INTERACTIVE GUIDING
Since 2007 I've been working slowly on what I call Interactive guiding. It is project that goes on till today.
Bored of classic guided tours on the Western Front, I wanted to add something to make guiding more attractive for the people who participate in a tour.
Interactive guiding does not only use all kinds of props, it tries to put people in a more empathic situation towards the soldiers and their suffering on the battlefield. For this we use all kinds of ways to make the audience an active group that participates in the guiding itself. People become soldiers, regiments, tanks or even planes. They are being confronted with a piece of reality from the trenches, and if possible we also use period dressed soldiers. They face the dangers of a classic attack on the Western Front when soldiers went 'over the top'. They experience how it feels to become blind and helpless after a gas attack.
We find it important that people experience things as much as possible a soldiers life to get a better idea of what it was like. It works the best with groups of people who know each other.
We also learned that schools can be confronted in various new ways with the Great War, if you use subjects that are close to what they are studying, which makes it a lot more interesting for them.