audimax slowly filled up at the start of the event: I've never seen so many lecturers here at once before. I noticed that there were an unusually large number of older people present for a university. Then I realize: these are actors.
Right at the beginning, I have the opportunity to talk to one of the students and participants in the "Theater of Experience" project: What it's like to be part of an intergenerational ensemble, I ask.
"I have to admit, I wasn't so convinced at first, but although we've only met four or five times, we've really built up a relationship," he explains to me and continues, "The special thing is the different experiences that the different generations bring with them... that's partly what the play is about."
And what is the play about?
He grins: "About silence - a bit of dystopia."
He doesn't want to give any more away.
Prof. Dr. Gesine Bär, Vice-Rector for Research at ASH Berlin, and Prof. Dr. Gabriele Schlimper, Managing Director of the Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband Berlin, welcome us to the opening.
Prof. Bär emphasizes that universities must be a place for critical social debate. She refers to the recent occupation of the Audimax by pro-Palestinian students and explains: "Not every social problem can be blamed on the police." In her plea for social cultural work, she emphasizes the need to make social issues visible and create spaces for dialogue.
Prof. Schlimper then highlights the work of the Theater of Experience as an example of social and cultural work in practice. She addresses the challenges of ageing today: loneliness as a health risk, diversity of life plans in old age and age discrimination. A thought experiment in which she replaced the term "older people" with "migrants" in a newspaper article about pension policy was particularly poignant for her. The result was an article with "blatant discrimination". As a consequence, Schlimper concludes by calling for nothing less than a legal right to advice and support for older people, similar to the model of child and youth welfare.
Intergenerational performance "Why are you so silent?"
The Theater der Erfahrungen is a mobile theater of the Nachbarschaftsheim Berlin-Schöneberg that has been in existence since 1980. The Theater der Erfahrungen unites three intercultural ensembles for older actors under one roof: "Spätzünder", "Ostschwung" and "Die Bunten Zellen".
The intergenerational play "Wieso schweigt Ihr so laut?", directed by Margherita Vestri from the Theater der Erfahrungen and lecturer at ASH Berlin, is part of the conference program. Here, actors from the theater group "Die Bunten Zellen" and students from ASH Berlin have explored the topic of "silence" and are bringing their recently developed play to the stage.
It begins with: Silence.
All the actors wear black.
The only thing that breaks the silence is the persistent unrolling of the adhesive tape. The audience is symbolically isolated from the action on stage with tape on the floor. In the play, words become currency. Each citizen has only 100 words per day at their disposal. Additional words cost extra - in the form of bookable additional packages.
But those affected are putting up a fight: "Give us back our voice", reads a sign.
Or also: "Language without fees".
Words are "priceless" is the credo.
Scene change: A typical subway scene in Berlin: A musician tries to earn some extra money on the train, but we won't hear anything. A woman steps forward. She talks about her life: Many Kurds, like her, had to leave their home villages. Soldiers forced old and young people to move out, killed farm animals and burned their beloved walnut trees. Another tells of the adversities of arriving in Germany.
On its 40th anniversary, the Theater of Experiences turns its name into a program.
Research findings on the cooperation between ASH Berlin and the Theater of Experience
Finally, Prof. Johanna Kaiser and Dr. Nadin Tettschlag present the results of their qualitative study on the cooperation between ASH Berlin and the Theater of Experience since 2008. The aim of the research was to shed light on educational processes, opportunities and challenges of intergenerational cooperation in teaching-learning formats. Among other things, it could be shown that the group of younger students primarily bring everyday and discussion knowledge with them, while the actors primarily bring theater experience and, in general, experience with life crises and professional challenges.
But in theater, in play, according to Kaiser, the age boundaries sometimes become blurred.
Dance theater as a resonance space between the generations
Prof. Dr. Felicitas Lowinski from the Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences comes to very similar conclusions. As part of her project series "Tanztheater als Resonanzraum zwischen den Generationen" (Dance theater as a resonance space between generations), the necessity of such projects could be highlighted using project diaries of students and older actors and video recordings of rehearsals. In many places, generative prejudices and non-encounter prevail in society. At the same time, older and younger participants sometimes have very different experiences and life situations. For the participating students, intergenerational ensembles were subject to less pressure to perform and the older actors experienced the rehearsals with the "students" as more dynamic, more agile and generally more courageous.
Panel discussion: space for encounters
The event concluded with a panel discussion moderated by Prof. Dr. Andrea Plöger. Representatives from academia, teaching and practice discussed the question: "What is needed for good further development of university-practice cooperation?"
Margherita Vestri, for example, argues that "space for creativity, listening and encounters" should be made possible despite the chronic lack of time among students and, in some cases, senior citizens. While students often have less time and less theater experience, they are all the more motivated. Meanwhile, actor Durmuş Çakmak emphasizes the value of continuity. He had already played theater in elementary school, "In 2001, Johanna [Kaiser] got my phone number. Since then, we have played and worked in the Theater of Experience and now also at the university." According to another speaker, intergenerational approaches allowed "two worlds to collide: University and older groups already follow very different logics", something that should be taken into account when designing intergenerational cultural projects.
The event ended with a greeting from the Dean, Prof. Dr. Heinz Stapf-Finé, who emphasized intergenerational cultural work as a challenging but worthwhile part of social work - not without stressing that spaces between people with different experiences and dialogues between them are not simply there. They have to be actively created, supported, used and defended. "However, the theater projects are not about nostalgia, not about what hangs on the Christmas tree," says Johanna Kaiser, "but about what is socially relevant."
Info:
The hybrid conference "Old people, students and a space in between - intergenerative social cultural work in practice-oriented teaching" took place at the Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences Berlin on January 23, 2025.
Conception & implementation: Prof. Johanna Kaiser, Carolin Pieper & Dr. Nadin Tettschlag
Contact: theater@ ash-berlin.eu
