Youth Drama Theatre "AmaTea" was founded in 2006 as an independent amateur theater, since 2013 AmaTea has been operating as a non-governmental organization. Since 2018, AmaTea has been a member of the Association of Ukrainian Independent Theaters.
Over the years, the theater has produced more than 30 productions based on works by Western European and Ukrainian playwrights and implemented many international projects in cooperation with independent theaters, cultural and educational institutions from Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Ireland, Bulgaria, Finland, Poland, Potrugal and Turkey.
In addition to creating performances, AmaTea works on educational and artistic projects for children and youth and participates in several international projects with partner organizations from Europe.
In 2024 the organisation was invited to take part in World Systemic Forumhttps://thesystemchange.org/2024/01/12/wsf-2024-new-culture-contexts-topic-overview/ in Liechtenstein and Switzerland to participate in the panel discussion "New Culture Contexts"
Photos by World Systemic Forum
In 2022, the organization got recognition from the Creativity Pioneers Fundhttps://moleskinefoundation.org/folios-5/ from the Moleskine Foundation (Italy) for their significant contribution to youth work in times of crisis. In October 2023, representatives of the organization were invited to the Creativity Revival conference in Milan. Olena Rosstalna, the head of the NGO, introduced the workshop "Art and Drama for Changemaking" and was a speaker at the panel discussion Can Creativity Change the World
photo by Luca Dimoon, courtesy of Moleskine Foundation
In 2022, the NGO worked on the educational project "Propaganda: Understanding for Resistance", which received grant support from the European Cultural Foundationhttps://culturalfoundation.eu/stories/cosround6-youth-drama-theatre-amatea/ Together with their teachers, the project participants learned how to write scripts for short videos; studied examples of the use of propaganda in sculpture, architecture, painting, literature, and caricature; and created their own videos analyzing interesting examples of the use of propaganda in Ukrainian and European culture.
In 2019-2022, the organization worked on a large grant project VAHA HUBS in partnership with the Chernihiv Regional Art Museum and partner organizations from Portugal and Turkey.
In the first phase of the project, we help 16 trainings, workshops, lectures, and online conversations on creativity development, critical thinking, media literacy, and other topics.
The second stage of the project, which focused on the stories of internally displaced people and rethinking the role of cultural heritage during the war, included three documentary photography exhibitions and two documentary films. The exhibitions were held in Porto (Portugal), Chernihiv (Ukraine), and Diyarbakir (Turkey). A documentary about the destruction of Chernihiv's cultural heritage during the Russian-Ukrainian war was presented at the Venice Biennale.
