Cross-cultural Exchange and Cultural Mobility

Mark Jackson reports on the "format and the values" he witnessed in Romania at the Sibiu International Theatre Festival, which is the third largest theater festival in the world.

So what has the drive to make work in Romania taught me? I learned that art that has nothing to lose makes for theater that is fierce and always has something to say.

Who is allowed to draw on cultural tradition in a creative process and still be considered a “contemporary” artist? When does something become “heritage” or “tradition” and what attains status or gains cultural currency? Through this first "Innovate Heritage: Conversations between Arts and Heritage" conference in Berlin, Germany, with nearly forty speakers and artists from over thirty countries, we hope to open dialogue around some of these issues and many more that continue to expand, reconnect and inspire us.

I was young, knew nothing and was impressionable. I remember being fond of Yuriko’s direction. She would say things like, “go forward from here” while pointing to her heart. No one had ever given me direction like that before. That first play was the beginning of my romance with Noh (performed in Japan since the thirteenth-century, it’s the world’s oldest, continually performed, masked lyric drama) and I fell hard.

This week's conversation topic is "How do you translate theater into other languages and into other cultures?" and will be moderated by Playwrights Foundation @pwfoundation—who like all of our moderators, authors, and content producers—self-selected to peer-produce on this commons-based platform! This hour-long Howl will take place on Thursday, April 24 on hashtag #newplay at 11am PDT (San Francisco) / 1pm CDT (Austin) / 2pm EDT (Toronto) / 18:00 GMT / 7pm BST (London).

Alice Stanley Jr. discusses her experience at a workshop of Ariel Luckey's solo performance Amnesia, and the talkback which followed.

This period of shared, relaxed time puts the performers in harmony with the theater, the rehearsal, and their fellow actors. It's like musicians tuning in the same room together. When I participated in this pre-rehearsal hangout, despite my initial antsiness, and not knowing what to do with this unstructured time, I found that my mind grew calmer. The flexible start was a moment of meditation before a strenuous activity: a deep breath before the dive.

Our US union regulations and laws require us to take breaks of a certain time, at a certain time. But nothing requires us to take *exactly* and *only* 5 minutes every hour or 10 minutes every 90. Why not, as an experiment, give them more? Why not make one break longer, and looser? An ongoing series of reports from rehearsal rooms and interviews with theater people in Poland; how US artists can modify or adapt Polish techniques for their own rehearsal kitchens.

Yes, some rehearsals (not all, mind you) are paid, and have to be regulated, legally, as work. But why did we decide, as US practitioners, that theater rehearsals fell so wholly into the realm of work and were so utterly unlike things such as parties or play? Why did we push rehearsals all the way to one end of the work-play spectrum? How did we become afraid of rehearsing without a stopwatch?

Artistic director and playwright Wendy MacLeod and I wondered aloud: what would happen if, right then, that playwright was placed in a remote community of writers for two weeks, at Ohio’s quiet and serenely beautiful Kenyon College? And what if that playwright could work with the commissioning theater’s literary manager as an advising voice and with all the tools at hand—actors to read, writers to hear, and, at the end, a fully staged reading? And no ticket sales. No critics.

Utilizing the theatrical convention of the Jester, Daria Wilke explores the suppresion of homeosexuality in reflection of the jester’s inner freedom.

In this installation of PROPAGANDA: A Festival Celebrating Russian Voices, Lauren Keating addresses the Russian government passing the Anti-Propaganda Bill and the responses it has garnered.

We need to spend a little time talking about the Julia Child of Polish theater—Jerzy Grotowski—before we can get on to the contemporary companies which have emerged from this figure's work, and their rehearsal practices. So—who was Jerzy Grotowski? If you've ever seen the film "My Dinner with Andre", you've heard of the experiments of this compelling, controversial, sham-or-shaman theater director.

In the middle of the National Theater Festival and National Independent Theater Festival in Bucharest, the divide between idependent theatre and state theatre—artistic freedom and money—becomes clear.

Dara Weinberg reports from rehearsal rooms and interviews with directors in Poland; how US artists can modify or adapt Polish techniques for their own kitchens.