3rd Bell Theatre Festival: Empowering children’s voices through theatre

Thursday, 30 January 2025 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Participants of the 3rd Bell Festival in Anuradhapura

Stages Theatre Group’s ‘3rd Bell Children and Youth Theatre Festival 2024’, concluded on 4 January at the Sudarshi Institute of Sinhala Culture in Colombo. It was a vibrant celebration of community, creativity, and conversations centred around and curated by children from around Sri Lanka.

With over two decades of experience creating socially and politically relevant original theatre in Sri Lanka, Stages Theatre Group extends these skills to children, providing them with a powerful platform to share their ideas, concerns, and dreams through the magic of theatre. This is the second time this festival has been run in Sri Lanka.

This year’s festival took place across three locations: Bogawanthalawa, Anuradhapura and Colombo, bringing together 118 children, aged 8 to 18, from 12 teams across regions like Bogawanthalawa, Anuradhapura, Jaffna, Galle, Awissawella, Modara, Kelaniya, Kahapola, and Marawila.

With guidance from dedicated community artists, the children explored themes that interested or concerned them; a child’s right to a clean environment to study, dementia amongst grandparents, challenges of digital life on families, suicide amongst children, parental pressure, what is taught in our history books, impunity within the government health care system.

For the whole of 2024, these young artists attended free weekly workshops conducted through STG in their own villages and schools. The weekly sessions trained them in basic yoga, movement exercises, vocal training, devising techniques, and acting skills. Through theatre games, open discussions, and creative activities, they identified key social issues within their communities that either troubled or interested them. Through the year these discussions were honed into plays which were then performed at the festival. The children actively participated in every creative aspect of the productions – writing, directing, acting, designing, and stage management.

The festival showcased how empowering children through theatre can drive meaningful change in their communities, challenging conventional learning methods and highlighting the power of arts-based education.

In addition to the performances, the children also participated in a sign language class and a mime workshop which they thoroughly enjoyed.

The ‘3rd Bell Children and Youth Theatre Festival 2024’ was a reminder to us all of the need for us adults to provide children with the skills and the platforms to contribute actively and creatively to understanding and interpreting and solving the challenges they face. Stages Theatre Group, with support from Kindernothilfe (KNH), is in the 4th year of this undertaking. It gives children the tools they need for critical thinking, creativity, and powerful expression, and teachers, parents and adult civil society, the opportunity to understand the world our children live in and how they view it.