For eight days in July 2010, I had the pleasure of being one of 30 theatre practitioners who work with young people that took part in an extraordinary international festival and forum hosted by Contact Theatre in Manchester in the UK, known as Contacting the World.

Contacting the World is a pioneering, international biennial theatre exchange project, which ‘twins’ six European youth theatre companies, with six non-European youth theatre companies and utilises a unique dramaturgical process. This process enables collaboration between the two companies, and as a result of the exchange two new pieces of theatre are created.

The cross-cultural collaboration involves visits to the home town or city of ‘the twin’ company, the cyber-sharing of thoughts and ideas through a specially created social networking “ning” website and crucially, the exchange of a box of creative, personal and cultural objects that represent the young people in the company. The dialogue acts as a creative provocation and the beginning of a collaborative process for devising new work.

The year-long ‘twinning’ process culminates over eight days in July 2010, when the selected twelve companies from across the world meet in Manchester to participate in a festival of workshops, summits, forums and performances that has, at its heart, a spirit of youth leadership, creativity and cultural exchange. The twelve companies are accepted as part of the festival and selected from over 100 …