How can you examine the digital world when you’re totally immersed in it – and have been since the day you were born? One way is to step out of it, into the analogue world of theatre.

In an experimental collaboration between five theatre companies in the Union des Théatres de l’Europe, the Digital Natives project weaves the teenage worlds of Instagram and Facebook together with live theatre and video. The result of this Creative Europe supported project is a compelling reflection on the ways young people use technologies, while helping them to become more conscious of their role in building a Europe fit for the digital age.

The Digital Natives project is built around Concord Floral, a play exploring teenage identity, relationships, and the power of technology.

In a clever cross-over between analogue and digital worlds, the Volkstheater Wien used Instagram to create profiles for the play’s characters.

Project partner, Schauspiel Köln, took a different direction, staging digi/topia – an adaptation of Concord Floral set in a neighbourhood of Cologne and using local amateur actors to explore themes like death, friendship and innocence. Thirty actors aged 13-78 years took part in the play.

In another fusion of digital and analogue, French theatre La Comédie de Reims, used Facebook and Instagram to document workshops in schools that brought amateur and professional actors together, attracting over 110 followers. School workshops also featured in the contributions of project partner, The National Theatre of Northern Greece, with nearly 40 teenagers meeting every week with a theatre professional.

The Hungarian Theatre of Cluj chose video blogging for its exploration of teenage life and the digital world that surrounds young Europeans. They invited the audience behind the scenes of their stage production of Concord Floral as the basis for a vlog.

The performances were staged in five European theatres as well as online, where theatres are learning to reach younger or newer audiences.

Daniela Joita, Executive Office of the Union des Théâtres de l’Europe (UTE)