International Festival of Contemporary Theatre “Homo Novus” invites arts professionals and teenagers (14+) interested in the arts to participate in the festival school “Adrift on Avotu Street” led by the artist collective “Mammalian Diving Reflex” (Canada), which will take place in Riga during the festival from 31 August to 7 September 2024.

WHAT WE’RE GOING TO DO
We will spend a week meeting the people who live, work, walk and roll on Avotu Street. We will ask them questions about their lives and who they think are the most interesting people who live, work, walk and roll on Avotu Street. Then we’ll sit down – sometimes together, sometimes in small groups, sometimes on our own – and come up with at least one idea for a participatory performance involving each and every person we’ve met on Avotu Street. Then we’ll invite the people from Avotu Street and present our ideas to them and to the Homo Novus programmers. And we’ll see if we can get any bites.

WHY WE’RE GOING TO DO IT
First of all, we’re doing it because it sounds like a great way to spend a week and get to know a neighborhood. Second, it is a way to gain various skills involved with doing a socially-engaged site-visit to create performance works for a participatory public in collaboration with individuals from a given community. Third, it is a way of meeting people, and trying to think of fun and interesting things to do with them, to share them (the people) with the world.

YOU SHOULD DO THIS IF:
You are at least 14 years old and interested in socially engaged performance art.
You like to talk to strangers.
You like asking people things that are none of your business.
You can find the beauty in almost everyone you meet.
You think the world owes you a good time.
You’re prepared to work for that good time.
You enjoy pranking people.

ABOUT THE PROCESS
There will be a virtual meeting in early August (date TBD) to share more about the workshops.
It’s important that participants are available to attend as many days as possible. The workshops run daily from 10am to 6pm (August 31st – September 6th) with some flexibility, but ideally you will be available for the whole workshop on Saturday August 31st and Friday September 6th.
Some knowledge of English is required as all the festival school activities are led in English, but we’ll need help with Latvian to talk to the people on Avotu Street.
Participants will be provided with snacks and meals.

Apply by filling in the form (deadline – 5 Aug): HERE

About Mammalian Diving Reflex
Based in Germany and Canada, Mammalian Diving Reflex views innovative artistic interventions as a way to trigger generosity and equity across the universe. Founded by Artistic Director, Darren O’Donnell in 1993, Mammalian is a research-art atelier dedicated to investigating the social sphere, always on the lookout for contradictions to whip into aesthetically scintillating experiences. We are a culture production workshop that creates site and social-specific performances, theatre-based productions, participatory installations, videos, art objects and theoretical texts. Mammalian’s body of work is interconnected, varied and vibrant, reflecting our unique and growing body of knowledge and expertise on the use and function of culture. We create work that recognizes the social responsibility of art, fostering a dialogue between audience members, between the audience and the material, and between the performers and the audience. The company’s work dismantles barriers between individuals of all ages, cultural, economic and social backgrounds; we collaborate with non-artists, and offer both participatory opportunities for the audience as well as the traditional option of simply watching the proceedings as they unfold. It is our mission to bring people together in new and unusual ways to create work that is engaging, challenging, and gets people feeling, thinking and talking.