About the conference

"The Szederfa Otthon (Mulberry Tree Home) in Iklad is an organisation dealing with challenged people where playback has recently become part of the organisation's culture. We use it to handle our everyday life situations and the changes in the organization. We are continuously experimenting and trying to improve the techniques of playback theatre with our own eyperiences. Our purpose is to make an opportunity for differently challenged people to play together considering their special needs and ways of connection. Everybody is welcome who work in similar field and/or is interested in working together with challenged people or in watching playback usefully envolved in organization culture. Everybody is welcome who work in similar field and/or is interested in working together with challenged people or in watching playback usefully envolved in organization culture."

"Pebbles is a playback company composed of young people in the care of a children's home maintained by the Catholic Church, called Keystone. The credit for the creation of the company must largely go to another company doing 'applied playback theatre', the Józan Babák (Sober Babies) Company. Pebbles have been working independently, using its current name, since 2012. Since then, the company has had over a hundred performances in a wide range of milieus, from homeless shelters to universities, but despite that, our primary objective is still to alleviate any mental problems of the residents of the children's home during rehearsals and to support the work of the home in general. The group has its own, signature style, we place the emphasis on speaking little and using gestures and connections as the main toolkit of our playback. During rehearsals, learning to think in terms of symbols is an important task, but our prime objective is the creation and maintenance of a tolerant, open and honest atmosphere. In that endeavour, we receive a great deal of help from the members who are not residents of the home: some of them used to live at the home, others are family members, psychologists, people from other helper professions, and members of other playback groups. We will have about 12 people at the Atelier, five adults and seven children, and we believe it would be realistic for up to 12 other people to join us. Our presentation will be primarily of interest for visitors working in addictology and in the helper professions, but of course we recommend it to anyone who is curious about us and our method of introducing young people to learning about and recognising our own emotions and to the creation of symbols."

"Besides the stories about great grandfathers who fought in WWI, we are proposing other historical events to put on stage. We hope that with this modification the workshop will become more personal and more interesting for all participants."

"The Sober Babies Club is a social institution that deals with care of drug-using pregnant women, parents and their children. As part of this, clients, helpers, sympathetic individuals, are meeting in an open (theatre)group, with the goal of self-knowledge (rehearsals), and - on request - are giving lectures at addiction departments, childrenhomes and social service institutions, prisons, and ruinpubs. Central of the workshop are intravenous drug user, and alcoholic women sharing their own experiences, who as the clients of Sober Babies Club have sought and received help in the perinatal period, and later in the long-term care of their children. Among them there are people who are regularly going to playback theater rehearsals, performances, others are checking in occasionally as spectators, but as the goal of their participation they consider the deepening of the self-knowledge and the building of community relations primarily. Guests have the opportunity to get to know to parenthood related crisis situations, for processing on the stage, partly in cooperation with people who have been in crisis before, over and above to gain experiences about it, how can playback support psychoactive drug addicts in (re)integration and (re)socialisation process. Primarily for people interested in topics motherhood, parenthood, addictology, peer support- and community institutions work."

"The Playback-Theatre Company in Csömör was founded in 2008. The members of the company are diseabled people, who are coming together once a week for an hour, for proccessing their experienced everyday life events with playback-theatre techniques. The main goal of the group is, that diseabled people can learn coping strategies with eachothers help, and they can share their everyday joys and sorrows. Members of the group are occasionally participating in meetings with other playback companies as well. We welcome visitors, who are curious for applied playback methods, techniques, and who would like to get an insight into a group-work, where you can see how can disabled people help eachother through instruments of playback(-theatre)."

"The CIRCLE is the self-expressing atelier of László Bánki, Daniel Rózsa and Ildikó Tóth. During the atelier you can live the flow of inspiring circles of different artistic ways of self expression. We show our way to work in the CIRCLE - we will talk, move, connect, paint, write from our feelings, actual impressions, life situations, personal stories, and, of course, inspire each other by using playback theatre. In the field of applied Playback Theatre, this is kind of art therapy: artistic self-expressive workshop with visual creation, movement, playback theatre and creative writing. László Bánki is psychologist, member of the Áttűnések Playback Theatre, Daniel Rózsa is trainer, member of PEPITA Playback Theatre, one of the teachers of the Opening Round Central-European School of Playback Theatre, tai chi instructor. Ildikó Tóth is art therapist and social educator. Everyone is welcome who is interested in self-expression and art therapy combined in a special way, using visual cration, movement, creative writing and Playback Theatre."

"The workshop presents the work of the Kölcsey Ferenc high school’s playback improvisational group. The school is one of Budapest’s oldest and tarnished high schools, it is specialized on teaching languages on a high level. To get in you need to complete a preliminary examination and you need to have good report card and high communicational skills. Any student from the school can be a part of the group, but they take students from other high schools, too. The age of the participants is between 14 and 18 years. The leader of the club is drama teacher Sándor Zsuzsanna, who is one of the school’s teachers and has been working with playback theatre for 16 years. Her masters used to be Bakó Tihamér and Donáth Attila. Right now Somogyi Beáta also works with the group who also used to be a student of the school, and now a member of the Pepita playback group, and a teacher of Opening Round CESPT. The workshop, which has been working for 16 years, mostly because of the highly over weighted students, its purpose is mental support and community building. In the last 3 years they have also been making plays for the school’s students. The plays, which are longer than an hour, they perform 8-12 times. The presented plays in time order: Lorca: Bernarda Alba’s house, Brecht: Koldusopera, Örkény: Tóték. Currently there are 29 student in the group. We are waiting for people, who are interested teenagers playback work."

"The goal of the workshop is to share our experience about playback work with refugees. The way of „how to deal” with refugee-related subjects with the method of playback. Main topics: • Playback rehearsal as sensitizing and integration tool • Representation of socially sensitive issues, • Work with traumatic experiences nad stories, • Multilingualism in rehearsal and on stage, • Possibilities of application In addition to its own theme we are open to participants experiences and good practices. Everyone is welcome who is interested, and applied or plan to apply the playback in this area."

"On the workshop enquirers can take part in the work of a playback client group working in a psychotherapeutic public system. The group has been working in weekly method for more than twenty years. It's opened for everybody: all clients of the institute take part in it in continuous change. It's opened for the outside world: receives all professional enquirers with active participation. On the group clients share important events of their life, therapy with each other. The stories are played by they themselves, not by trained actors with the most fundamental technique of playback. During the group they change each other in the role of story teller, actor, musician, active audience. We organize open days in the institute yearly, where clients play and tell stories together with participants in course of a playback workshop. Therefore the situation of the EPTG workshop will be usual for them, in which our daily work appears for the participants of the workshop. The group is opened for every enquirers. We specially recommend it for those who work in therapeutic environment with the playback method."

"Our aim is to draw awareness to peace matters. In this project we have elaborated Peace Trails in seven European cities: Berlin, Budapest, Manchester, Paris, The Hague, Torino and Vienna. The peace trails offer information, suggestions and opportunities for an active engagement in democracy building and for a personal reflections on one's own participation. Peace depends on the people. Only a change in thinking will bring about change in actions. We will guide you through 3-4 peace stations in the center of Budapest. We invite you to think about what peace means for you personally, and will offer interactive activities (games, discussions, readings) during our walk that can help you in this process. In the meantime, we can get inspired by the different points of the city that we visit, and by the experiences and thoughts of our fellow-participants. We are happy to meet everyone who is interested."

"Our location: An elementary school in the suburbs of Budapest. Age group: Mainly elementary and high school students who work together as a group. Audience: During trainings the audience is formed by the students, during the performances the audience is made up of their families and acquaintances. Our aim: -for young students: relive the moments that have affected them. -for elder students: self-knowledge, understanding others, being a member of a team. Our common goal that the families can join, too, is PLAYING GAMES! April 21st: Workshop - introducing our school - warm-up with our guests - the performance of the elder students – parents can join in - feedback - outdoor cooking in the school garden - casual conversation – we can stay as long as we want to Everyone is welcome who would like to get to know the playback technique, who would like to know what thoughts are swirling in a Hungarian child’s or adult’s head, and who would like to experience the creative humility of different age groups."

"In this workshop we will build a strong container in which meaningful stories can flow. We will offer methods that address company life including how to address interpersonal conflict so that we can have clean and healthy relationships on stage and our work is not affected by unresolved issues between company members. It is when these relationships are clear that we can truly be deeply in service to our audiences and artistically free to create beautiful and powerful Playback Theatre. Who might be interested? This workshop is for anyone who practices Playback Theatre."

"Since 2 years Playback Theatre is being practiced in Nepali villages that suffered from a decade of armed conflict. During the insurgency 17,000 people were killed and more than a thousand people were disappeared. The former Maoist combatants that had fought against monarchy are now resettled in normal villages. In order to created spaces for reconciliation and healing at community level, we trained Playback Theatre groups from these villages together with a group of Nepali theatre actors. These groups of local volunteers do now perform for their own communities. Former combatants are becoming theatre actors! People from the community join them on stage! The audiences share their stories and try to make sense of their lives that are marked by discrimination, exclusion and violence. The actors convert them in stories and poems and they all find relieve and hope for a better future in the collective Playback Theatre process. In the last 2 years, 10.000 Nepalese from war-affected background have witnessed these performances. By sharing video documentaries of these experiences, the project “EnActing Dialogue” and the way it developed will be shared. Which specific population does your workshop address? Anybody who is interested in Nepal or in post-war storytelling; people interested in designing projects with Playback Theatre for processes of social change and peacebuilding; "

"Trickster is a very special character. Sometimes he moves the story forward, sometimes in unexpected direction, serving as the conduit of the spontaneity and chaos. He is too close to archetype dimension to be determined and played in easy way. In myths and fairy tales more often than not we sympathize the trickster figure, in real life we hate it. This dual attitude makes playing tricksters on stage difficult. We always feel the temptation to reduce this kind of character to a function. But trickster is more complex. He may be the master of the spontaneity and chaos, but he is the slave of his own tricks. We plan to explore the inner life of trickster, his interaction with other characters and find out some hints, which can help play trickster’s roles on playback stage. We hope, these ideas could help us to be better tricksters for the teller or audience as well. Who might be interested? Playback actors and conductors"

"In this workshop, we shall focus on the Universal Language of Theater (beyond words) in collaboration with PB Rituals to explore and expand our performing skills, so we can work more effectively with deep stories, and challenging performances. I shall be happy to share my experience (conducting and training PB since 1990) and skills (as a theater director and actor) and in addition, my deep belief in the power of the Art to build bridges and foster change, healing and inspiration… Who might be interested? Members of Performing groups with some experience with open performances."

"'The Playback Theater (PT) chorus is the ultimate expression of cooperation, co-creation and inspiration from the group mind. Each actor must let go of control, and surrender to the flow of the synergitic chorus. In this workshop, we will learn a specific version of the PT chorus, which maximizes the 'ameba' like development of offers, enabling a multi-layered, atemporal and exciting ride for the actors and audience alike. The workshop will include terminology and theory, together with the technique and tips, so that participants can recreate this special chorus in the organic PT companies back home.' Who might be interested? It addresses PT actors with some experience, and can benefit a wide variety of PT companies."

"As Playback Theatre continues to develop and expand, it seems more likely that we will encounter complexity both in the context of the work that we do and in the reactions that are engendered in ourselves by our contact with it. It’s important to work towards keeping these feelings backstage, so the method I’m suggesting could help us to arrive at a kind of equanimity. This method is adapted from the Dyads used in Enlightenment Intensives. Enlightenment Intensives were devised by Charles Berner in the late 1960s and have their roots in the Kōan tradition of Rinzai Zen which involves a question being set and then contemplated to the point of bringing the mind to a standstill, suspending linear progress or abandoning its fixed position as every answer is at best provisional or intuitively wrong. In the peer supervision model, the intention is on seeking the truth as it reveals itself to you but on a more subjective, personal level. It has the potential to help participants move beyond assumption, bias and belief to a place of clarity. Prior to beginning the dyads, each participant spends some time silently contemplating their chosen question. In a dyad, one person contemplates the question they have chosen and communicates what they come up with and the partner simply listens without responding for five minutes and then they change over. After we do some Playback on the experience Read more about it at: https://briantasker.wordpress.com/2016/04/13/has-playback-theatre- reached-a- crossroads/' Who might be interested? Anyone involved in Playback who is interested in reflecting on their work."

"'Every playback actor brings an instrument on stage: his or her voice. Our voice is the gateway to our essence, the instrument of the soul. How can we celebrate the gift of our singing voice in playback theatre? In this workshop we will explore our unique individual voices, develop our vocal improvisation skills and explore the possibilities of the singing voice in playback theatre. In short the workshop will include: - Warming up the voice and body, how to engage with your voice with ease. - Meeting your voice, it’s abundance of possibilities. Embracing the sound of your voice by enhancing it's specific sound in this moment.
Meanwhile enjoying vocal games in which we encounter new sounds, new ways of weaving and blending with each other. You'll be invited to broaden your personal vocal playground. - Experiencing 2 - 3 part voice improvisation forms. In duets, trio’s and small ensemble we will explore the possibilities of ensemble singing. - Integrating voice improvisation and song in playback theatre forms (3 solos, poet - dancer - singer, chorus, joining the musicians as a vocal sound source)' Who might be interested? All PT actors who would love to sing their soul song in playbacktheatr"

"'We invite for a common exploration and experiment all those, who are personally intrigued by the theme of intimacy, inspiration and its (we believe) inter-connectedness. As playback actors we experience that inspiration can be born in mutual, deep and genuine relationships – either with oneself and/or with the other. We are exploring it in ourselves and, especially, how it is manifested on stage. What creates, or facilitates, or makes possible, intimacy on the stage? Does it bring along an inspirational situation for those involved? And how does all this affects us, playback actors, and also the audience? What and who inspires the audience to open up and tell a story from the heart? How this ‘collective intimacy’, this shared privacy can be created on the stage, and in the audience area, when those magical moments of surplus reality are experienced? Being safe and being free – safe to feel, free to express. Our aim with our workshop is getting into an intense relationship with this theme and how it is in us, a common exploration and experiment, and finally to create consciousness, raise awareness in ourselves what we can do to bring a desirable outcome along in the fields of intimacy and inspiration. ‘Inspiration comes, but it has to find you working’, said Picasso. During the workshop we will use elements of psychodrama (the warming up process), playback techniques, relaxation and meditative methods and movement/body work. Besides a special attention will be paid to the space, to the scenic space around us.' Who might be interested? Primarily playback actors. Conductors might benefit too."

"According to ecopsychology the roots of ecological crises and of our psychological dysfunctions are both in our estrangement from nature, the abusive and dysfunctional relationship with our primary matrix, the Earth. We have suppressed our ecological self and evolved a psychic numbness that protects us from feelings like pain, fear or despair caused by the environmental destruction. This is why we cannot react adequately to the challenges of the ecological crisis, despite the huge body of information. Terrifying information about the scale of devastation only drive us deeper into repression and denial. We need to share these feelings that lay behind the apparent public apathy, so we can step forward, and bring solutions that are so desperately needed. This workshop creates the possibility to share both feelings like pain or despair, and also experiences of unity with the more-than human world. Who might be interested? This workshop is for those who would like to recall and share their experiences of wholeness and unity with nature, or their feelings like despair, fear, and pain related to the environmental destruction using the instruments and techniques of Playback Theatre."

"Being real...being true to yourself is a life-long practice that requires commitment, reminders and re-commitment, moment to moment, as you grow and evolve. The answer to what is true for you always exists at the core of who you are, if you give yourself the space and time to listen. When you are being true to yourself, you are completely honest with what you feel, deeply value, and desire. It also means communicating your feelings wholeheartedly both with yourself and others, allowing your truth to flow through you and into the world. To know your truth fully and express it authentically, you first need to cultivate a deep and trusting relationship with yourself. To expand your awareness and strengthen the connection with yourself we guide you through the creative and healthy mixture of some different tools, skills and approaches that we have found precious on our own never-ending-journey of growth, awareness and transformation... Meditation, bodywork and theatre improvisation. These practices help you become more present and establish reference points to identify when you are (or are not) living in alignment with the deeper aspect of yourself. But what is true, also yearns to be expressed. So it is up to each of us to be courageous in bringing forth our own truth, expressing it fully and authentically in the world... as Playback Theatre performer, musician or conductor, this journey will deepen your ability to resonate with your own inner experience and with the stories told by the audience. You will connect with your innocence while discovering unexpected ways to play them back out of a state of no-mind. Who might be interested? Anybody interested in making a bridge between body and mind and access deep intuitiveness and openness."

"Sinking boats, infants dead on beaches, thousands of foreigners intruding in small communities, lack of supplies, feelings of anger and despair and a future of threat and uncertainty. How do we address these stories? In this workshop we shall explore the needs of people in communities that receive refugees, their will to help, their anxiety for their 'normality' and their opportunity to strengthen their society. We shall work mainly through chorus, a playback form we have explored deeply in our team, 'Playback Psi' for the last 12 years, and in which we have inserted elements of the ancient Greek drama. Members of our playback company will exemplify our model of work: Chris Theocharopoulos, co-leader (theatre teacher, theatre and playback actor), Maria Maragopoulou (social worker, family therapist), Artemis Hadjiargyriou (psychologist), Catherine Webster (theatre teacher, actress). Who might be interested? People and communities that have been in touch or confronted refugees."

"Life stories of people who deal with dual diagnosis (addiction combined with derangement) are full of emotions. Playback theatre makes important field for naming, handling and playing with these. The more, playback brings strong frame for stories those are meant to be remembered, even though living complicated life with schizophrenia or other derangement. We will work with activities that many playbackers might know, but what if we all experience it through different lenses of our clients? This workshop comes out from wide experience working with people in residential therapeutic community for drug addicted clients and clients with a dual diagnosis. Who might be interested? People working with playback in social service, but anyone is invited."

"The workshop is about researching interaction inside different communities. How do we react when we encounter each other? What does our reaction awake in others? How does the audience interpret our interaction? What happens when words are limited and there is a strict set of rules for interaction? In this workshop we explore ourselves and the stage. The workshop concentrates on two things: interaction on stage and being present on stage. The workshop also includes some acting exercises. In the workshop we explore a technique called 'The Grid'. It was originally developed by Michael Rohd for actor training and Jori Pitkänen has applied it to playback theatre and developed it further. It is mainly used in different communities, but can be applied elsewhere as well. The grid is an ongoing process and you are welcome to be part of its development! Who might be interested? Everyone interested in acting and interaction on stage, as well as combining improvisation with playback."

"Inspiration comes from within, from others and from some higher or universal source. To become inspired we need to find stillness within ourselves. And in stillness, we wait for the moment of inspiration. In playback theatre, when we listen to the story of the other, we patiently wait for something in that story or that person to inspire us, and then for that inspiration to take us into action. In stillness, we deepen our awareness and we attune our senses, in preparation for listening and performing. How do we achieve this stillness? We all have our different methods, and we can spend some moments appreciating each other’s learnings. I will also share some of my learnings with meditation, and how this has helped me to become still and listen better. The workshop is intended as a knowledge sharing exercise, as an appreciation of meditation as a way of experiencing stillness and as an application of these principles to playback performance. Practical exercises in the form of a quick warm-up, a meditation experience and some freeform playback will be included. Who might be interested? No specific population but the workshop is directed at those who are interested in meditation or in improving their listening skills or being more present on stage."

"I’m the member of Playback company since 2006. Since this period we went through different events of the group dynamic. We ‘ve gone through two separation processes. I was thinking a lot about what we are able to do what not to do for saving the sustainability in our company life. How to achieve and maintain the stability of the Playback company in an unstable evolving and changing world? Where and how to find the fulcrum, to be together, to grow and create? What is the secret and the stability of the condition bringing joy and satisfaction, pride and a sense of belonging? Our workshop will focus on these questions and looking for answers, exploring the idea of 3 main spheres of playback-team life: playback-team as a sharing group for support, playback-team as a theater troupe and playback-team as an organization. We will use playback playing and a lot of different activities and reflection during the workshop. Who might be interested? Any playbacker who is interested in this theme and who have ever had some uncomfortable feelings inside the PB company."

"I would like to invite playbackers to use less words, but express themselves through movement and dance. I believe one gesture can say more than a 1000 words. I find the words, the movement and the emotion of actors in playback can be a great trigger for musical discoveries, says Ged. The workshop will begin with dancing to live music by Ged, just expressing what emotions the music brings you. For instance a tango rhythm can express anger or being powerful. Let the music inspire you to move in a way you haven’t moved before. You don’t need to be a dancer to take part, 'if you can walk, you can dance' is my motto. It's fun to incorporate the sounds and the rhythms of speech into musical phrases and movement. In the second half of the workshop we will work with short stories /moments in a free improvisation, but possibly also with duets. The challenge will be to use few words and to move like the story inspires you. The interaction between the actors is also important (cooperation), what happens if you suddenly change direction, or leap in the air? How does it make you and your fellow actors feel? There is lots to explore and I hope that playbackers will join me on this journey through movement. Who might be interested? All playbackers experienced or novices."

"This workshop is designed to bring deeper understanding of the physical embodiment in Playback Theatre, more inspiration to work with body. Playback Theatre is a physical theatre form integrating sound, movement, music and spoken word. In this class, Anastasia and Olga will explore with participants the role of using the physical body in Playback Theatre, catching the essence of the story by movement and working with assemble on the stage. Come take Playback to another level as you explore the body as a physical tool within playback theatre. Who might be interested? Everyone who wanna explore the embodiment in PT and get inspired by combination of Physical Theatre and Playback."

"High and low 'status,' are defined by Keith Johnstone as the 'conscious manipulation of our level of dominance;' and as 'something that we do, rather than our social position' (Impro for Storytellers, 2007, p. 219). 'Status' has a huge impact on our lives. It is reflected in our body language, our eye contact, our tone of voice, the way people respond to us, among other things. Whether it is how we walk along the street, enter the doctor’s office, interact with family, friends, co-workers, strangers or even on the playback theater stage, when we step onto a 'stage,' we create a temporary status that is always in relation to others. The role we play can be introverted or extroverted, aggressively or quietly powerful, uncertain or hesitant. However, each time we enter the stage or walk out the door, we can benefit from raising our awareness, playing with and adjusting our status according to the circumstances. We get to choose. Can we embody a status that will encourage cooperation and lower antagonism? What happens when we share our status stories (low and high)? In this workshop, we will play status games, 'try on' different statuses, become familiar with Johnstone’s ideas, and explore status conflicts and their resolutions by using tools from playback theater and improvisation. We'll also accomplish this by sharing status related stories. Our goal is to encourage cooperation, collaboration and successful interaction – even in times of stress and conflict. ((Keith Johnstone, Impro for Storytellers, 2007 Who might be interested? This workshop is appropriate for new and advanced playback theater actors and conductors."

"Despite the fact that acting in Playback Theatre is entirely improvisational, that is everything happens spontaneously, right before the eyes of the viewer, there’s still the need for actor preparation, rehearsals, and trainings. In other words, a person joining Playback with a mind to act first has to undergo training, which will help develop in one the necessary skills for control of one’s soul, attention, and body. There is something in the tradition of Russian classic theatres that I’d like to make part of the preparation of Playback actors. And that’s the notion of a Chekhov’s system with its practical application. Who might be interested? My workshop is designed for all people who will be professional actor in Playback theatre."

"For us it is one of most important statements of positive psychology that every experience can help us in our personal development, even the worst experience. In the Dream Theatre we often play anxiety dreams, from which the dreamer awakens. If we dare to play with these dreams, and find a helping ending for them, it turns out that these dreams help us to overcome our fears. These experiences led us to play happy stories in Dream Theatre, helping to find a possible healing effect in every story. It is especially important in Hungary, where the suicide rate is very high, and we are the hundred and fourth country on the World Happiness List. At the workshop we will explore how any experience can lead us towards happiness. After some warm-up exercises exploring authentic movement, participants will work with their own dreams and alternative endings offered by others: 'If this were my dream, I would understand its message as follows:...' Using playback techniques, people can explore possible positive outcomes, whatever that may mean for them. Who might be interested? Those interested in reframing oppressive experiences, in particular dreams, through positive awareness to cope with their anxieties."

"In this workshop we will develop and explore relationships on the playback stage. Through deep acting and movement work, we will check how we inspire and cooperate in our playing so we are really creating meaningful relations on stage that touches the essence of the stories. Relationships among all. It is always a mystery what kind of relations will evolve in the meeting of individuals. How can we take the thread that is created in this connection and act it on stage to stories. Who might be interested? Anyone."

"Playback Theatre is widely spread and the basic idea of sharing stories through improvisation is performed within and across different cultures and communities. One of the factors that determine how we think, feel and act in day to day live is our culture. What is your national culture? One interesting question is how this culture, influences the teller, the actor, the musician, the conductor, and the audience in the way we are telling, listening, performing, and perceiving the stories. How does the culture impact Playback theatre? The workshop will explain some of the theoretical approach based on the research done by Geert Hofstede and his colleagues and will also demonstrate with some practical games and exercises the impact of national cultures on Playback theatre. Playback theatre is about connecting people and the workshop on this subject should help people to connect across cultures and, more generally, facilitate the development and wide distribution of Playback theatre. Who might be interested? Anybody who is interested to learn more about the differences of national cultures and the impact on PB theatre. This workshop could be especially interesting for those who use and play PBT in an international environment."

"An exploratory laboratory of the potential of narrative, a real hands-on experience that enables transformative change in personal, professional and collective lives. The foundations of Playback Theatre will be a new opportunity to listen to yourself and others, a discovery of an extraordinary method to create integration, by integrating the differences and recognising the uniqueness and collective so that they can become strength and support for an innovative collective action. Through the story, Playback Theatre offers the chance to see the streets 'other' side, to look at themselves in relation to society and encourages the company and its contexts (institutions, organizations, group and group contexts) to create new meanings and perceptions of the self and others. Who might be interested? Social workers or any who are interested."

"According to the methods of playback theatre, being a conductor takes a certain skill and a certain approach. As a master of ceremony, the conductor has a responsibility towards the players. He or she has some set rituals and mainly caters to the other’s needs; creating a safe space and building on trust so that people will feel it's safe to open up and tell their story. Not taking up too much space but first and foremost creating space... HOWEVER.... What would happen if you showed your true colours as a person while conducting? Maybe joke around a bit to break the ice, teasing and enticing your audience? Alice is a conductor who purposely uses her charms as a dyed-in-thewool dyke. She openly cracks jokes to her actors and downright entertains her audience. But...does she present too much personality for playback? Too candid to conduct? Who knows ... but it WORKS! Do you want to know more about a new and exciting way of conducting; using your own identity, your unique personality and explore the limits of your space on stage?! If you want to openly show your personal involvement with what moves you most and share it with your audience, then this is a workshop for you.'' Who might be interested? Conductors, or actors interested in the conductors role."

"According to social attitude surveys, people facing addictions – and other health care, social and criminal issues connected to them – are the most socially refused group, at least in Hungary. Helping groups of people with similar problems alone can offer these people a community based on tolerance and parity, where group members are connected by their similar life situations (e.g.: by a common illness type of addictiveness). Besides, a playback theater group can provide a safe meeting point for people with different life situations, cultural backgrounds and social status and at the same time preserve its focus on marginalized people facing addictiveness, inviting them as equal partners into the group. Most of the time this is the only opportunity for people suffering from addictions to maintain human connections beyond the boundaries of their life situations, based on openness, mutuality and equality. In our workshop we will focus on the question how simultaneous community connections support the recreation of the addictive participants. It will be presented by best practices based on real experiences, where an addicted and already isolated person asked for and received professional help, became part of a helping group of people with similar problems and finally – not as a substitution of the formers, but as a parallel process supporting the already started self-awareness work – started to work with a group which contains people without addictions as well. Our workshop participants will represent personal experiences connected to active drug abuse, rehabilitation, anonym group work and playback theater on the stage. During this process they will cooperate with people suffering from addictiveness, who will reflect on the different stadiums of their rehabilitation process and on the functions of the support communities as well. Our aim is to show our guests the professional potential of playback theater and to encourage them to use it in the re- socialization process of people with severe addictions.'' Who might be interested? Professional helpers working with addictiveness and/or psychiatric problems, as well as people with drug abuse."

"Gestalt is a psychology term which means 'unified whole' or 'figure'. It refers to theories of visual perception developed by German psychologists in the 1940s. These theories attempt to describe how people tend to organise visual elements into groups or unified wholes when certain principles are applied. Similarity, for instance, occurs when objects look similar to one another. People often perceive them as a group or pattern.
Gestalt is a holistic process, it regards the individual as a totality of mind, body, emotions and spirit who experiences reality in a way unique to her/him. I propose this workshop for playback practitioners to show how we can incorporate Gestalt concepts in playback improvisation theatre as an actor, conductor or musician. Topics in the workshop: Gestalt cycle (from sensation through energy mobilisation to withdrawal) and the dynamics of acting upon the story; self-awareness about my body sensations, emotions and the impacts I make; here-and-now: how to find the fertile void for performing (and leaving internal and external expectations behind); connecting with myself and others on the stage; awareness of ’being who I am’; focused versus scanning attention – how can I get the different layers of a story and what sticks out for me while paying attention to the storyteller; how to grow together in a relationship on stage."

"'How can we play with our voice and body together with the others to express our connectedness or separation? What kind of audible signs we give on stage, signs that we can explore musically? How do we intend to work with these signs, noises? How do we increase the tension? How can we create connection between us? With the creative music games we can discover the musical dimensions of PT acting. The rhythm of movements and sounds, the different qualities of speech and the sounds created by our body and everything that can appear in PT acting in relation to these. Connection and difference, enhancement and construction of tension, harmony and silence.' Who might be interested? Any (playback actors, musicians, conductors)."