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04. PROGRAM PROFILES

CITIZENS’ FORUM, FINLAND

THE IDEA BEHIND CITIZENS’ FORUM

The backgrounds of Citizens’ Forum lie in a tradition of a non-formal and in-formal adult education
which has been typical to the Nordic Countries. The specific tradition has not a precise word for it
in the English language but the Danish word folkeoplysning or the Swedish word folkbildning
give us a hint of the origin of the tradition. Volk or folk prefer to the members or citizens of the
nation and bildning prefer to an ideal picture or building where as uplysning prefer to enlightment
or giving light to the people. The German word volksbildung has more or less the same origin.

The philosophical backgrounds of the tradition is to be searched from the Age of Enlightment and
the thoughts of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) as well as the thoughts of his student Johann Gottfried
Herder (1744-1803). In wikipedia the time period in Europe is (14.8.2008) characterized as
follows: “ It was an age of optimism, tempered by the realistic recognition of the sad state of the
human condition and the need for major reforms. The Enlightenment was less a set of ideas than it
was a set of attitudes. At its core was a critical questioning of traditional institutions, customs, and
morals”.

In Finland The European Enlightment Movement got its appearance in form of strong sivic
movements at the end of the 19th century. One of these movements was the Finnish Youth Society
movement which started in the year 1881 as a few young students got the idea to found special
associations for the youth. The movement was rapidly spread all over the country and had for many
decades a strong effect on the development of Finnish society and culture as well as on Finlands
struggle for independence from the Soviet Union.

Citizens Forum stems from the above mentioned Youth Society movement. The main philosopher
of the movement was Santeri Alkio who formulated the mission of the movement to be “bringing
up good persons and upstanding citizens”. Nowadays the phrase sounds a bit old fashioned but
never the less, it can easily be translated to the language of the modern Finnish people. Striving for
humanity and towards a society with equal and mature citizens can never be old fashioned.

The idea of the good person can be brought back to Kant’s ideal of a human being who educates
himself to grow up from the state of a spiritual infancy. The idea of the outstanding citizenship can
be brought back to Herder’s ideas about the character of different nations. Nowadays we have to
consider the membership of a state more widely including the membership of European Community
and even the membership of the human kind.

CITIZENS’ FORUM TODAY

Educational Association Citizen’s Forum SKAF supports cultural and community grass roots
activities by its member organisations. The member organisations of Citizen’s Forum are Kaleva
Youth Association, Nuorten Areena (Arena for Young People), Finnish Folk Music Association,
Finnish Youth Association, Finnish Brass Music Association and Kantele Association. In the March
2009 also the Finish Amateur Theatre Association has applied the membership of Citizen’s Forum.
The total number of people who are active in the member organisations is around 100,000. The
activities cover the whole country and are often carried out in houses owned by the youth societies.
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The activities of the Citizen’s Forum focus on amateur arts, providing cultural experiences and
realising cultural projects and events. The most central fields are dance, theatre and music. The aim
is to promote the vitality of Finnish culture.

The member communities of the Citizen’s Forum and their hobby and study groups provide a forum
for young and old alike for doing together, learning together and being together. The aim is to
strengthen people’s individual resources and life management skills, as well as co-operation skills.

Citizens’ Forum has its own study centre, which is one of the 11 study centres in Finland. The Study
Centre gets its funding from the Finnish state. Citizens’ Forum Study Centre supports its co-
operation partners’ educational activities by organising training, producing study programmes and
materials, and giving financial assistance and help in planning study circle and course activities.
The Study Centre has seven regional offices throughout Finland.

Member organisations of Citizens’ Forum:

Finnish Youth Association, established in 1897, is an organisation for young people, cultural
activities, liberal education and sports. There are approximately 1,000 local youth societies and
100,000 individual members, with 18 regional associations. The most popular activities among the
members of the youth associations are folk music , folk dance, amateur theatre and recreational
sports. Youth societies are also well-known for their festivals, the largest being Pispalan Sottiisi in
Tampere every other year.

Kaleva Youth Association, established in 1960, is an educational and cultural association for
children and adolescents. The Association aims at promoting the balanced physical and mental
development of children by organising clubs, camps and other hobbies. The Association organises a
children’s cultural festival, Lasten Kalenat, every other year. Approximately 30,000 under 16 year-
old boys and girls participate in the Association’s activities.

The Finnish Folk Music Association , established in 1968, is an association for amateur folk
musicians and friends of folk music. The Association organises training and festivals and sells folk
music publications. The main event is the Samuelin Poloneesi folk music festival organised in a
different Finnish town annually. The Association has 18 regional folk music association members.

Finnish Brass Music Association, established in 1977 is The largest brass association in Finland, it
counts 137 bands as its members. Activities include education and training, providing scores and
other material, various information services, financial assistance and awards.

Nuorten Areena (‘arena for young people’) is a national youth organisation established by young
activists in 2001. It provides young people with the opportunity to participate in activities and have
an influence on society as community members. Nuorten Areena also provides background support
for young people who want to create and develop projects, as well as cultural, national and
international co-operation, on their own terms.

The Kantele Association, established in 1987, is an association for the kantele players, composers
and everybody who is interested in this traditional Finnish instrument. Kantele, the Finnish Zither is
wooden, stringed instrument with five or at most 39 strings.
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Finnish Amateur Theatre Association, established in 1948, is one of the two Finnish Amateur
Theatre Associations in Finland. It has 560 member theatre groups and10 member organisations.
The association organizes education for everybody who is interested in amateur theatre.

FUTURE CHALLENGES OF CITIZENS’ FORUM

The future challenges of Citizens’ forum is to take part in building a strong civil society in Finland.
This can be acheaved through helping the member associations in developing their activities and
organisations. Finland is often called a country of thousands of associations. The associative ´know
how´ has however degreased during the last decades. The associative way of doing things together
has in a way to be reinvented. After all, the activities in the many sivic associations throughout the
country build a good basis for active citizenship and a civil society.

Activating people doesn’t work when it is done from above. The enthusiasm has to grow from the
inside – among the people in the grass root organisations. In the last years new kind of methods
have been searched to generate the enthusiasm from bottom up. A new method to the work has been
found in the traditions of sociocultural animation. The concept was first invented in France after the
Second World War and has in the last decades been successfully used in Latin America to empower
the people. In the work of Citizens’ Forum and it’s member organisations sociokultural animation
has been combined with art education and community work. Projects with social and cultural
background can show that taking part in artistic activities, having fun and spending time with
friends can be utilized to evoke personal growth as well as to offer a way to change the society.

“THEATER OF COMMUNITY” IN A WIDE MEANING OF THE WORD

In this essay, concerning Finnish community-theater we first must clarify a few things about Finnish
theater in historical aspect. The Finnish theater history is long, but in our point of view, we can skip
the first 600 hundred years and concentrate to the late 19th and early 20th centuries. When Finland
was still an autonomous grand-duchy of the Russian Empire; a strong sense of nationalism was
growing. On the same time the need for reforms in national educational system grew stronger. The
idea of “sense of nation” and sense of culture” was growing also in the non-formal-education. The
need to bring arts and culture also to common people was recognized. Because Finland had always
bean a periphery country whiteout strong nobility and aristocracy there was not any “court-theater”,
so only way people could see theater was trough touring theater-companies but only few (none)
could perform plays in Finnish.

In late 19th century when youth-association-movement (YAM) and laborers-movement (LM) spread
rapidly a cross the country, small theater croups begin to merge in the same time that the
professional theaters were also formed. Everywhere in Finland, in both YAM houses and in the LM
houses, small amateur theaters were doing plays. What is noticeable: this happened same time in
urban- and rural- locations. This was truly a new form of “peoples theater” which was not highly
appreciated by the educated and the professionals. But still this early form of community- theater
lasted until these days and is still gathering masses all-around Finland.

We can still find some similarities from those early days:

1. multi- generational productions:

It is not in-common that people from different age- groups participate in theatrical groups. Although
there may be a separated groups for adults, seniors, youth and children there is usually one
performance a year tha everybody can join.
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2. Popular
In rural areas there is no option to enjoy professional theater. there is only few touring companies
and the are mostly aimed for specific groups( i.e. children, language minorities): So Local amateurs
are usually the only choice of culture. Specially during the summer time open- airperformances are
very popular collecting huge amounts of audience.
In Cities its bit different: although theater is popular in urban areas, local amateur groups are
usually not well recognized. They have to compete whit the professionals in media attention and
audience.

3. Educational
Local groups educate themselves by organizing courses in many fields of theater. Although courses
can be quite mixed and different level and don’t follow any “official” curriculums the general idea
is: “to learn from theater forces me to also learn about my self”.

4. Co-operation whit pros

Art-trainers and directors usually have professional backgrounds

5. Drama-literature
All-tough many plays that are produced in professional theaters are also produced in amateur
theaters we can find some special features in Finnish amateur theaters repertoire:
A: Us- against the authorities: Common plot in Finnish summer theater. Old
Swedish/Russian bureaucrats and elite have now bean transformed in to Finnish civil-
servants and EU- authorities. Right- minded locals usually find the loop-holes to beat-
the system. Also modernized / classical satires are common.
B: Know your roots: Local stories are commonly played both in winter- and
summertime
C: National history also finds its place.

6. by the people, for the people: We do it

Theaters are collecting lots off people in their activities all-tough they are not participating in the
artistic process. They are volunteering in other parts of project: Set design, costumes etc. So we can
say that in small villages almost everyone does something for the project.

So where does the phrase “theater of the communities” come from. If we used the term community-
theater that would mean for a common Finnish theater maker something imported: for an example
“theater of the oppressed” by Boale, or something like play-pack theater. In Finnish way of thinking
if its imported it must be something better. Our old-form of community theater is not considered to
be so smart and classy by the cultural-elite of our nation: so that is reason why now we call it
“theater of communities”.

Although it has bean proved that a vivid cultural life helps to prevent many social problems; still the
elite things that amateur theater is kind of a lesser-form-of-art, that cannot benefit the surrounding
society.
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CASE STUDIES

CASE 1: ART EDUCATION IS CARRIED OUT IN THE LOCAL YOUTH SOCIETIES

Tampere Youth Society: Young Art Theater Groups

Tampereen Nuorisoseura (TNS), Tampere Youth Society is comparatively new cultural association
compared to other Finnish youth associations, only 50 years of age. Theater has been one of its
main fields of activities it has had trough the years. Currently there are 320 members in TNS and
35 of them belong to the young art theater school.

The administration and most of the other activity groups are run by voluntary workers. Only in
more advanced groups which need special training the trained professional artists are being used.
The Study Center of Citizen’s Forum often pays part of the wages of the trainers.

The general idea is to give theater education to young people from 13 – 20 years of age. We do not
have children’s theater, because there are lots of children’s theater groups in Tampere. The common
trend is that young people chance their hobbies when they are 14-17. Our theater group’s aim is to
give young people the change to choose theater as a hobby without prior experiences in children’s
theater.

The youngsters are divided in 4 different age categories: 12-15, 14-16, 15-18, 17-20. The categories
overlap because we want to be flexible in finding correct group for each pupil. Every pupil has the
opportunity to grow and develop in his own speed. Every pupil has evaluation talk’s whit the group
teacher every spring and new groups are formed every autumn. After going through all the age
categorized groups they can stay in “senior-groups”

They key ideas of the education and the philosophies of the teaching methods are as follows:

1. Concentrating in the “presence”

The first exercises concentrate on just how it feels to be in front of people. Everyone has the right of
saying “I don’t feel relaxed, I am bit nervous”. The main thing is to concentrate on “being” rather
than “acting”

2. Everyone with their own tempo

In adolescence people grow in their own speed and according to their own natural schedule. So our
groups are flexible with their students. Everyone must find their own challenges to overcome in the
field of theater.

3. Learning by doing
The theater which we are working with, is not therapy. It’s just theater. But we know that by doing
theater and exercises people find new ways of self realization and balance in all their performing
situations. Thus giving them better self-confidence and more holistic way of looking at the
situations they meet in their everyday life.

4. Self images, by cross-artistic methods

The pupils don’t just study classical theater practices i.e. character analysis or improvisation but
they also study drumming and dance. Drumming helps them to form connection with the others
members in the group. It also helps them study rhythm and tempo of acting, which are maybe the
two things that most of the amateur actors are lacking. Dance also helps in finding one's own
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rhythm, but it also helps the young people to know their own bodies and gives them richer ways of
expressing themselves. It also gives them possibilities of not having to be beautiful on stage but
find wider spectrum of expression. This is usually very important lesson for the young people,
because the media of these days usually gives narrow body-images.

We have adopted a form of mentor/tutor system that allows pupils to work whit different specialists.
The group leader is called the mentor the overall education in theater is his field. He is also
responsible of crating a “personal curriculum” for each pupil. Specialized teachers are called tutors.
Tutors give special lessons in their own field i.e. Impro, vocal training, movement and dance.

CASE 2: BRINGING YOUR PERFORMANCE ON THE STAGE

Ramppikuume Youth Theatre Festival

Ramppikuume Youth Theatre Festival has been organized annually since 1997 in the town of
Kankaanpää. The festival is meant for young people from 13 to 20 years of age who are interested
in theatre. During the festival young people can meet other friends of theatre, participate to
workshops, watch performances and perform themselves too.

During the festival there are several theatre workshops for young lasting 10 hours from Friday
evening until Saturday noon. The themes of workshops vary every year. All the trainers of the
workshops are professionals of theatre. The aim of the workshops is to widen the different aspects
of doing theatre.

Finnish theatre groups willing to perform at the festival have to apply by sending a video or dvd of
their performance in advance. A jury will select the performances for the festival. These
performances will receive a feedback from a professional jury and the best performance will win a
Ramppikuume statue and a scholarship.

The aim of the festival is also to share experiences of doing theatre among young people from
different countries. Each year the festival has invited an international theatre group to participate in
the festival. The international guests are participating in a workshop in English together with
Finnish youngsters and they have also a possibility to give a performance during the festival.

The festival is organized together by the Satakunta Youth Association, Kaleva Youth Association,
Finnish Youth Association, the town of Kankaanpää, the Youth Society of Kankaanpää and
Citizen`s Forum.

Stages of Learning in Kankaanpää

The 1.st actual workshop of the Project Stages of Learning was held in Kankaanpää, Finland and was
combined with the Ramppikuume – youth theatre festival. The Finnish partner wanted to present
different methods of teaching theatre to the youth in Finland as well as show some results of the work
with the youngsters.

The teaching methods used in the youth theatre are participatory from their nature and represented
different aspects of community theatre in a wide meaning of the word. The intention of the work is to
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give the youngsters a meaningful hobby and also to do education through performing arts. So it is as
important to “be on the way” as to “get to the destiny” (a theatre performance in this case).

The participants of the project Stages of Learning actually learned the methods by trying the excercises
themselves. Afterwards the partners had the possibility to see three out of five performances of the
festival. The theatre groups do not only come to perform and see performances of the other groups.
There are also workshops available for the groups on different aspects of Theatre making.

The Polish group Teatr Zamias was brought to the festival by the Polish partner and was a real success
among the youngsters.

CASE 3: TAKING CARE OF THE MENTORS AND TUTORS

Magic Tour - A multidisciplinary art education for tutors

In associative non-formal and in-formal art education the mentors and tutors play a very important
role. Many of the tutors do their work on a voluntary basis, or they get only a small fee for their
work with the theatre groups as well as dancing or music groups. So it is essential to take a good
care of these “Key Persons” of the youth societies and other associations.

Citizens’ Forum came up with the Idea of preparing a new kind of course to mentors who have done
their work for years and who have already attended all the possible courses in their own field of Art.
A series of multidisciplinary workshops were arranged where the participants got to know methods
of other fields of art. The main aim of the course was to study the use of different artistic methods in
helping people in their identity work.

A Finnish professor Marjatta Bardy asks in a book of hers (My story-and the story of the others):
“Where are the Agoras of today where people get the change to find their place in the world. Where
is free space?” We wanted to answer that the kind of non-formal art education the youth
associations are practicing, gives the participants a free space to get to know themselves and each
other. Art is a good means of expressing ones own life story in a safe way. In and to get a change
“to be seen” from the other members of the group.

The course was carried out in one and a half year and the workshops we called:

- Beginning the Magical Tour

- Workshop of Drama and Picture (two weekends)
- Workshop of Words (two weekends)
- Workshop of Dance and Music
- Closing the Tour

All of the tutors who attended the course said they had gained a lot of this kind of multidisciplinary
way of working. Half of the group told that they had applied the methods to their own teaching right
the way.