“Our specialty is creativity. If what you want doesn’t exist, we’ll invent it.”
We’re at an age where we’re neither old nor young. A generation that hasn’t fallen behind, but isn’t on the last leg either.
That limbo where they call you sir or ma’am, but you feel like a 20-year-old until you jump three times in a row…
CAJÓN DISASTRE is a meticulously improvised show, led by Adri Torrijos and Alejandro Rod, that takes you through various personal anecdotes shared by the audience to create stories.
The icing on the cake is our musical improviser Mvba, who saturates each scene on stage with sounds and atmospheres.
A delicate, empathetic, yet simultaneously sly show. The audience witnesses and participates in our creation, a unique creation that can only happen that day with those people.
Society is on the brink of destruction, but you already knew that…
We’ll see the biography of two seemingly very wealthy characters. These actors bring to life one of the many possible realities, which the audience will choose. Convoluted, right? Thunderclap is volatile, ever-changing, and above all, at the mercy of the audience. Anything explained in this synopsis will be a spoiler or a lie, so it’s best to save it for watching it live.
In this show, Adri & Rod take a risk with a new format, more powerful, more visual, but maintaining their essence and wearing a new, very posh, but equally naughty outfit.
To bring this complex topic to the stage, we held several meetings with Eloy Naranjo, a UPAL official, who gave us an excellent explanation of the duties of a UPAL official and, specifically, the dynamics they used during the talks on bullying. This allowed us to begin working and make our dynamics more precise.
The skeleton of our play consists of a story, approximately forty-five minutes long, featuring a main character who will encounter a host of negative behaviors and messages throughout the play, not only at school but also in his or her home environment. This causes the main character to increasingly suffer from this psychological and sometimes physical bullying, which will ultimately lead to the onset of negative behaviors on the part of the main character toward others.
After this first part, the actors hold a short discussion with the students about what they just saw and the feelings they received. The second part consists of giving the students the opportunity to transform any negative behaviors or messages they saw into positive behaviors and messages. In this way, we repeat the same story again, but this time the students decide to stop the story when they don’t like something. At that moment, the actors freeze on stage, and the narrator chats with the students and asks for possible solutions to transform the behaviors into positive ones.
Once we have collected all these positive messages, we resume the story with the cry of <<3,2,1 transformation!>> To conclude the performance, we review what they’ve seen and reinforce the most important messages we want them to take home.
<<Together we can transform things to become better people.>>
<<If there is something we are seeing that seems wrong, let’s not ignore it, let’s ask adults for help.>>
<<The main change begins with oneself.>>
It’s important to note that everything that happens on stage, except for the structure of the play, is improvised. The students choose the type of character they will play, what dreams they want to fulfill, and so on. The feedback has been very positive from all parties involved in the project, from the UPAL officials in charge of coordinating the activities to the way the teachers received it.
We believe that in the vast majority of centers, the objectives were understood based on the way young people react to certain behaviors. Each center has been a completely different space, as we’ve worked in areas where students have a healthier social situation and others where there is much more precariousness. This has forced us to rethink our approach to stories with each performance, and that is the virtue offered by an improvised show.
Our main feeling is that there is a very significant change in all attendees when they leave the space. The importance of showing, live and in person, without metaphors or strange words, the reality that many of them experience makes them emotionally involved in what they are seeing and want to change it. Our way of working has that, for us, key factor of success. We stir them up inside and then give them the option to improve.
Finishing performances and welcoming children who want to thank you because it has touched them or because they’ve been in similar situations, and the teachers’ gratitude for the work they’ve done—these are the rewards this project brings us.
A very necessary project that should never stop because we have seen with our own eyes how necessary it is to educate and raise awareness.
Gender-based violence is a social problem, affecting women everywhere. If we focus on our culture, statistics indicate that violence against women among 16- and 17-year-old adolescents has increased significantly. There are increasing reports of adolescents who have suffered physical, sexual, emotional, psychological, or controlling violence from partners or ex-partners.
Gender-based violence has a direct impact on women’s health and creates a perception of normality regarding the violence they experience, which perpetuates cultural norms.
In addition, it has been proven that most young people identify gender-based violence only as physical and sexual violence, excluding psychological and emotional violence, which are also part of it. Violent behaviors are often subtle, masked in ways that make them difficult to identify, both for the person who suffers them and for the perpetrator.
In this project, through social theater, we aim to expose countless forms of gender-based violence that are normalized in our culture and overlooked, turning them into warning signs to be heeded in order to prevent such violence.
Adolescence is a key stage in a person’s development. It is a vital period in which identity and personality are built, when personal abilities are maximized, and, at the same time, when we are most vulnerable to pressure from society and our immediate surroundings. That is why it is so important to live an adolescence free from violence and in which our rights are respected.
The level of tolerable violence is constructed and defined by the culture in which one lives. In every society, there is a level of violence that is considered acceptable to achieve certain objectives. Let’s educate ourselves to change ours.
Through performance and interpretation, we seek to act in accordance with positive ideals and oppose gender-based violence, ensuring that this respect extends to all youth. We carry out awareness-raising theater campaigns where young people identify those actions that go against positive values and learn to change them.
We raise awareness, self-esteem, and empowerment, and improve community work skills. This project maintains the formula created by the company based on social theater techniques. Through improvisation, we show young people different behaviors that can be found in contexts where physical violence, sexting, or even psychological violence is experienced. In a raw and realistic way, we show many patterns that can exist in the daily lives of people who suffer from any of these situations.
Unlike a conventional talk, our method has proven to be more effective because the participants witness the situation firsthand, and it has a deeper impact on them. Our scenes are loaded with concepts such as coercion, abuse of power, hurtful jokes about appearance or personality, jealousy, guilt, attempts to isolate the other person, ridicule, victimhood, threats of suicide if the other person doesn’t do what the other person wants, etc.
Through all these scenes, before the eyes of the young people, we break down misconceptions often imposed by society. This is a different but effective way to learn to detect any type of violence against women. Finally, we offer students the opportunity, through a talk, to identify all the negative behaviors and offer solutions to prevent them.
Timing
The show, including a talk, typically lasts approximately 75 minutes and is intended for young people between the ages of 12 and 18.
We are a company specializing in theatrical improvisation, and this is one of our best tools when presenting events.
Without a doubt, it’s the main guarantee of success, ensuring that whatever happens at your event, there are people capable of resolving it with humor.
We have worked with the Disa Foundation on several occasions, presenting important events such as “School of Teachers” and “School of Coaches.”
We have also collaborated with the Yrichen Foundation, where we have been masters of ceremonies for their “IT Helpers” gala for over three years. We’ve also worked for JTI, serving as masters of ceremonies at several events with over 500 attendees, adding a unique touch to product presentations and internal company events.
We have also been in charge of the “Estela Conference” and the “Steam Conference” for the Canary Islands CEP, among other events for the Canary Islands Government and the Fuerteventura Island Council.
Our key to success is offering a friendly presentation, with a relaxed style and always accompanied by humor, to make the event more enjoyable.
