The project ‘The Children's Bridge’ as a musical-scenic play by Ukrainian children and a local primary school class is a clearly polyaesthetically staged and reflected example of aesthetic education with plenty of daily relevance. Gerhard Hofbauer created a stage version based on the picture book story "The Children's Bridge" by Max Bolliger and Stepan Zavrel. The children are involved in a holistic creative process through music, dance, language and drama.
The result was presented on 27 April. Read a first review:
[gh] An audience of one hundred and twenty experienced a lively, impulsive stage performance of the picture book story “The Children's Bridge” by 35 children aged just under seven in the auditorium of the Educational Centre for Elementary Education on the weekend after Easter.
The class teachers Gisela Plasser of the primary school class from Parsch and Natalia Mykytyn from the Ukrainian Saturday school agree that this was a great achievement of their classes. Only six weeks were available to realise the music theatre project.
The initiative was launched by the Salzburg Festival Fund's decision to support the Salzburg section of Malteser Hospitaldienst in providing ‘musically creative support for children with refugee experience’, explains Gerhard Hofbauer, a member of the section management and himself a teacher and musician. He had already dramatised the popular picture book story several times with children. Two family clans, who jealously envy and fight each other, finally become friends thanks to an initiative by the children.
The children's play on stage took on a dramatic flavour. 'Arguments turn to anger, you don't realise what you're doing', one of the stage songs composed by Hofbauer begins. The children act out with touching identification how conflicts can escalate.
'All children want peace, peace that ensures happiness', they sing in another song. Their expressive gestures leave no doubt that they take the mission ‘Everyone can make an effort’ seriously.
Dietmar Jürgens, as narrator, sensitively leads from one scene to the next, Natalia Mykytyn, accompanied by Gisela Plasser, bridges the intervals on the bandura with original Ukrainian sounds before the curtain rises again. Eighty minutes of theatre fly by.
As the person with overall responsibility, Gerhard Hofbauer would like to reflect on the work processes in more detail. How did the children emotionally perceive the social conflicts of the plot? What can be observed in their realisation in musical-scenic play? Does something from the so impressively portrayed play of conflict resolution have an effect beyond the events on stage?
It would not be the first time that a society entangled in many conflicts has seen hope in its children. The project ‘Musical support for children with refugee experience’ organised by the Salzburg Festival Fund, Malteser Hospitaldienst, the publishing house Bohem Press, the International Society for Polyaesthetic Education and the teachers from the participating schools opened up a magical space for children to experience, which they ultimately filled without hesitation with highly expressive performances.
Prolonged applause made it clear that they had succeeded in conveying the artistically convincing message: ‘Let's build a bridge for peace here and over there...’ wherever we feel it is threatened.
