The aim of this proposal is to consider the documentary theatre practice experienced through a workshop on the aim of Agro-Ecological Transition (AET). It took place a week in December 2022, near Montpellier. The partners worked at the crossroads of the National Support Disposal (NSD) for the French Agricultural Training System and the nation-wide InstitutAgro (Montpellier-Rennes-Dijon) agro-engineer higher education. The documentary theatre practice was chosen in order to otherwise experiment the usual AET sessions and understand the skills development. On the one hand, the sensitive dimension of artistic practices has already been introduced (Covez, 2022; 2016) as well as the intercultural one (Covez, 2009). On the other hand, the capacity of embodying the agricultural concept through design and culinary theatre has also been demonstrated (Covez, 2017). Besides, since 2019, the agroecological transition has become the priority of the institution. The project creating a mixed documentary activity has been financed through a higher agricultural institute initiative and the ministry of agriculture through the NSD. The framework of the “human agroecology” is used so as to underline “the social representations that structure the relations between individuals, social groups, their practices and environments” (R. Audet, C. Gendron, 2012).  Besides, In he actual academic  t discussion on transition concept (Hervé, 2022) makes it very much valuable.  Then, the systemic and critical agroecologies are not sufficient to analyse the representations and socio-cultural practices that have to change as the lecturers and teachers community attest. Then, the theatre practice mixing high-schools teachers and engineers students, represent a real educational and pedagogical opportunity to experiment a new way of learning the AET.

So the question is: “Can a documentary theatre practice be put to the service of the engineers-student AET education ?”. Actually, the definition of agroecological education does not really exist but rather focuses on teaching professional, technical and agricultural matters. Our aim is rather to consider learning it as an emotionally, bodily, individual and collective creating activity that can be put to the service of a better understanding. In fact, it is as any social activity involving human beings which is very much complex. More than that, the transition education has to be considered in the global climate change and after the Covid pandemic that makes it not only cognitive but also at a very high level of emotions and eco-anxiety.

The hypothesis is that documentary theatre partnership represents a tool for educational change in respect to transition. On the one hand, the practice may create a shared and renewed understanding of the transition notion enhanced by the final work representation. On the other hand, the artistic partnership may help creating an educational situation that can enable the embodiment of change. The practice has also been created in the aim of exploring the developed skills: cognitive, communicative, relationship, emotional, creative, intercultural, intergenerational... that can be put to the service of working as an engineer in transition. We would like to get a better understanding of the benefits for the students, as their profession will consist in change making. The difficulty would lie on the tension to get open to the sensitivity and intellectually complex dimension of Transition. Finally, we think that documentary practice methodology, based on sources and concept work, helps creating a quite integrating and balancing situation with cognitive and bodily activities. The acceptance of the sensitive process inside us and all together enriches but also provokes some unbalance and challenge we have to face to keep on sharing, acting and creating. Taking risks and improving may be put to the benefits of a transition education.

The ethnographic methodological approach consists in pre and post interviews with the 5 student-engineers and 2 agricultural high-schools as well as the artist Théo actor, dramatist and director, who prepared the project one year long, having one meeting per month with the team. Our aim is to focus on the students interviews and participative observations. This action is not finished, as the 5 students should present a communication analysing their experience at the national Days of Arts and Culture in Hihger Education in April 2023. The interviews show that the question was less to understand AET but rather to transform it theatre creation and communication to the public. Actually, within the various documentary theatres ((Magris & Ali, 2019), this one is defined by its designers (Théo & Louize) as a récit fictionnel type. This means that creation made of debates, growing shared concepts and problematics lead to the definition and creation of scenes (created through mise à plat methodology that is enriched by theatre and improvisation exercises) about food injustice, social inequality, textile resale shop and clown characters !Nevertheless, the aim project was not the theatre creation in itself but the artistic living experience together. Even if the 30 minutes long representation was quite meaningful and applauded ! By the way, the students asserted that the theatre practice started on sunday when driving from Rennes in Bretagne to Montpellier, presenting it as a “real adventure”. Discovering the Cevennes mountains was very meaningful to them, as territory represents a real issue of their future work. Finally, students and teachers were very much curious to work together and participate to the action-research. At the beginning nothing on the expected skills has been said so to let them get aware fisrt and then explain what they thought they developed. Organising an inter higherschools is not an easy task, but represents the opportunity to make people talk of their different skills representations according to IA Montpellier, Rennes or Florac and teachers or students too. The action-research is going on and will be finished at the end of the first semester. The quality research is used so as to get a comprehensive view on the expectations or representations at work from cultural, life skills, psycho-social competencies, to eight core competencies (Robinson & al, 2022). The focus is strongly on students as this experiment would allow to disseminate in a European University project.

The theatre lasted 4 days. We saw a need to express oneself, on the cognitive, socio-economical, agricultural and political point of view of transition. Eco-anxiety and eco-anger emotions were expressed. A constant critic of the way of teaching the transition was present as diminishing the wish to study on. A need for educational change raised. The mix teachers/students practice was much appreciated as an intergenerational work “surprisingly great to make”. The expected results focus on the documentary practice but within the context of students bifurcation, the action-research is coming across deeper understanding of the students. They took freely the risk of participating and keep on asserting themselves on a very collective autonomy as a group. At the moment, the actual need is to accompany them to understand their own needs. One of them seems to be to recognise their freedom not only of speech but behaving as they think is ethical (deciding their implication level in the Arts Days). It seems that the aim of embodying the agroecological transition has been made as students came back to their establishment with the constant need of change and acting so as to make things for good ! The benefits are expected to be on a high level of political engagement. The students asserted their eco-anxiety diminished and their wish to transform that experience into reality after their exams appears to be certain. They say they’ve learnt the “know how” that institution can not offer on a theoretical teaching basis. “Revelation, happiness bubble, a caress time... and the feeling of making AET real, living it” are part of their words. A transformative process is going on, on emotional, creative, critical skills, and the reassurance that a change can be if adults are involved. It apprears they learnt transforming, relying on themselves, adults and environment.

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