Archive for the 'European Theatres' Category

Part 3. Artistic content and finance, a struggle.

Published by nienke scholts on December 12, 2008 in European Theatres. 0 Comments

Some conclusional thoughts on …


… INTERVIEW STRATEGIES

To investigate how finance and artistic content do relate to each other, five interviews were taken. I spoke to Alexander Karschnia, Claudia Janssen and Lisa Lucassen face-to-face in Berlin, I asked Siegfried Langbehn, my questions by email and had a chat-interview with Sean Patten – in the new Gob Squad chatroom in which a Swedisch student also participated.

What seemed a choice for one method of gaining material, namely through taking interviews, appeared to differ within the method
itself. In a live interview you have ofcourse far more possiblities to directly react to a particular answer, to ask other questions then planned and also read more physical signs. Sometimes the interviewed seem supprised about a question, they may laugh or even frown. That are signs you immediatly can react to, by adding some example to your question or in maybe refrasing it.
In a online chat you are already much more restricted when it comes to interactivity. Very practical things are at stake here. Already the difference in the typingspeed can give the interview a deciding direction. It possibly slowens the dialogue and already you have to consider that you wont be able to ask everything you want to and put some important questions first. In this particular case somebody else was joining the conversation. He had a whole range of totaly different questions prepaired. We had to keep up some patience but had to make sure we were not forgotten about too. Sean had to devide his attention and his thoughts between us..
Continue reading ‘Part 3. Artistic content and finance, a struggle.’

Part 2. Emailing Siegfried Langbehn..

Published by nienke scholts on December 12, 2008 in European Theatres. 0 Comments

Email
Fragen zu hauptstadtkulturfonds - der Stadt zum Thema


19 nov..

nienke scholts
aan siegfried.lang.

Geehrter Siegfried Langbehn,

´(…)
Morgen fahre ich nach Berlin wo ich waehrend eine Woche verschiedene Theatermacher und die Produzentin die Sophiensaele interviewen wird. Unter die Kunstler ist auch Alexander Karschnia, der mit seine Gruppe von das hauptstadkulturfonds gefordert geworden ist. Weil ich nicht nur in das Kunstlerische - aber auch in das finanzielle interessiert bin, wollte ich mich freuen wenn Sie bereit sind ankommende Woche ein kleines Interview mit mir zu machen. (…)´


20 nov

Sehr geehrte Nienke Scholts,

vielen Dank für Ihre Anfrage - grundsätzlich wäre ich gerne bereit, mich mit Ihnen zu unterhalten - aber ausgerechnet die kommende
Woche vom 24. bis 28. November haben wir ganztags Jury-Klausur. Wir beraten in dieser Zeit von morgens 9.00 Uhr bis abends open end über die zum 1. Oktober 2008 eingegangenen Projektanträge - und die Jury muß bis Freitag zu einem Ergebnis kommen, welche Projekte sie für eine Förderung vorschlagen möchte. Deshalb stehe ich leider für ein Gespräch nicht zur Verfügung. Sie können mir aber gerne Ihre Fragen per mail schicken und ich werde versuchen, sie auch möglichst umfassend zu beantworten.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Siegfried Langbehn

________________________________________
Siegfried Langbehn
Leiter der Geschäftsstelle des Hauptstadtkulturfonds


3. dec.

An S. Langbehn

´(…) Hoffentlich sind die Jury-Klausuren nach Zufriedenheit verlaufen. Ich schicke Ihnen gerne noch meine Fragen.
Letzte Woche war ich also in Berlin und habe da ein par interviews gemacht - die da verkriegen Information
hat wieder weitere Fragen bei mir aufgerufen.
Ich werde mich freuen wenn Sie die Zeit finden könnten die zu beantworten.(…)´

10 dec

Sehr geehrte Frau Scholts,
hier sind einige Antworten auf Ihre Fragen - einiges ist offen geblieben, weil diese Fragen bereits in Zusammenhang mit
anderen Fragestellungen beantwortet worden sind - oder weil es einfach keine Antworten gibt.
Ich hoffe, daß ich Ihnen weiterhelfen konnte.

Viel Glück und eine schöne Weihnachtszeit und alles Gute im Neuen Jahr.

Part 1. My Berlin

Published by nienke scholts on December 10, 2008 in European Theatres. 0 Comments

zug ostberlin

Since I lived in Berlin for almost a year the city became a second home for me. Home is not singular it is plural. It is about roots. The places or things that cause the home feeling do not change but grow – and it has a lot of faces. Home is the place your parents live or the village you have spend your childhood. Maybe it is the smell of your grandmothers ‘erwtensoep’ or the dirty kitchen in your dormitory. Or like Lisa Lucassen puts it: “Also Wurzeln sammeln sich an.” Every time I go back to Berlin I unconsciously look for the TV tower. The moment I see her I got the feeling that I have arrived. It may sound general but I lived quite nearby Alexanderplatz and so this disco boll always guided me home.
fernsehturm

I therefore was not surprised to hear the same thing from Sean Patten, Gob Squad member, who answered when I asked him what Berlin means to him: “First of all it is home, I get the home feeling every time I see the TV tower in the distance.” For Lucassen Berlin means a relief after travelling up and down to Hamburg every time. Now she lives in Berlin. Her Berlin is still really small. After 45 minutes cycling Berlin ends. Claudia Jansen´s Berlin is about diversity. Berlin incorporates also the nature you will find outside the Ring. The stretched out land, the green. “Stadt und leere bedingen sich gegenseitig“. In Berlin you have to be aware not to be so concentrated on Berlin, analyses Alexander Karschnia. According to him Berlin is a huge cosmos that has so much to offer that you have to make sure you do not stuck there but also show your work outside the city. Where his Berlin ends?
Continue reading ‘Part 1. My Berlin’

TRIP - Berlin

Published by Pim Kouwenberg on December 5, 2008 in European Theatres. 0 Comments

By Nienke:

    This page displaces my Theatre Research in Practise report in three parts.
    In order to say something about the TRIP’s overall theme “European Theatre(s)”, I took a starting point by making a statement that said:

    We can discuss an international theatre field, enabled by international coproductions, where artist enter a beyond border zone, a theatre field were the artistic act is being displaced.

    Of course this field is more of an ideal than reality. Statements are there to differentiate. The term ‘beyond border zone’ suggests that borders do not play any role anymore, but that is not the case. The question of transgression and borders nevertheless is a fact and one of today’s most important topics. When geographical borders do not seem to matter anymore, then what borders does? Nicola Nord: “The tricky thing about borders is that even if they disappear, they are not gone, they just move somewhere else. We want to know now: where will the border move this time?”
    Most of all I questioned the financial borders and how they influence the place or displacement of the artists, their work and theirfore the content of that work.
    Displacement here can be understand in a definition of Caran Kaplanmean wo defines it as a feeling of homelessness: the movement of real and imaginary places.
    Counterparts of homelessness are place and home.
    Mobility opposes roots.
    Internationality then does not have nationality as it’s opposite, in this sense the international thought already went beyond geographical borders: it opposes locality.
    City versus world.

    These are all extremities of a never ending movement in which the reverse side of the medal is always in need for the other.

    To research this in practise I made Berlin the subject of my project. I choose Berlin: City of many artists, theatre capital and a place were culture is the canvas of the city and a main point on the political agenda.

    The three parts:

  1. part 1 - My Berlin

    2. “Also, Wurzeln sammeln sich an.”

    A blog on my TRIP to Berlin and an introduction of the people, producers and artist, I met there for an interview on this topic.

  2. part 2 - Emailing Siegfried Langbehn

    3. The ´practise´ of research in practise

  3. part 3: Free Theatre and economics - a struggle

    4. “Die freie Szene wird international präsentiert und lebt von Austausch.”

    Conclusion and thoughts

EUROPE – NICE YOU’RE HERE

Published by nienke scholts on October 9, 2008 in European Theatres. 1 Comment

Here’s my column. (Engels is voor mij een soort tweede studie dus let niet op de taalfouten - ‘am trying!)
In the category: beyond borders - homeless

EUROPE – NICE YOU’RE HERE - or - European Theatre: about (co)producing beyond borders

6 march 2008, I performed in the Gods-Entertainment play, Europa, Schön dass Sie hier sind! at the Freischwimmerfestival in Berlin – a German language cooperation between Germany, Austria and Switzerland. I didn’t know anything about the process this group went through to make this performance, but I got the chance to play with them their ‘the European borders are open for all’-party and so - understand their questions about our need for boundaries.

In Europa - Schön, dass Sie hier sind is the following question asked: How much do we need geographical, ethnical and science borders, how much are these borders important to us today? What can people do for/against it to disestablish these borders? How relevant would fear for terror of others (fear for unemployment or criminality) be?
Thinking about theatre having the potential of being ‘European’ raises a lot of questions and obstacles (about culture, tradition, politics, history, et cetera). Then what’s Europe? A new kind of place where we don’t need our boundaries anymore, like Gods Entertainment ask themselves? In respond to their question I ask myself how much the theatre still needs borders? How important are they in contemporary theatre and what can we – theatre practitioners (in the very broad sense of the word) do to for or also against these fading of boundaries?

Because of the lots of obstacles and “againsts” this talking of one European Theatre I will try to ply for a European sense within the theatre field in the way theatre groups are able to find their ways through/ beyond these boundaries in order to get their work produced by different organizations in different countries. I feel a sense of ‘placelessness’ that goes beyond boundaries in the work of a lot of contemporary theatremakers – and that has nothing to do with the subjects of their work (their critics maybe on political, cultural etc. issues in their countries or Europe as a whole.)
They manage to find different producers who all together, in a co production, enable them to play, not within the boundaries of their theatres, cities, countries – but in a sort of beyond-border-space to be called Europe.