Theatre Walks

 

 

Children learn about landscape with theatre

 

The Theatre Walk Zandloper aims at creating a general awareness - especially amongst children - of the natural and cultural history of the landscape, and of the values thus embedded in this landscape. This awareness and the resulting knowledge may result in a more understanding, and hopefully protective, dealing with the landscape in case.

 

Zandloper was developed to take place in the National Park Loonse en Drunense Duinen in the province of Noord-Brabant, The Netherlands, an area with large sand dunes combined with forests and swamps. The National Park is not only rich in flora and fauna, but also represents a rich and diverse cultural heritage. Its history runs from Mesolithic hunter-gatherers till modern times. The National Park stretches over the area of five (city) councils and the plan proposes to address all primary schools within these councils.

 

 

Zandloper is like a frame story with many different kinds of partners at different stages of the project. In essence Zandloper consists of a Theatre Walk through the National Park. During this walk the children will be told about the natural and cultural history of the area (part of their direct environment), while at various points actors bring details of the story to life.

 

The concept has also been developed for other places in the Netherlands and can be used in other European countries as well. The main objective is to link place and story in a memorable way and thus to furnish the landscape (place) with a story in such a way that this combination becomes part of the mental landscape of the participants. In this respect the theatre in the project differs from historical re-enactment. The latter may form part of it, but is not the main objective.

 

 

 

The information and experiences gained in the process will be laid down in a number of publications. The most important will be a book about the cultural and natural heritage of the National Park. For the schools partaking in Zandloper printed material is provided to enable schools to give the project a follow-up in the regular curriculum and in co-operation with regional tourism organisations, leaflets with walking or cycling tours will be published.

 

Contact: Foundation Stuipzand

 

Read more:

• http://www.stuipzandloper.nl (website in Dutch)
• Marja van Trier about the Theatre Walk
• Foundation Stuipzand published the Dutch book ’Zandloper’ about the history of the landscape of National Park De Loonse en Drunense duinen and surroundings: Zandloper - Landschap en geschiedenis van Nationaal Park De Loonse en Drunense Duinen en omgeving, Author: Lauran Toorians, isbn: 9070641832, Pubisher: ZHC, Designer: Sander Neijnens, bounded, 298 pages, full color.