This symposium will investigate how theater nurtures new audiences and achieves more cultural diversity of its own public. Obviously, more than just a marketing operation, the topic covers programming concepts, communication strategies and educational aspects of festivals that reach out to different constituencies and build an audience from which regularly producing cultural institutions subsequently also might benefit. The underlying assumption is that the festivals present in an emblematic manner the main challenges and contradictions of the cultural production and distribution today and that they have an experimental potential, a special position that enables them to invent and test practices that are later absorbed by the cultural organizations that produce and present year around. Not all festivals reach out consciously and successfully to the new audiences and this symposium should foreground ideas, strategies and practices that are remarkable, successful and inspiring for other festival professionals.
Format: the symposium will consist of 4 sessions, introduced by invited key note speakers (critics, researchers, festival professionals and artists), followed by research presentations, public interviews and panel discussions.
Interested colleagues (critics, researchers, festival professionals) are expected to send a 200 words outline of their paper (in English or French) to [email protected] and [email protected] by December 1st, 2008. Authors will be notified of acceptance by December 15th. The authors of proposals accepted are to send their full paper of 2000-4000 words in English or French by March 1st, 2009. Authors are urged to go beyond a presentation of a single festival, to pursue a specific issue in the practices of several festivals, to look beyond the borders of their own country, to apply a comparative method and to stress contemporary challenges rather than dwell on historic developments. Papers will not be read at the symposium but will be made available to the participants in advance, on the website of Sterijino Pozorje.
Authors will be requested to refer to the essential conclusions of their papers in the panels in which they will take part. Some authors will be invited to summarize their findings in a concise power point presentation (max 10 slides). The symposium will be conducted in English, French and Serbian, with simultaneous translation provided. After final editing by the authors, papers will be made available at the websites of the organizers: Sterijino Pozorje (www.pozorje.org.rs), International Association of Theater Critics (IATC) (www.aict-iatc.org) and at the EFRP public depository on the website of the European Festival Association (www.efa-aef.org). Print publication options are under consideration.
The symposium will take place in the framework of the 54. Sterijino Pozorje Festival, with a selection of national and international productions. The host is providing hotel accommodation, meals, theatre tickets for the participants who are themselves responsible for their own travel costs. Transfer from the Airport Belgrade to Novi Sad (80 km) and vice versa will be provided. Arrival is on 28th May, departure on 31st May.