About Unghästen
With the conversation in focus, we perform theater for young people in their arenas for children and young people.
UngHästen meets around 8000 young people every year. We mainly target middle and high school students, and work with theater as an educational tool to open up conversations about current, sensitive and difficult topics.
Since its inception in 2000, we have performed shows about, among other things: mental illness, bullying, sex and cohabitation, racism, domestic violence, partying and its consequences, forbidden love and identity.
Through our performances, we want to touch and evoke emotions.
Most of our performances are adapted to be performed in smaller spaces, such as classrooms or similar. We perform for one class at a time, where the focus is on the closeness to the individuals and the immersion in a topic that engages.
We attach great importance to the after-work that follows directly on site after each performance. In the discussion, different people's opinions meet and often it is only then that one's own position is tested and allowed to become clear, strengthened or changed. Learning and development take place in the discussion.
Performing for schoolchildren means meeting an audience that has not chosen to go to the theater themselves. Our audience should leave a performance and a conversation with a positive sense of hope, having had an artistic experience and above all feeling involved, heard and seen.
We always want educators and representatives from student health services to be involved in the performances.
We are a complement to schools' core values work
In our work, we address topical values issues that schools welcome as a complement to teaching. Working together with the school and teachers is important to us and a necessity for us to do the best job possible. Teachers participate in the same way as pupils, so that they can then continue to work with their class based on the conversations started by us.
We work in line with the current curriculum and complement the school's core values.
We aim to give every student a voice and therefore work mostly in small groups, class by classroom, and hope to inspire teachers in their continued daily work with core values.
All our performances fall within the framework of the Creative School.
Those of us working at UngHästen have several years of experience as educators, actors and improvisers, both in working with children and young people and in staff development, artistic improv and theater on stages around the country.
Awards and prizes
BRISthe prize
The motivation: "With their interactive theater they manage to UngHästen address current topics and inspire conversation. By adding an educational follow-up, they have also clearly highlighted the importance of the conversation in school.
UngHästen shows the importance of daring to talk about what can be complicated and difficult.
A starting point for YoungHorse work is to create a good conversation where everyone should dare to speak and be heard - a view of children that fits well with that which forms the basis of BRIS' work."
BRIS 2015
The Surfing Calm Award
For #netlove - an interactive lecture with UngHästen and Andreas Skog in 2016
Psychiatry Prize in Skellefteå 2016
For the work with mental (un)health in the performances "It's slowly getting better" "Just enough common sense" and "On the other side" which succeeded in portraying, making visible and de-dramatizing difficult topics.
Other
UngHästen in the Riksdag
On December 10, 2015 UngHästen the performance Xenophobia - Welcome if you erase yourself in the Riksdag for members of parliament and invited guests.
November 22, 2016 was invited UngHästen once again to the Swedish Parliament. This time to perform the show "It gets better slowly", on the themet suicide.
A big thank you!
We are incredibly proud, happy and grateful that Boliden and Länsförsäkringar Västerbotten have chosen to support our activities. Their support means that we have the opportunity to meet even more young people in Västerbotten and work with them for mental health, through performances, talks and workshops. The support from Boliden and Länsförsäkringar Västerbotten is hugely important for our work to reach as many people as possible. Thank you, Boliden! It means so much!
Boliden
Boliden has chosen to sponsor UngHästen financially for three years. This is to give us the opportunity to develop and broaden our activities for young people in the county. The funds provided by Boliden are earmarked for us to be able to work with young people and the path from mental illness to health.
Thank you Boliden!
Länsförsäkringar Västerbotten
Länsförsäkringar Västerbotten has chosen to give UngHästen a gift to further develop activities with and for young people in Västerbotten County in 2020. The gift gives us the means to meet more young people through performances, talks and workshops.
Thank you Länsförsäkringar Västerbotten!