What is the BUZZ Network?
BUZZ is a European Youth Theatre Network.
From 2019 – 2024, leading arts organisations from Scotland, Ireland, Norway, Belgium and Germany were awarded funding from the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union to cross-pollinate youth theatre practice across the continent for the first time.
Called the BUZZ Network, the organisations joined forces to share knowledge, skills, contacts, and resources across seas and borders, establishing a new network for collaboration and development.
All partners are leaders in the development of youth theatre in their own country. National development organisations Youth Theatre Arts Scotland and Youth Theatre Ireland worked alongside prominent theatres Rogaland Teater from Norway, Theater Bremen in Germany, and BRONKS from Belgium to advance practice in their region and across Europe.
During the project, the BUZZ Network delivered multinational training events for youth theatre practitioners, engaging over 100 professionals from twenty European countries.
Alongside training, the BUZZ Network began mapping research of youth theatre across Europe, to identify leading venues and practice, as well as creating a web portal to increase awareness of cross-border opportunities.
BUZZ Network Events
Launch: October 2021
In October 2021 we hosted a series of online events to launch the BUZZ Network. Featuring discussions, networking workshops, and performance screenings, we welcomed youth theatre artists and leaders from across Europe to meet, share and cross-pollinate their practice.
These events are available to watch on-demand at our Vi.to Hub, which you can find on the BUZZ Network website below.
Online Leaders’ Lab
In 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic forced youth theatre practitioners all around Europe to re-imagine their practice for an online world. While challenging, this context offered the opportunity to learn new skills and ways of working and resulted in some unique ways of engaging with young people online.
When the originally planned Youth Theatre Leaders’ Lab was unable to take place in person due to travel restrictions, we decided to adapt the programme to reflect this online context. Held online as five interactive Zoom sessions hosted by Youth Theatre Ireland, these online sessions introduced participants to a European wide group of facilitators. The session supported their facilitation, partnership and collaboration skills, while outside of the core sessions, participants were given the opportunity to develop their own idea for an online youth theatre project in partnership with a Europeen peer. They were encouraged to get the idea on its feet, via a small abount of micro-grant funding to research and test out their ideas.
Artists’ Lab One: BRONKS
In April 2022, after being postponed for two years, ten youth theatre artists from Scotland, Ireland, Germany, Belgium, Slovenia, England and the Netherlands finally joined together in person for the first BUZZ Artists’ Lab, exploring the theme of Co-creation and Empowering Young People.
Hosted by BRONKS, and facilitated by lead artist Simon D’huyvetter, participants undertook a packed week of workshops and discussions, sharing in each other’s practice as well as gaining an insight into the vibrant youth arts sector in Flanders, with visits to arts organisations and performances across Brussels, Ghent and Brugge.
Artists’ Lab Two: Theater Bremen
The second Artists’ Training Lab was held at Theater Bremen in Germany from 14 – 19 October 2022 and explored the theme of Form and Aesthetics of Co-creative Work with Young People. Sixteen artists attended the Lab, from Germany, Scotland, Belgium, Ireland, Norway, Ukraine, England and Czechia.
Hosted by Theater Bremen Junge Akteur*innen, this multinational training lab allowed artists to explore what it means to evolve and challenge their artistic practice in a youth theatre context. The group undertook intensive workshops with researchers Theater X, choreographer Birgit Freitag, and director Joanna Praml, as well as collaborating with one another to share, learn and connect.
Artists’ Lab Three: Rogaland Theater
The third Artists’ Training Lab was held at Rogaland Theater in Stavanger, Norway, from 6 – 10 March 2023. The five-day programme offered professional youth theatre artists the chance to explore the theme of Dramaturgical Approaches to Youth Theatre. Twenty-one artists attended the Lab, from Scotland, Ireland, Germany, Norway, Belgium, Austria, England, Greece, The Netherlands, North Macedonia, Romania, Sweden, Spain, and Ukraine.
Rogaland Teater’s Children and Youth Theatre Department hosted and led our participants in a series of activities exploring how Dramaturgy can be used within a youth theatre context. Participants watched performances both by the youth and the adult theatre, and met the people behind the performances. Participants also took part in workshops, debates and presentations in peer-to-peer groups, and got the chance to workshop their own ideas for performances.
Artists’ Lab Four: Impact Arts, Glasgow
For the final BUZZ Artists’ Lab, nineteen artists from across Europe gathered in Impact Arts in Glasgow, Scotland. Hosted by Youth Theatre Arts Scotland (YTAS) the five-day programme from Monday 12 – Friday 16 June 2023 invited artists to explore the theme of Diverse Voices in Youth Theatre. Artists shared and explored creative approaches to engaging with disability, ethnic diversity, sexuality, gender, and socioeconomic deprivation within youth theatre arts contexts.
Alongside lead artist Ivor McAskill and a range of companies including Birds of Paradise Theatre Company, Solar Bear’s Deaf Youth Theatre, Ignite Theatre, Impact Arts, and Sanctuary Queer Arts the lab interrogated what a diverse and inclusive approach brings to youth theatre, and what is required for it to be implemented and sustained.
BUZZ @ YTI Symposium, Cork
In November 2023, as the final event in the first BUZZ programme, artists and creative professionals working in youth theatre across Europe and beyond attended Youth Theatre Ireland’s International Symposium, which was held in partnership with the BUZZ Network.
Before the Symposium began, we invited new colleagues and previous BUZZ lab participants to join us for a day of discussion and reflection, to explore how the BUZZ Network should develop next. The insight of this varied group of professionals was invaluable to future planning for the project which will extend into 2025 and beyond.
This group was then joined by other BUZZ Network participants and youth theatre practitioners from across Ireland for Building an International Stage: A Youth Theatre Practice Symposium at University College Cork, Ireland.
What participants said about their BUZZ journey…
“It was just wonderful to engage as a participant and to reflect on my own practice in the process. It also gave me a great toolbox to come away with in terms of new exercises and approaches to use with the young people that I work with”
“We engaged in many interesting discussions across the week regarding best practice in youth arts—I particularly learned a lot in our discussions around disability, accessibility, gender identity, and the creation of safe spaces. The artists contributed personal experiences and learnings in these areas, and we were able to reach together some agreement on best practice in these areas”
“I would never have even considered working internationally before the lab as I had no idea how to access these networks. Particularly because I didn’t go to university where most people find their international networks, so I always felt like there was this whole other path that just wasn’t accessible for me. It has been really amazing to be given access to that path and feel confident enough to imagine myself working internationally”
“I’ve not felt so uplifted, inspired and challenged for a very long time. It was an absolute privilege to share practice, connect and to look outwards. Engaging with like-minded people really allowed me to not only think about my own practice but helped me look at the youth sector as a whole in my country“
“The Buzz Lab in Bremen was an incredibly experience for me, and has been hugely impactful to my arts practice, as well as considering how I engage with both theatre making and the wider world”
“I’m really eager to work internationally but never found a foothold. I think that this lab has provided me with that foothold. Relationships need to be built in person to create the trust and understanding to enter into an international partnership. The lab provided just that”
“Understanding the importance of informal networking, simply having a conversation about yourself and what you’re passionate about can lead to a lot of seeds being planted. This increased my trust that the connections made in the buzz lab will grow into their own projects, collaborations, and exchanges”
“I acquired knowledge of different organisational and project models, developed awareness of different funding sources, and learned about the different contexts artists were working in“
