Theatre for social change
Collective Encounters
Collective Encounters provides transformative spaces where individuals can build their confidence and wellbeing through community-based participatory theatre and other creative projects.
Theatre for social change
Collective Encounters
A professional arts organisation that engages marginalised communities.
Collective Encounters provides transformative spaces where individuals can build their confidence and wellbeing through community-based participatory theatre and other creative projects.
Photo: © Joanne Roberts
Photo: Collective Encounters
Established in 2004, Collective Encounters works collaboratively with communities and creative practitioners in the Liverpool City Region to deliver empowering projects.
Collective Encounters’ Arts & Dementia Pocket Guide and workshops offer guidance to carers on embedding creativity within their daily caring routines. Radical Makers, another of their programmes, offers part-time training to support service-users who are emerging artists and interested in joining the creative workforce.
Photo: AB Photography
Photo: Collective Encounters
We use theatre to enable participants to explore the issues and ideas that matter to them and to create their own work which tells their stories to the people they want to speak to.
Photo: AB Photography
We use theatre to enable participants to explore the issues and ideas that matter to them and to create their own work which tells their stories to the people they want to speak to.
Photo: AB Photography
In the Spotlight
Above and Beyond
In Spring 2019, the Above and Beyond programe launched in Bootle, Birkenhead and Knowsley, providing adults with the opportunity to learn skills, share community, explore collective challenges and make their own theatre through in-person workshops.
Video content from The Legend of the Mernix multimedia experience created by the Above and Beyond group working with Collective Encounters during lockdown.
During lockdown the programme had to be taken online. Through digital participatory theatre sessions and individual contributions, an interactive, magical realist tale was crafted by the group called The Legend of the Mernix. This fantastical tale provided a virtual walking tour that participants could create from the safety of their own home, while encouraging others to use their daily time for outdoor exercise creatively.
Video content from The Legend of the Mernix multimedia experience created by the Above and Beyond group working with Collective Encounters during lockdown.
I haven't actually met the other people in Bootle yet but I feel that we've got a link already, it's nice, I can isolate, I can shut the door, stay indoors... [but] I can connect with other people, act with them on this, it's brilliant.
Photo: Collective Encounters
Covid-19 and beyond
Collective Encounters’ approach to making theatre for social change significantly evolved during the COVID-19 pandemic. Finding opportunities in the midst of crisis, they quickly adapted to delivering programmes online and worked creatively to maintain connection with those unable or unwilling to participate digitally.
Photo: Collective Encounters
As restrictions relaxed, they continue to make sure everyone is, and remains, safe and that no-one is left behind. To achieve this, they offer a hybrid (online and ‘in the room’) approach to delivering workshops and projects.,
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