The Allrussian Festival of Special Theatres PROTEATR is a unique event within Russian culture and has no equal. The Festival presents the best theatrical achievements of the disabled in modern day Russia. The festival allows us to gather information about numerous special theatres in our country irrespective of their actors’ disability and professionalism as well the genre they work in. PROTEATR alone possesses the fullest information about the contemporary special theatres movement in Russia
The Festival organizes scientific and practical activities for renewing the self image of a human being, of his attitude towards society and culture and of his creative activities. Being the only place for professional development for special theatre directors and actors, the festival also holds educational programs for them.
PROTEATR gathers theatres with participants with almost all types of functional disorders: vision and hearing impairments, cognitive, emotional and physical disability, somatic, genetic and psychic disorders, as well as their peers without disabilities, who are looking for a new understanding of life.
Our mission is to create a platform for a creative interpretation of reality and an active co-creation of the future. Through the festival we also look for a vision of what we want to get in the future. We seek to join the healthy forces of the society irrespective of nationality, religion, political or any other views in order to creatively rethink reality. Our partners are NGOs and business entities whose activities are aimed at co-creating the future for the sake of shaping a healthy climate in the society and of improving the quality of our life. Our partners are those whose priority is to create a product on the base of the true values system and who create an authentic product.
Art of the disabled in not disabled. It has its own audience and can get a deserved position in contemporary art.
Social importance
The relation between people with disabilities and society is a complicated and multifaceted problem. It is usually viewed only from a social perspective, whereas the Festival contributes to the attempts to look at it through the prism of the whole culture, helping to see people with disabilities not as objects of social care –invalids — but as creative human beings. Our festival promotes integration and supports the general humanization process in our society contributing to the improvement of creative activities with children and young people with disabilities and encouraging positive public opinion on disabled art. Theatre is one of the main creative activities that can be used in socio-cultural rehabilitation of people with disabilities.
Importance in terms of education and rehabilitation
PROTEATR promotes searching for the most optimal methods and forms of socio-cultural rehabilitation of persons with different disabilities by including them in theatrical activities. The festival also helps to build up the scientific and methodological potential of the specialists in the field of socio-cultural rehabilitation of the disabled.