A Tale of Faith, Love, and Hope
All that is good, beautiful, and true comes in threes—sweet, salty, and sour; heads, hands, and hearts; darkness, light, and color. And stories, so they say, do too.
One—the Beginning: Setting the Stage
Once upon a time, there was a village built on a long-forgotten sacred site, surrounded by a dark forest. Three brothers lived in the village, each with a unique task. The youngest brother, Faith, was wise and knowledgeable in the movements of the planets and stars. At sunset, he would awaken and seek counsel from the heavens, which he shared with his older brother, Love, who was the keeper of the sacred fire. This brought light to all the inhabitants of the dark forest who traveled to the village each morning to meet Love and receive their share of the ever-abundant flame. Every morning, the eldest brother, Hope, would let the people into the village through the door of his own house, and at dusk, he would wave goodbye to each flame bearer before closing the door until the next morning and the morning after that…
So begins the fairy tale created and performed by an unlikely group of storytellers and artists of all kinds who came from all corners of the world to take part in the fourth edition of Frage! Begegne! Spiele! (Question! Encounter! Play!) at the Goetheanum. “Frage” is an inclusive arts program designed to promote cooperation and inclusion through the arts among young Europeans, migrants, and refugees living in Switzerland. But this is only one side of the story. From the point of view of the participants, “Frage” is “a week to look forward to the whole year,” “a space to empty myself, to be myself,” and “to meet one’s chosen family”—it is an opportunity to see each other beyond cultural or racial differences, to play, to question, to be human together.
The story of the program began in 2019, on a train ride in Switzerland, when two members of the Youth Section team reflected on the list of challenges that a group of young Norwegians had recently shared with them. They described a loss of trust in older generations and in humanity as a whole, of loneliness and fear for the future. They shared experiences of paralyzing doubt brought on by the endless choices that they cannot find the will to commit to. They spoke of a lack of meaning and hope for their lives and the lives of others. Not far from the train, in Dornach, two other people were helping young immigrants from Afghanistan to integrate, some of whom had to risk and give up everything to come to Europe in the hope of finding security and the freedom to determine their own future.
In 2021, in the midst of the Covid pandemic, the team behind “Frage” brought together the first group of players: young Europeans and refugees from Afghanistan, Syria, and Eritrea. The pilot program was made possible thanks to Caritas Switzerland, Freunde der Erziehungskunst, and Movetia, who supported the main organizations behind the project: the Youth Section at the Goetheanum and the Initiative Forum for Refugees. For a week, these young people lived and cooked together, made music, rehearsed a script they’d written, and shared their biographical journeys with each other. At the end of the week, they gave an original theatre performance on the Felsli in the Goetheanum gardens. It was not originally planned as an outdoor event—it was simply the only way to share their work with the community in the midst of pandemic restrictions. Now, four years later, the Felsli has become the open stage, rain or shine, where four original plays have been created and performed by over 80 participants from more than 30 countries who have taken part in the program.
This text is an excerpt from an article published in the (online exclusive) Goetheanum Weekly. You can read the full article on the website. If you are not yet a subscriber, you can get to know the Goetheanum Weekly for 1 CHF./€.
read moreImage From the rehearsals and performance of the project. Photo: Mahdi Hosseingholi