Update on International Intercultural Bibliodrama 2011-2013
by Yael Unterman

In February 2011, I received a surprise invitation to join an initiative, funded by the EU Grundtvig foundation, to advance “Bibliodrama as a Multi-Cultural way of Learning for Adults.” I joined forces with the Elijah Interfaith Institution, and together we became the Israeli partner in the BASICS project, which also includes partners from Iceland, Turkey, Hungary and Poland.

BASICS stands for “Bibliodrama as a Way of Intercultural Dialogue for Adults.” The suggestion here is that through the powerful medium of Bibliodrama, people of different backgrounds can come together and understand each other better. The project involved local groups, as well as meetings in Europe, intercultural encounters and a conference, as well as printed materials and general exposure of the European public to two schools of Bibliodrama – the Moreno and Pitzele schools.

We met in Iceland in June 2012, and participants from the various local groups demonstrated their new proficieny in bibliodramatic techniques. Our Israeli group contained one Christian from the Congo, studying in Jerusalem; one secular Israeli Jew; and one religious Israeli from an American background, and they successfully ran a session on the Joseph story.

The work in Poland in April 2013 was delightful. We ran a long workshop in Bibliodrama for internationals, running parallel to a Bibliodrama workshop for Polish speakers. Then we had a day long conference on the subject of Bibliodrama, and I demonstrated a snippet of Pitzele Bibliodrama on stage. I met and made connections with some lovely Moreno Bibliodramatists from Sweden and Hungary, who were very interested in our method too. You can see captioned photos of the Krakow workshop on my website.

Turkey will host a week long course training people to use Bibliodrama and Bibliolog in their work with various populations. It will take place between September 30th and October 4th, 2013.
http://www.basicsproject.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=165&Itemid=508%E2%8C%A9=en

The project is now nearing its conclusion. It is shortly due to produce a book and a video in which Pitzele-type Bibliodrama features prominently as one of the two schools of Bibliodrama being taught. Over the course of the two-year project, a kind of Bibliodrama model for use in multicultural settings has been developed, which is being referred to as “BASICS Bibliodrama.”

The project has also opened a valuable new resource which is intended to be a database and a forum for all kinds of Bibliodramatists to pick up useful scenarios and materials, and discuss issues. All are welcome to use this site.  To register go to the upper left corner of the site, BASICS.