To ensure the project’s longevity, we hosted a training for new facilitators in Mitrovica, a city one hour outside of Pristina. The city is split and contested, with divided ethnic populations to the north and south. 

 

The training was well-attended and every participant was provided with a training manual for leading the project in the future. We hosted the one-day training in a local arts space (7 ARTE) where the managers were on-board and supportive of the mission. They told us about Mitrovica’s past as the booming cultural hub of Kosovo’s art scene before the war. This is history for the city, but programs like 7 ARTE and others are working to restore it.

 

Students from multiple backgrounds came to the facilitation with a variety of languages used during the training. Turkish, Albanian, and English were spoken. Our trainings demonstrated the utility of activities with non-verbal components, and we and the new facilitators got hands-on experience navigating language barriers and overcoming them while getting to know one another through theatre. Visual arts and movement activities were an effective way to bridge the divide, and we demonstrated how it can be done. We are hopeful that this cohort of participants will be those leading future workshops for peace in applied theatre techniques.

 

After the training, we had a special cultural immersion experience with two facilitators-in-training. We were escorted with them across the military-monitored bridged border of the split city, seeing both the Serbian and Albanian sides. This city was a great selection for “bridging the gaps” between cultural difference through theatre, and it is imperative that leaders from this region lead iterations of the project in the future.