Working on the project, War and Children’s Theater as Real Treatment (1-2): Critic and trainer Haitham Al-Tayeb: The war has made children lose their imagination

Sudan Events – Magda Hassan

Critic and certified trainer in the field of cultural diversity management and interactive theater, Haitham Al-Tayeb, is working on the project (War and Children’s Theater as Real Treatment).
The project is an experiment in cooperation with a European theatrical think tank on children’s theater in war. The experiment’s approach is quantitative and qualitative theatrical work performed by children who were inside war zones to find out the psychological and physical complications that happen to them.

Real fear

The beginning, in terms of theatre, was very successful.
“The children were standing in a theater and creating a theater based on their details, language, movement, embodiment, and all the representational dimensions. This idea created a real fear in us because all the children, boys and girls, had a successful experience with the required standards, but there was a very deadly story about the details of the war. The observing mind and the entire memory were in motion, distributing the narrative among them, moving the experience here and there, fear. We discovered that the children’s imagination was halted. They all talked about things they had lived or heard of or were part of. Only the subjective imagination was at zero, absent and this is a problem.
Children’s imagination is overwhelming in their protection, and this is an age that is supposed to be broad and strongly mobile.” He said.

Storytelling imagination

This observation led them to conclusions, including that war and armed conflicts kill the ability to stimulate the imagination of narrative in children. “The child is besieged by everything in war, and this controls their narrative movement and turns it only into narrative energy, and here the child turns into just a camera.. and here I think we have fallen into a difficult outcome that surrounds our children and they have lost the ability to tell from their animated imagination. We have lost their most important characteristic, their stories from their imagination. The war has completely removed the characteristic of imagination even in talking about it and has made of them mere cameras that tell from hearing and seeing only.” He said.

Stimulation and treatments

Haitham sees the necessity of dealing with children and stimulating their imagination in the theatrical performance, especially since war has complete control over the mind, heart and imagination. Children in the theatrical performance practice telling stories about war, part of their daily lives, and there are many possibilities for them. The rejection of war is of course moving for them, but because of its centrality of magination is weak, the result in the presentation is also weak in this aspect.
As part of the treatments, Haitham indicated that he tried to direct them to focus on the aspect that there are those who want to stop the war.
“The new idea works to move the child’s life towards the value of feeling for people other than himself. These are the people we want to talk about, and here it is certain that the child’s imagination will search for many things related to the idea of ​​these people. The curriculum worked for them, and they explained their opinion about the theatrical performance for children of war needs real power so that thoughts other than the image of war that dominates them can get into their minds.” He added.

Theater and imagination

Haitham confirms that theater is a successful tool because its imagination and its creation in a new direction introduce the child and his thinking and stimulate his imagination.
“The child’s imagination is stirred by a child’s very own opinion about the war, without suppression. If he develops an idea that you want, you just discuss how big a need is and dismantle it by doing it alone. The child’s mind works after the real discussion, stimulating his opinion, and imagination is an essential foundation.” He added.
To be continued…