Performing Arts Market in Seoul 2009 Oct 16 2009 at the National Theatre of Korea Round Table - Europe - Moderator: Choi Seok-Kyu, AsiaNow, Producer Panel - Andrzej Churski, International Theatre Festival KONTAKT, Deputy director (POLAND) - Jean Pierre Jourdain, Théâtre National Populaire, Artistic director, Théâtre National Populaire (France) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Andrzej Churski : At present, there are in Poland about 140 public theaters. Most of them are drama theaters about 70, but there are also 24 puppet theaters, 11 opera theaters, 9 musical theaters and finally, five dance theaters. Among them, there are only several stages without a permanent actors ensemble, presenting the productions of other theaters. In practice, there are no cases of financing such activities by public funds. The number of private theaters is estimated at about 150, from the small ones to larger theaters with their own stages. Most of those theaters however, do not perform in their own venues. A part of such theaters act as non-profit organization. The majority, in addition to the box office income, get different grants, mostly from local governments. All of those theaters produce over 700 opening performances annually and they perform more than 30,000 shows, watched by about 6 million people. It is not a big number as Poland as a country has 38 millions of residents. In one of our neighboring country, Czech Republic, the overall theater audience counts also about
6 millions of people. Every year in Poland, 250 to 280 theater festivals, over 10 dance festivals, several street theater showcases and a few opera festivals are taking place. About 80 of them has an international character. Every theater city has its own festival and practically, every theater is an organizer of a festival of some kind. Those events are financed mostly by local authorities, some of them apply for an annual grant to the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. Only the most important festivals, including the ITF Kontakt, which I have an honor to represent here, get the three years support from the Ministry and central government. Most of theater festivals in Poland has a local character, even if they have the adjective international in their names because of the participation of foreign companies or guests. This network of festivals gives the opportunity for the theater companies, mostly the smaller ones, preparing their performances with the intention to present them not only on their own stages, to give several touring performances a year. Festivals are also the most important part of the Polish market of performing arts accessible to the foreign theaters. Touring of relatively small professional theaters in Poland is not a common practice, but rather an exception. Guest performances given in more than one theater are the effect of being invited to one of the festivals and then of extending the visit to two or three other venues. Sometimes it is a good way to provide the guests with additional income, but it does not cause the significant costs reduction for the main organizer. Poland is located in the center of Europe. Hence, the confrontation between East and West, post-communist countries with those representing western democracy was initially the obvious determinant for program creation of international theater festivals. This need for confrontation has also been a cause for organizing the KONTAKT festival in Torun. Festival KONTAKT, organized by Wilam Horzyca Theater in Torun since 1991, was the first one after regime transformation in Poland, but also the first international meeting in Central and Eastern Europe, confronting the theater ensembles from East and West. Among our guest, we also had companies from Asia, including Korea.
The importance of festival, from the very beginning, depends on artistic value of presented performances. KONTAKT festival was a turning point in career of many, nowadays renowned theater directors from Eastern parts of Euope, who sometimes for the first time had the opportunity to present their works to the western audiences to confront with western theaters. This also concerns Polish performances for which KONTAKT festival for many years has been a promotional window to the world. In May 2010, our festival will celebrate it s 20 th anniversary. We will show the latest achievements of a few most recognized laureates of previous editions. Among them, there will be Lies Pauwels, who is currently directing her new performance in our theater in Torun. They will be accompanied by the performances of promising young directors, not yet recognized by international audience. It will be a great opportunity for reflections about the future of KONTAKT festival as its current formula, although still working well, is already 20 years old. According to similar formula, every two years, another theater festival called DIALOG is organized by Wroclaw. Younger festivals frequently adapt other strategies: festival MALTA in Poznan becomes a multicultural event, where music is equally important as theater. The Festival of Four Cultures in Lodz tends to be a producer of performances. Both of them are organized not by theaters but by production offices. Both of them for the time being try the formula of tourists festival, which aims to gather not only professional but also mass audience. The quality of Polish showcase and at the same time of field of confrontation between Polish and foreign theaters belongs to a new festival in Krakow. Several international theater festivals in Poland concentrates their effort on the exchange between neighboring countries such as Germany, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Czech Republic, and Slovakia or focus their attention on a chosen region of Europe. Polish festivals are not tourist projects and their directors are guided by their own artistic ambitions. Hence, there were no cases of inviting foreign theater companies for a series of performances on different festivals in different cities. This is characteristic for instance for jazz clubs, which coordinate together the concerts of Polish and foreign jazz bands, decreasing in the way the costs for every organizer. There are no cases of financing such activities by public funds either.
Polish organizers of theater life and international exchange think mostly of promoting Polish theater abroad. The concept of arts market, in economic sense, is in fact limited to visual arts. This will probably change in a next couple of years, when some of the new, currently designed event venues will be built. Those venues may serve also for guest theater performances. Recently, two centers of theater arts were created, permitting some theater ensembles to use the common infrastructure. These can also be the places where foreign guest performances may be presented, in better conditions than in repertory theaters. For now, the international theater festivals are the basic field of international theater exchange and invitations or tours will be the effect of individual contacts between organizers. Thank you. Jean Pierre Jourdain: Let me first get into the history of Théâtre National Populaire(TNP). In 1951, France has wanted to democratize the theater play in order to make it more approachable to the audience. The nation has permitted TNP to run the educational program for the public. This evolution made by Jean Vilar, the founder of Festival d Avignon, has gained great success. Until the early seventies, cultural activities and facilities were mainly concentrated in Paris. In 1972, French government has tried to decentralize culture and TNP moved to Villeurbanne near Lyon. During that period, TNP was run by the two great directors, Roger Planchon and Patrice Chéreau. Since 2002, director Christian Schiaretti and artistic director Jean-Pierre Jourdain are in charge of the theater. Our principle is to go back to the resident theater company which is currently comprised of 12 actors/actresses. The number is expected to increase to 17. TNP work with this company for at least 3 or 4 years. TNP has decided to produce the works, especially those that only supported theaters could make. For example, either the work with long running time or the one with many actors. In its artistic plan, TNP is a theater which works a lot on French language and poetry, both classic text and the one dealing with contemporary subject. Nowadays, TNP is undergoing renovation. We had a hall with a capacity of 800 seats. After renovation, there will be 3 performance halls and 3 rehearsal rooms. We expect to start a biannual festival of new theaters of countries and to collaborate with national theaters abroad. The idea is to welcome two different countries and to compare them. One traditional work and one innovative work. We want to welcome one of those two directors in our
residency for a month, he or she will be working with actors of TNP, based on the text of contemporary writer from the invited country. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q&A Kim Moon-Hee (Actress, Dong Theatre Company, Korea): I have a question that applies to both of you. After our showcase yesterday, we were waiting by our booth but it was very quiet. What I want to ask is whether you think it is worth trying to present Therese Raquin in Frane or Poland. When we first took part in PAMS, we heard that it is more important how our work is perceived by the international audeicne than how we think about our work. In your opinion, can our work go to Europe and be successful with the European audience? Jean Pierre Jourdain : In France, it is the artistic director who selects a work to be presented and each theater has its own identity. For Therese Raquin the Avignon Festival might be the right place to start with. The Avignon Festival shows various styles of theater plays and the artistic directors from venues and festivals gather at the festival. I believe you could discover your future right there. Andrzej Churski : This is not a simple question. But to give you my answer, I believe I am sitting next to the one of the greatest actress in Korea right now. I was deeply impressed by your work yesterday. But the festival I m in charge of, the presenting right is also with the artistic director. Of course, I came to Seoul to see a variety of performances and I will make my recommendations but I m an old man. Many theater companies in Europe are already familiar with plays from countries like Russia. It is true that the style of the Korean plays changed significantly but it is still unsure how the Polish audience will respond to them. It is extremely difficult to predict how the audience will respond. Choi Seok-Kyu : Each art center has visions and programming that are different from one another. You said it is most advisable for play productions to go to festivals. In the case of the KONTAKT, which aspect of the Asian plays do you think is in line with the vision and direction of the KONTAKT? Also I want to know how Mr. Jean Pierre Jourdain sees Asia in consideration of the vision and programming of the TNP.
Jean Pierre Jourdain : First, I d like to note that I am here to discover works, not to search for them. As I have mentioned, TNP works a lot on French language. To talk about Therese Raquin, it is a work based on the french text, but the text gets disappeared due to images and motions. I don t know how that will be perceived by the French audience, it s very complicated. As for Pansori Brecht Sacheonga, for example, I think this interesting work would appeal to French audience. In this work, we can find two separate traditions of theater play: Pansori is well-known in France and not to mention the Brecht. Pansori and Brecht create a very interesting relation. Andrzej Churski : My festival has been focusing on Europe. If we invite Asian works to our festival, it wass because we were interested and intrigued by the foreignness of Asia. Of course I believe such perspective needs to be changed. We should avoid looking at Europe alone and this is why I m here. We need new wind of change in the Polish plays and Asia can help us in the process. In fact, inviting interesting works from Asia is still new to many of us in Poland. I think such efforts need to be continued. Kim Moon-Hee : You said the works presented at TNP are mostly text-based. Did you refer to comedy or recreation in French? Jean Pierre Jourdain : The text I referred to was the one of invited director s native land. The residency work continues for about 1 month, with young writer s text from the country. We could even imagine to invite the writer to work with TNP s actors. While the writer being present with actors, the actors could learn what the matters of concern of the country the writer comes from are. Virve Sutinen (Artistic director, Dansens Hus, Sweden): My name is Virve Sutinen and I come from Finland, I work in Sweden. I just wanted to give the exact opposite advice to you, rather than start from Avignon which is the center of hegemony, of present day theatre and dance. You could start from the margins of Europe; you could start from Poland or Finland or Sweden. Because Europe is not one market and if you think you want to break into that market, there are many ways into it. It's quite hard for to go to Avignon and it might be easier to start creating long-term relationships with the surroundings, with the margins of Europe
and through that coming to a meaningful relationship and start building your international reputation in Europe. When it comes to theatre, it's really hard because European theatre is basically based on language and national identities. But this is changing and, as you said, you're an old man. There's a new generation of festival directors; there's a new generation of young people who are very international and who are looking for culture diversity, of way of renewing also our theatrical tradition. From a very selfish view point to put something else on our seals, to have a future for our theatre. Our theatre is losing its audiences. We need this collaboration and we need exchange, we need dialogue and we need to open up our festivals, and our houses, our venues to something different. Europe is always so claimed to have the heads up on theatre and dance and I think we should be much more humble, and we should really look at what other countries have been doing and invite them, even with the risk that it will be misunderstood. But it is our responsibilities as organizers and festival directors to give the context and give the audience the possibility to understand it. So I hope in the future we will have more diverse programming in our festivals. Audience 1 (Korea) : I work for an entertainment/production company and I plan to go to Europe sometime soon. Most of Koreans tend to believe that it is more important to show what s Korean is and I wonder how that will be perceived by the Western audience. You said languages are important in plays but what about music? What do you think about music that is oriental and is there some areas where we should focus on? Jean Pierre Jourdain : For a work to go to overseas, it must retain its own cultural identity. Instead of trying to adapt itself to the environment, I believe it is important to work on themes that are authentically Korean. It can either be completely traditional or innovative. Again, in the case of Pansori Brecht Sacheonga, the text of European writer Brecht is reinterpreted in a pure traditional style of Korea. To see the work receptive to foreign countries influence is much interesting, and this combination is exactly what which appeals to the audience. Andrzej Churski : I agree with that too. I don t think it is necessary for you to reinterprete Korean traditional arts or make things easier to help the audience understand better. Even if you present your work as it is, it can still be interesting and I think it will also be very nice to add a contemporary taste to a traditional
work. For your information, I am sure that the audience can distinguish between what is contemporary and what pretends to be contemporary for the commercial purpose. Dagmara Gumkowska (The Bytom Center of Culture, Poland): I just have a comment to the various questions but I think I definitely know what shouldn't be done. And I see examples of this. What shouldn't be done--well, not what shouldn't be done but what should not be readily received, is when Korean theatre is following Western patterns. Is like Korean company is trying to imitate, for example, American musical, incorporating into it martial arts. I just feel like, why? You know, it's like Polish cinema headbase when we had a decade when Polish cinema tried to present that we can create huge budget American movies. It was a disaster. Everybody honestly do this? And people don't try to do this again. And I think it's like you need to do theatre work that is interesting for you. If you start to think "What will sell", this is going to fail. Because you are not yourself. You are trying to get us what is in our minds. You are not challenging us. You are trying to be somebody else, so, I think that's the way not to go. Virve Sutinen : I really think Korean artists should do what they set out to do and from their own starting point, from their own context, and not try to accommodate anyone's taste. If they want to do American musicals, go for it. If you want to do commercial comedy, do it. And excellence in whatever vision you have, artistic vision you have, I mean, it would be ridiculous to think that Europe is only doing European theatre. We are also doing all kinds of theatre: there's European people doing Indian dance and we just had the Butou performance in Dansens Hus, done by Swedish choreographer. So I think any artist should choose their muse and work from their own context and be true to themselves and nothing else. Otherwise we lose art and then we lose culture and we lose ourselves. Jean Pierre Jourdain : I d like to add one point before finishing this round table. Let s get back to the matter of Imitation, I was personally surprised at one point. The spectator expects to go in to contact with the artist s intimate and personal parts. in Korea, there tends to be excessive use of the microphone. By abusing audio effects, the distance between artists and the audience, the intimacy between the two can be damaged. In France, we rarely use the microphone because there are things that can t be delivered to the audience such as the breath and the
dynamics of the artists. I believe more important than music or audio effects in plays is the physical relationship between artists body and the audience, and the intimacy.