ETC Blog

A theatrical journey through Europe

2009-04-16T14:23:00.003+02:00

The Orient Express will begin its European journey in Ankara in May 2009. In a converted freight car, theatre ensembles from six european countries will perform plays in their own language at 11 different locations during their journey. Following the premiere in their hometown, each ensemble will travel by train to the next city where it will perform again and meet up with the next ensemble, which, in turn, will perform its premiere. In terms of content, the theatre project examines "European identity", expectations of and past experience with the European unification process, and issues like escape, expulsion, mobility and settling down. Following stops in Turkey, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia and Germany, the train will arrive at its final destination two months later - the port of Stuttgart. There, all the participants will meet once again at a theatre festival and perform their pieces on the rolling stage.

Artistic director: Christian Holtzhauer
Directors: Christian Tschirner (DE), Alexandru Boureanu (RO), Predrag Štrbac (RS), Tijana Zinajic (HR, Mustafa and Övül Avkiran (TR)
Writers: Mustafa and Övül Avkiran (TR), Matéi Visniec (RO), Branko Dimitrijevic (RS), Tena Štivicic (HR), Goran Stefanovski (SLO), Soeren Voima (DE)

Venues and schedule:
International theatre train with stops in Istanbul, Bukarest, Craiova, Temeswar, Novi Sad, Zagreb, Ljubljana, Nova Gorica: 14 May-5 July 2009;
Festival in Stuttgart: 9-19 July 2009

Preparation of working group meeting in December

2008-10-02T11:32:00.000+02:00

To freshen up the memory: The European Union published last year a “New European Agenda for Culture” which is a first attempt to create a common European Cultural Politics. To be able to transfer this political theory in practice the European Commission made a call for an open dialogue with the civil society. This dialogue was about to take place in two discussion platforms: One focusing on “Access to Culture” and the other one on “Potential for Cultural and Creative industries”. Arts institutions were able to apply to take part in the platforms. ETC applied and was accepted in the two platforms.

During the first Platform meetings in Brussels the 5-6 June there were a couple of working groups created. The ETC takes part in the following working groups:

Platform: Access to Culture

Working group: Access in the creativity and production process

Platform: Potential for Cultural and Creative Industries

Working group: Circulation of Artists and Artistic works

For the working group “Access in the creativity and production process” we have two assignments for the next meeting in December.

1. Write a short statement on what creativity and access to culture means to your organisation/sector

2. Give one case study of any example of when access is working well, and one case study of when access is or has been working badly

Discussion: Access to Culture

2008-06-16T09:46:00.000+02:00

This is the assignment for the “Access to Culture” group 5 gave to themselves to start the work.

Each participant will deliver a short statement about what creativity, innovation means to them (their members etc) in terms of access.

Each participant will deliver one “bad example” and one “good example” of access in their own sector.

ETC members please comment here or send email (to the delegation) if you have thoughts and ideas about these assignments! Please read the previous blog posts to get more information on the first platform meetings.

Report from the first platform meetings

2008-06-16T09:43:00.000+02:00

On the first day the 5^th of June the meeting on the platform “Access to Culture” was held.

The mission of the day, for the cultural structures that have been selected to participate in the platforms, was create a self governing body. In the end of the day we were well organised and three working groups with different focuses were formed:

1. Creation / production

2. Participation / audience

3. Education / learning

The ETC takes part in the first group, Creation and production. This is how the group defined their coming work after a first discussion: The group decided to favor a “pragmatic approach” to ensure access throughout the cycle of “creation and production” by identifying obstacles and to find possible “solutions” to them.

There was a discussion in group 1 whether a definition of the ‘use of creativity’ was needed or not. Since the commission has stressed that the “value of culture” is the base for the new European Agenda, I was against the fact of keeping these kinds of discussions that might take the focus of the actual goal, to make pragmatic propositions to the commission. However, the representative from the commission meant that it might be good to keep a discussion about the “need of creativity” since this is not totally clear for the commission. Is it really our job to define the need of creativity, when a common European Cultural politics is already under construction?

The 6 of June the meeting there was meeting for the platform for “Potential for creative and cultural industries”. This was a more problematic platform where there was an immediate conflict between the cultural sector and the more “industrial” parts of the culture: music, edition etc.

There were five working groups created during the day:

1. Regulatory environment

2. Support for the development of SMEs

3. Exchange/export

4. Use of the European dimension of the circulation of artists and cultural products

5. The interface of artistic creation and the cultural industries

The ETC takes part in group 4 and group 5. The last group will discuss the differences between the artistic creation and the cultural industries. This might be a more constructive discussion of creativity since it has a direct goal and starting point.

European Theatre Convention – ACCESS TO CULTURE

2008-06-04T00:40:00.000+02:00

This is how we will present the ETC and our interest in the platform for "Access to culture" the 5 of June in Brussels. Each participating structure has four minutes for a presentation:

The European Theatre Convention (ETC) is an artistic network created twenty years ago with the aim of exchanging ideas, staff and performances between theatres in Europe. Today the network regroups theatres in over 20 European countries. There are still exchanges between the theatres but we are also aiming to support the creation of new plays, collaboration projects and want to highlight and explore the role of theatre in the new Europe today.

The ETC wishes to take an active part in the discussions and debates that will be raised within this platform. We are also open to follow the directions that these discussions will take, and the goal of our participation is making the pragmatic and plausible, since this is a theme close to all of us but that tends to be big and general.

These are the questions that we wish to raise:

We recently had a workshop gathering 20 people working in the field of communication and education around the theme “Finding new audiences”. We found that, not surprisingly, the barriers for attendance are physical, economical or mental. And they do often come together.

We want to stress the importance of theatre and culture for young audiences. We call this “Education in theatre and theatre in education” because of the importance, not only for students to access theatre in their schools or to attend theatre performances with their schools, but also to be able to get the possibility to try, learn and to interact with the artistic experience. Giving an artistic experience to young children is the only way of reaching a future attendance which is not necessarily depending on class belonging. We therefore stress the importance of pedagogues and education departments on artistic institutions.
Many theatre institutions have a will to create audience development and accessibility programs but structural and organizational problems prevent them from doing to. We will share our experiences from the different member countries.
Attendance and access is closely connected to the actual importance for the audience. It is therefore necessary for art to be important. Actors need to have good knowledge about the people of today’s society to be able to be important. A serious art education with a European focus is important for young professionals.
The prices and length of a performance is often the most wanted information from the theatre audience. The price is directly connected to access and democratization of cultural attendance and we wishes to raise the question of the price of as factor of access.
We also want to defend the multilingualism and translation in the arts as a step towards access. This will promote the artistic diversity and the access of the culture of the “other” on your own language.
We recently gathered our members and we talked about the platforms. There is a big interest for what is happening in Europe, especially today when a great effort has been made to engage theatre professionals in our network from different professional fields in the theatres. The ETC wants to act as an “idea lab” by a discussion system that we have put on route, and we are hoping to bring a very practical reality to the platforms.

The ETC will not take part in the secretariat of this platform.

European Theatre Convention – POTENTIAL FOR CULTURAL AND CREATIVE INDUSTRIES

2008-06-04T00:36:00.000+02:00

This is how I will present the ETC on the platform for "Potential for cultural and creative industries" the 6 of June in Brussels. Every participating structure has four minutes to present themselves and what they wish to put forward on the platform discussions:

The ETC wants to take an active part in the platform for Potential for Cultural and Creative Industries, and are open for the discussions and debates that will take place but whose characters are difficult to predict in advance.

The questions that the ETC wishes to raise are:

Discuss and examine the “theatricality and eventness” that are being actively used in the management of today. What are the values of artistic management and of the theatrical experience for the private sector?
We want to discuss the closer connections and the bridge-building between the private theatre sector and the public theatre sector. We want to question the artistic franchise in comparison to artistic diversity.
The ETC wants to give a picture of how the different theatrical systems in Europe react to the expression “cultural industries”. For some of our members the cultural industry is already a reality whereas for others it is a dichotomy to talk about art and industry. The ETC wants to act as an “idea lab”, and we are hoping to bring a very practical reality to the platform.
We wish to put forward the connections between human creativity, in any sense and with any goal, to artistic education and cultural attendance.

The ETC is further willing to monitor debates and to participate in the secretariat of the platform for “Potential of Cultural and Creative industries”. We would like to take part in the bureau where we can contribute with competence in theatre economy as well as the gathered experiences of our members. We can also contribute with meeting facilities in Paris (in Centre National du Theatre) and in small scale meetings in Théâtre National de la communauté français in Bruxelles

General Assebly in Craiova, 1-4 November

2007-11-29T12:25:00.001+01:00