Our Projects at Youth Detention Facility Berlin since 2014
Since our foundation in 2013 we are collaborating with the Team of the School at Jugendstrafanstalt Berlin. Out of this collaboration we have had the opportunity to work with the incarcerated youth on the most diverse topics with the most diverse tools. Let it be dance, poetry, music and rhythm, drawing or opera...
This is a short overview
Some impressions from Behind Bars
2019 and 2020
Behind Bars: Von No Boundaries e.V. und Musethica e.V.
Sponsored by Berliner Projektfonds Kulturelle Bildung und Sammelfonds für Geldauflagen zu Gunsten gemeinnütziger Einrichtungen ("SamBa").
2017
Der Schimmelreiter
Since September 1st, 2017 we are back at Youth Detention Facility. For 6 months we will work on new texts, new music, new sounds based and inspired by the literary piece by Theodor Storm, The Dykemaster.
Teachers in this project:
Johanna Marshall, Birgit Lang, Ute Gastinger, Isabel Ferrin-Aguirre, Daniel Allen, Jörn Hedtke, Dominique Macri, Dalibor Markovic.
The result: An audio drama summarizing the outcome of the workshop.
We are the first project in Germany who get the chance to assist the school of a Youth Detention Facilty in their teaching program. We hope to make the learning process of the incarcerated easier by applying completely artistic methods. What did the ocean sound like when the Dyke in Husum broke? What can external determination lead us to do? Prejudices from 200 years ago and today, are there any differences? ...
Sponsored by Sammelfonds für Geldauflagen zu Gunsten gemeinnütziger Einrichtungen ("SamBa").
2016
Part IV)
Moving Wor(l)ds
A poetry/ dance project at the Youth Detention Facility Plötzensee in Berlin
from May 2016 - September 2016
On May 17th the project „Moving Wor(l)ds“, a cooperation between Tanztangente and No Boundaries e.V.
started to involve the incarcerated youth from the Detention Facility in a poetry / dance project. Spoken word artists worked closely to dance teachers in order to deal with the 7 deadly sins.
How can they be written about? What would the dance about a mortal sin look like? Artists such as Kronstädta, who has been working with incarcerated youths for years and the Femcee Pyranja were
the mentors in writing, whereas 4 teachers from Tanztangente were the dance mentors working closely for 5 months with the youths. A public presentation took place on September 23rd, 2016 at the
Detention Facility. During a 45 minute performance the participants of this project performed the "Deadly sins" interpreted in text, dance and music in front of an audience of about 120 people.
The project is sponsored by Chance Tanz.
Part III)
Political education inside the walls of the Youth Detention Facility
During a period of three months the mentors from "Dialog macht Schule" have been treating the topic of "equality, female rights and gender" from February - May 2016. As a result the incarcerated participants wrote a theater piece and texts that have been performed inside the Detention Facility for the other incarcerated youths.
A movie by Olad Aden
A cooperation between Friedrich Ebert-Stiftung, Jugendstrafanstalt Berlin and No Boundaries e.V.
Workshop by: Dialog Macht Schule
2015
Part II)
Part I)
February 2015 - August 2015
Behind Bars is a project in collaboration with the Youth Detention Facility Berlin. Incarcerated young people will have the opportunity to participate in classes of poetry / Rap and literature within the school curriculum of the Detention Facility. The projects goal is to improve language skills and to increase the interest in and the ability of self expression through language. Ideally project involved young people will find a vehicle for self expression through artistic means.
Language often looses its significance and multiplicity in the day to day prison routine. This can lead to frustration , misunderstandings and conflict. Therefore we consider it crucial to improve the ability of self expression and to offer new methods which will empower participants to deal with a diverse variety of topics that will be addressed during the program.
Teaching artists will visit the facility twice a week to offer classes: creative writing, rhyming, drawing classes. They will discuss of everyday topics and in the process they will define ways how to express them accordingly. This project will be accompanied by the pedagogical instructions of social workers and teachers of the facility.
Poems, Lyrics and Statements by the participants of Behind Bars:
The project has been sponsored by Bezirksamt Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf.
The beginnings:
On Febuary 24, 2015 the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung funded a writing workshop that included a very animated discussion between the incarcerated youth and the Cambodian artist Kosal Khiev, himself a former prisoner who had been incarcerated for 14 years in diverse US prisons where he discovered poetry as a valuable tool for his very survival. The Berlin based detainees were introduced to poetry and all of its assets!
The pilot phase of the project has been made possible by a generous private donation.
Ulla Lenze, as teacher 2015
Abbas Khider ran the first Workshop period which kicked of the projects pilot phase on May 4th, 2015. This project period dealt with the topics "itineraries / meanders / ways and halfways".
The incarcerated youth narrated their own stories describing their own, personal ways: itineraries of a refugee, ways into the future, meanders and ways of the past.
The basic idea: leave nightmares behind by going through them in words and narration in order to find alternatives and follow dreams.
The next section of the Workshops during the pilot phase was held by Berlin MC Amewu. Here, some of the involved detainees had the opportunity to write Rap-Lyrics, some of them were able to try out the art form of rhyming while others continued working on their short stories.
Ulla Lenze, Kaveh, Joe "Madog" Bliese and international guests such as Natalia Molebatsi and L-Ness as well as youth from the BronxBerlin Connection accommodated the workshops with special feature appearances which inspired the youth day by day!
The writing workshop was honoured by the presence of South African poet Natalia Molebatsi and Kenyan MC L-Ness who listened to the stories of the incarcerated. They initiated a poem which will be continued by the group. Upon its conclusion it will be send to the two "teachers" soon!