30 March 2017 | 15.00 | ISCAP
ABSTRACT
In this workshop, I propose to demonstrate the approach I have been developing through the years in facilitating inter-cultural group dialogue for social change and the bridging of diversity using traditional storytelling and role playing.
Rational:
In this digital age of electronic media, we at times find ourselves at loss with events as they seem to control us instead of us controlling them. We strive to understand our social interactions through rational thought and find ourselves overwhelmed with conflicts. The Western world today is faced today with an intense and very challenging situation. The influx of immigration from the poorer economies of the world into those of the established Western economies has created a challenging socio-economic and intercultural situation. There is a growing and urgent necessity to develop understanding and dialogue in cross-ethnic and inter-cultural levels so as to ensure social stability.
Since the beginning of human time the story has been the basic communication tool among people. It has been stirred and evoked by the ever-compulsive human need to make sense of reality, connect the next generation to the tribal heritage and celebrate life. The traditional tale and its most fascinating story form of mythology and fairytale with its magical thinking plunges us into the realm of the subconscious. Carl Jung maintains that myths are revelations of the preconscious psyche, involuntary statements about unconscious psychic happenings. In this workshop, we will show and explain how the use of tale and role playing in the context of group work brings up very deep processes offering the group and each individual a wealth of understanding and learning.
This workshop in intercultural dialogue using storytelling and role-play demonstrates a way of dealing with intercultural conflict through dialogue. It enables an atmosphere of understanding, safety and intimacy necessary for this form of complex dialogue. It connects us to folk wisdom and enhances a cultural empowerment in displaced people.
Workshop Content:
• Short introduction
• Warm up
• Discussion
• Role-play
• De- role
• Discussion
• Closure
• Q.A Session-Methodology
Description of the workshop:
We open with a warm up and an open discussion in the group on a topic relevant to the specific group relating to inter- cultural issues. At a critical moment in the discussion, we pause to encourage participants through an associative process to recall fairytales or myths. We then invite participants to role play one or a few of the characters in the story through stream of consciousness. We interview the participants in their roles and encourage an interaction between the roles and the rest of the participants. After the role play the participants de-role and again return to the discussion held at the outset, in the light of, and relating to the role-play and the themes that arose through it. In the discussion, the participant gains insight and awareness into adverse and foreign thinking, thus deepening the intergroup dialogue. The workshop will end with a Q and A session on the methodology and its relevance to the studies and work of the participants.
Bionote
Shai Schwartz is a group and individual therapist and group facilitator, originating from 30 years of professional theater as an actor, storyteller, playwright and stage director. Shai studied Gestalt, group facilitation, education, art and performance art therapies: (drama therapy, story therapy, and art therapy), psychodrama and Focusing”.
He began integrating storytelling and role play in models of intervention in dialogue and therapy. He has been very active in the Israeli –Palestinian dialogue, also working in diverse venues in Europe, the USA and Brazil. Among these, an extensive dialogue project in an inner- city school in Minneapolis U.S.A between Afro-American and Mong youth in conflict. His work with the traditional tale has enabled him to do trans-cultural group therapy. He has worked with Georgian asylum seekers in Austria, and Sudanese and Eritrean asylum seekers in Israel. For the last 18 years beside his practice in Israel, he has been cooperating with Sheila Melzak from the “Baobab Center for Young Survivors in Exile” in London in therapeutic work with young asylum seekers from Africa, Asia and Afghanistan.
In Israel besides his private practice he works in group therapy with HIV Positive Ethiopians and teaches courses in „Storytelling, Drama and Puppets as Tools in Therapy, dialogue and Education”, and a course in” Projective tools in therapy’ at the Riedman Institute of Holistic therapy.
Publications:
• Using storytelling in psychotherapeutic group work with young refugees-Shai Schwartz and Sheila Melzak Sage Publications, “Group Analysis” Vl.38-June 2005″
• “Learning Through the Traditional Tale: A Holistic Approach to Work with Groups and Individuals in Therapy, Education, Empowerment and Dialogue -Shai Schwartz, Yehuda Bar Shalom and Tamar Ascher The International Journal of The Humanities- Volume 6-2008
• Also appears in: Sustaining Living Culture -F. Holland Gilbert and K. Gibson – Common Ground Publishing LLC, Illinois 2013
• (The publications in Hebrew do not appear here)
