Using case narratives to reflect and inspire
The Swedish National Touring Theatre (Riksteatern, RT) aims at disseminating dance and theatre production in the whole country. Thanks to around 230 local theatre associations spread across the country, RT can reach a very large and diverse audience, in city but also in more rural areas.
In Fall 2022, an equity and diversity group was built, twelve people, that freely applied, were selected, representing RT locally, regionally, and nationally. Members come from different parts of Sweden as it was important to have a geographical spread. This group will represent the Good Practices Factory in Stockholm. Its aim is to increase the understanding and knowledge of RT entire organization, as a starting point of how to achieve and sustain equality and diversity on, behind, and in front of the stage. Content and objectives, as well as methodologies were defined by members of the group, according to their individual context.
One of the first missions was to identify the needs and shortcomings of the theatre and to propose methodologies to improve the situation. Identified issues were linked to gender, recruitment, rural-urban perspectives, accessibility, use of terminology within RT…
An important mission of the group was also to value the existing knowledge within the organization, knowledge, practices and experience that are often neglected. What can be learnt from stories? How to use case narratives to reflect and inspire?
A podcast, Glimpses from Riksteatern, was created to highlight good examples at RT. Nine episodes have been produced. Twelve Learning stories will be shared over a year in newsletters.
In the coming months, the main challenge is to continue to put equality into practice, to create long-term structures, and frames to develop and sustain equity and diversity within the organization. In 2024, a focus will be made on recruitment, how to identify competency and skills that are missing in an organization, as well as people who could bring them. A two-day seminar with all directors of the organization will be held in June.