theatre

The Theatre of War Symposium & Project Ariadne

Other work

The Theatre of War Symposium, Abbey Theatre, 22-24 Jan 2015
PDF of schedule here

After slowing down to comatose this Christmas, my brain needed a good jolt to get going again. And what a jolt this was.

I hadn’t been able to attend the previous Abbey Theatre symposium on Theatre of Memory in January 2014, but had heard good things. A symposium on war, though? That was a harder sell for me. However when the ever-inspiring Dominic Campbell said he was on the programming committee, the decision was made for me. Dominic has a fantastic way of connecting people and creative ideas and often comes at topics from a direction I can’t predict. Conversations with him always leave me with a list of things to go home and google.

The programming of the symposium was excellent – both in terms of the spectrum of speakers and the scheduling of the three days. Nobody had quite enough time to speak, which meant they filled every second they were on stage with energy, so as an audience we rattled from one new thought, artistic practice or viewpoint to another. Also, thankfully, the few sessions I was less interested in flew by too.

Screen Shot 2015-02-02 at 12.49.21As part of the symposium, the Abbey were able to bring together the extraordinary women involved in the recently established Project Ariadne which is a network of female theatremakers working in conflict affected areas. Securing visas alone was an administrative feat – the women traveled from Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Serbia, Palestine and Burundi via Belgium to speak at the event. Having them all in the one place for the first time, Ariadne‘s organisers Suzannah Tresillian and Georgie Wheedon were able to see the scale of the potential that the network has – I’m pretty sure a few stiff drinks were downed to help cope with the enormity of the situation. I was very lucky to have dinner with the network – I’ve never sat at a table so full of inspirational women.

Thankfully, the Abbey has much of the Symposium online, day by day.
DAY 1
DAY 2
DAY 3 (still to come)

I’ve listed my own highlights of the event here, with added links:

  • Ariadne Project’s website and Twitter. The network members spoke on various panels during the symposium, and more information on each of them can be found here
  • David Cotterrell‘s talk on the experience of being a war artist in Afghanistan
  • Playwright Stacey Gregg’s piece on the “peace walls” in Belfast, as part of the Barriers panel on day 2
  • A presentation by Ray Dolphin of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs on the fragmentation of Palestine
  • Dr Anne Dolan of TCD’s paper looking anew at the Irish Civil War
  • Extracts of songs from Helen Chadwick‘s performance War Correspondents
  • Vladimir Shcherban on how Belarus Free Theatre keeps operations going

Performing Space symposium – DTF 2014

Design for performance

Thanks to Noelia Ruiz and Siobhán O’Gorman for asking me to speak on a panel as part of this event – a day-long symposium on scenography in Trinity College Dublin. It really was a great day, and felt like there was a lot still to say by the end of it.

While I missed some of the papers, I did get to hear some great presentations by:

Rachel Hann on the terminology around scenography (I hope to be able to repost some of what she said soon – it was really useful to hear her own definitions around stage design / scenic design / scenography / set design)

Sarah-Jane Scaife, talking about her beautiful Beckett in the City series

Cathy Leeney and Elaine Sisson both presenting very interesting papers about the documentation of design

Aoife Monks talking about magic/mundane lives of costumes and props (who also came out with the great line that “theatre is just made out of stuff and work”)

Sodja Lotker, Director of the Prague Quadrennial, talking about their upcoming event in 2015

Abstracts of all these paper and more can be found here.

IETM Montpellier April 2014

Other work

Thanks to the generosity of Project Arts Centre, where I worked with last year to put on IETM Dublin, I got to attend the most recent IETM networking meeting in sunny Montpellier.

En route to La Chapelle Gely, a venue in the centre of the gypsy district of Montpellier

En route to La Chapelle Gely, a venue in the centre of the gypsy district of Montpellier

Other than getting a hit of vitamin D, tasting one or two local wines and learning all about the inner workings of harpsichords, I got to meet some great people doing interesting things. Here are a (very) few of them in no particular order whose projects, ideas or organisations have stuck with me:

  • Michele Losi of Scarlattine Teatro, who are one of the partners in the (literally) epic Meeting The Odessey project. Awarded EU Culture funding, the organisers will set a theatre company afloat to travel through Europe for 3 years, making work as they go. I’m already planning to stow away.
  • Ingrid Vranken of Spin in ever increasingly trendy Brussels – part of what sounds like a really interesting collective/cooperative model of 3 artists (Kate McIntosh, Hans Bryssinck and Diederik Peeters) and a producer (Ingrid).
  • Kamma Siegumfeldt of Copenhagen’s Dansehallerne who helps coordinate the Nordic-Baltic contemporary dance network and development initiative Kedja (also awarded EU Culture funding). The Kedja wilderness retreats, in particular, make me envious.
  • Choreographer Samantha Chester from Sydney who was just starting out on a European research trip thanks to having been awarded a Churchill Fellowship.
  • Stewart Laing of Untitled Projects in Glasgow who most recently was in Ireland as one of this year’s MAKE mentors.
  • Harley Stumm (the best dancer in IETM) who is helping coordinate the IETM caravan meeting in Sydney, as well as planning an international producer residency between Europe & Australia. He hosted a meeting about the idea in Montpellier, so I expect some further details will be up on his website soon.
  • MCP Factory or Marie-Charlie Pignon, who works in Paris as a kind of artistic project advisor and counsellor.
  • Steve Slater (who coordinated IETM Glasgow in 2010 and was senior producer at the Tramway for ages) who is back making performance work for the first time in a long time – most recently in Glasgow’s Buzzcut. Always great to hear of people who crossover between the artistic side to the management side and back. I wonder why…
  • And an entertaining late night wine-fuelled reminiscence-fest between Mole Wetherell of Reckless Sleepers and Tracy Gentles of Clod Ensemble which means I know a lot more about how things have changed, if I could only remember in which city.

Videos from Voyage and Return symposium

Event coordination
Peter Crawley, Aoife Monks, Willie White & Fiona Shaw at Voyage and Return

Peter Crawley, Aoife Monks, Willie White & Fiona Shaw at Voyage and Return. Photo: Senija Topcic

Voyage and Return was part of the Festival Plus programme I coordinated for Dublin Theatre Festival in October 2013. This day long symposium looked at the international journeys of Irish theatre and theatre artists, and comprised an academic seminar and two public discussions. It was presented by DTF in collaboration with Trinity College Dublin as part of The Gathering Ireland.

Click on the links below to watch videos of actress Fiona Shaw‘s talk with Dr. Aoife Monks of Birkbeck University and the panel discussion between playwright Nancy Harris, director Gavin Quinn and actor Tom Vaughan-Lawlor chaired by theatre critic Peter Crawley, who also curated the symposium.

Fiona Shaw in conversation [YouTube]

Panel Discussion [YouTube]