I september måned 2009 tog en gruppe elever fra Kunsthøjskolen ned til Damaskus i Syrien for at mødes med en gruppe unge studerende på High Institute of Dramatic Arts og sammen med dem gennemføre en workshop i Creative Writing.
Initiativtager til projektet var Nina Malinovski, forfatter og lærer i litteratur på Kunsthøjskolen, og det var organisationen KVINFO, som støttede og muliggjorde virkeliggørelsen af projektet.
Workshop’en varede syv dage og bestod af en række forskellige skriveøvelser, som afsluttedes med mere målrettede opgaver.
Det er hensigten, at disse afsluttende opgaver, en række scener med temaet “brud på konventioner” skal færdigbearbejdes til en teaterforestilling, som skuespillereleverne ved High Institute skal opføre, først i Damaskus og senere i København.
Besøget i Damaskus blev en stor og meget positiv oplevelse for eleverne fra Kunsthøjskolen -  ikke mindst mødet med de syriske studerende blev uforglemmeligt og et udgangspunkt for nye, fremtidige venskaber.
High Institute of Dramatic Arts modtog delegationen åbent og hjælpsomt og arrangerede om fredagen på den arabiske fridag en udflugt til Hama, hvor der kunne opleves store vandhjul af træ, museer og de særlige bikubehuse, der blev bygget omkring Hama.
En så varm velkomst i et land, som af nogle kaldes en “onskabens akse-stat”, var en både tankevækkende, overraskende og glædelig.

Short description of the cooperation project between The High Institute of Dramatic Arts and Kunsthøjskolen i Holbæk (the Danish Art School in Holbæk)

A group of young pupils from The Art School in Holbæk has been meeting a group of pupils from The High Institute of Arts in Damascus. Together we completed a workshop of creative writing.
The workshop was based on the three sequences of the creative writing process, inspiration, written exercises and the reading and editing of the written texts.  In the state of inspiration pictures, music and words were used as starting points for the texts.
We were having exercises sharpening the ear in connection with clichés in the language by first writing cliché-texts and then writing the same text, but now without cliché. We have also been training the sense of structure in a story, beginning, middle, end, development of characters etc.
The solution of each exercise could take shape of poetry, prose or essay, depending of the inclination and abilities of the single participant.
All the written texts were discussed in a common forum, and here we succeeded to build up a mutual respect and a will to listen to each other in the group. The tasks of the workshop were challenging the participants to tell their own stories in an encouraging and trustful atmosphere.
The final exercise was leading to the next phase of the project, a common task with the theme of    clash of cultures. Each student was asked to write a scene where this theme was present.
The students have been working very eager, open minded and devoted with the many different exercises of the workshop.  It is our hope that the project can continue in the following way:
The Syrian participants of the workshop from The High Institute of Dramatic Arts will during the coming four month turn those texts into a theatre performance in cooperation with a dramatist from Denmark, a director from Syria and with the Danish participants. The latest mentioned with be through e-mail contact.
The project will continue to be a cooperation between High Institute of Dramatic Arts in Damascus, the Danish Institute in Damascus, The Art school in Holbæk and the Danish KVINFO, who was supporting this first step of the project.
The following step will be a realisation of the theatre play in cooperation with pupils of the acting department in The High Institute of Dramatic Arts in Damascus.
The final step will be a performing of the play next year, first in Damascus and afterwards in Copenhagen.