What a Night at Footloose Taught Us About Youth, Culture and Wrecsam
The Wrecsam2029 Youth Forum visited the Stiwt to see Footloose, sharing a night of local theatre and celebrating the young talent already shaping Wrecsam’s culture.
2 min read
Talking about culture is important. Experiencing it together is better.
As part of the Wrecsam2029 Youth Forum, we took members to see Theatr Yr Ifanc’s youth production of Footloose at the Stiwt Theatre in Rhos.
It was a chance to enjoy a night out as a group, support young local performers and see what youth-led culture already looks like in Wrecsam.
There was no workshop to complete afterwards and no formal list of questions waiting for the journey home. The young people were there to watch the show, spend time together and be part of a local cultural event.
That mattered.
Culture is not only something to discuss
The Youth Forum has an important role in helping shape Wrecsam’s UK City of Culture 2029 bid. That involves conversations about what young people want, what they feel is missing and how culture across the city could become more accessible.
However, those conversations cannot happen only in meeting rooms.
To understand local culture, young people need opportunities to experience it. They need to visit venues, watch performances and see other young people creating work on stage.
Footloose offered exactly that.
The production brought together young performers who had clearly put a huge amount of work into learning lines, songs, choreography and stagecraft. What the audience saw was the finished show. Behind it were weeks of rehearsals, nerves, mistakes, teamwork and persistence.
That work deserves to be recognised.
Sharing the experience as a group
The theatre visit also gave Youth Forum members another opportunity to spend time together without the pressure of having to produce an immediate outcome.
Building a group takes more than inviting the same people to a series of meetings. Relationships grow through shared experiences, the conversations before something begins and the reactions people exchange afterwards.
A theatre trip creates its own talking points. People notice different things. One person focuses on the music, another on the acting, costumes or atmosphere. Some simply enjoy being somewhere they might not usually visit.
Those differences are useful.
A Youth Forum should not expect everyone to enjoy the same type of culture or agree about what Wrecsam needs. The point is to widen the experiences available and make room for honest reactions.
Celebrating what is already here
City of Culture conversations can sometimes sound as though culture will arrive if a bid is successful.
It is already here.
It is happening in theatres, schools, music venues, community centres and rehearsal rooms. It is being made by professional artists, volunteers, children and young people who give up evenings and weekends to create something together.
The Footloose cast showed the energy, confidence and talent that already exists among young people locally.
A successful cultural bid will build on that. It will make existing opportunities stronger, help more people take part and ensure young talent has places to grow.
Our evening at the Stiwt was fun, but it also reminded us why Youth Forum members need to be out experiencing culture rather than only discussing it from a distance.
Sometimes youth voice begins with a conversation.
Sometimes it begins with taking your seats, the lights going down and a stage full of young people showing Wrecsam exactly what they can do.
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