Five days of intensive training with five theatre groups. All participants, five ambassadors per theatre group are persons with disabilities, full of enthusiasm to perform, to show their theatre and dance skills. This documentary brings an overview of the workshops, interviews with art directors and actors, and reflections on the long-term aims of the YES WE ARE IN project. The documentary shows the diversity of the participants. How some of them, without theatre experience learned a lot from those who are active already for several years. Four of the five groups were never before involved in European projects. For them, and for the city where they come from, this project has a certain impact; proud to be part of a European Erasmus+ project. The five days of cooperation showed also the diversity in the group of art directors and the challenge to become co-creators of the finale live-streamed theatre performances at the end of the project.

In this documentary about the second intensive training meeting of the five theatres in the project, it’s clear that the group immediately felt the results of the regular online meetings since the first physical meeting a year before. the ambassadors had become friends and their interaction in the workshops was much more intense. This allowed the training to go a lot deeper than during the first meeting. The social events were also more open, enjoying the moment together, music, karaoke, dancing. The art directors could finally also meet again physically to exchange their ideas towards the final performances. And the experts from Mediaraven could do in the different rooms from the Tresjnevka Cultural center experiments to go deeper into the live stream technics.

A FRIEND CALLED LONELINESS -VISUAL ALBUM is an 8-part video series. It is a poetic, visual and auditory collection where different aspects of being alone and the sense of loneliness emerge. How can you be alone? How lonely can you be? Is life collapsing? How important is friendship? The piece has been created entirely by Theatre Wärjäämö, a group of artists with disabilities from Tampere, Finland, lead by director Jarmo Skön. The multidiscplinary art group has been working weekly for 15 years at the Tampere City Activity Center Wärjäämö in co-operation with Ahjola Adult Education Center. A FRIEND CALLED LONELINESS- VISUAL ALBUM is also part of the `Yes we are in’ Erasmus+ -project, in which the group has been involved since 2018 as a partner with ACCAC Global (Finland). The other partners in the project are from Belgium (Community Center De Zeyp), Croatia (Culture Center Tresvnejska), England (University of Wolverhampton) and Northern Ireland (University of Atypical and KIC).

YES WE ARE IN! The power of connection” is a concluding documentary about an Erasmus+ project 2018-2021 in which five theatre groups, with people with disabilities, made a digital and artistic journey. The ultimate goal would be five live streamed performances with the online participation of the four partners, from the other European cities. Due to the pandemic, this goal has not been achieved. The documentary tells the story of the project through interviews and images from our international encounters. When Thomas says that he is no longer afraid to look for a future as an artist instead of his current work, he is expressing what many
participants experience: a growth in self-confidence because they could participate in a European Erasmus+ project!