Destinies: Uses of Co-creation processes contributing to increased well-bring

Destines was a theatre project using co-creative processes working with young people with care experience, unaccompanied asylum seekers (Derbyshire County Council UK), Sinfonia Viva Orchestra and an applied theatre company. However, the Covid lockdowns of 2020 and 2021, would be prevent the project from being realised to a live audience. Instead, Destinies transformed over a two year period, into a fully digitalised, multi-disciplinary award winning filmed theatre piece.

Destinies used a/r/tography methodologies enabling a research structure that could flex and adapt to an ever changing landscape. As artist, researcher and teacher together with young people with care experience, MA Applied Theatre students, and artists the outcomes were impossible to have predicted. The young people’s authorship was central to the songs, music, characters, and animation without the ‘artists impos[ing] their cultural authority’ (Matarasso, 2017). By using applied theatre approaches for, with, and by the young people created a new community - one that contributed to empowerment, connection and well-being. Wagner-Trayner’s notion of interrelational communities of practice created a fluid and empowering environment so that young people who felt isolated and traumatised could be encouraged in a safe, gentle and creative space (2015). This paper will highlight the importance of creating a multi-directional learning and skills development environment that benefits everyone – young people, students and artists.