VIC Women’s Rights. Drama workshop

The pupils from 5th form took part in a workshop consisting in ten weekly sessions aiming to discover concrete theatrepractice, while developing the themes of the Juliet project about the place of women in society.

The professional actor, Thomas Baelde, submitted excerpts from a book  by a French woman author. The extracts wereread out loud by the students and edited (that step enabled the students to acquire historical and sociological knowledge) The pupils also put forward their own sentences, chosen after  personal research. Some sentences were written on placards and shown at different moments in the performance.

Every student had to work hard to memorize their cues. 

They created together a stage production including sound editing (interviews coming from INA -Institut National de l’ Audiovisuel- archives, pieces of music, female writers’ voices.)

The workshop was the opportunity to have very open exchanges on topics that are sometimes difficult to discuss withfamily or friends. The students are now better informed, and have formed their personal opinions, deconstructedstereotypes and developed critical thinking.

The performance in front of an audience as initially planned had to be cancelled  because of the sanitary  conditions. Wechose to replace it by a video recording made by a professional  video maker: Fabien Soret. It was  essential 

to finalise the workshop in an artistic way highlighting the students’ commitment, making them very proud of their work.

The film was later shown to the school pupils, teachers and administration.