Platform Shift+ Yearbook 2017

DIGITAL CHALLENGES IN THEATRE FOR YOUNG AUDIENCES YEARBOOK 2016/2017

YEARBOOK 2016/2017

3 | PLATFORM SHIFT+

DIGITAL CHALLENGES IN THEATRE FOR YOUNG AUDIENCES

4

PLATFORM shift+ is a larger scale cooperation project announced by the European Commission under their European Culture Funding Stream Creative Europe.

The network of 11 partners from 9 countries was created to meet the new challenges of producing theatre for young people in the digital age. The partners have identified the urgent need to engage with digital technology in order to understand the target audience. They make a major investment in the professionalization of theatre makers on an international level.

40 theatre productions, correlated to the reality of the digital age, are developed. In more than 50 activities PLATFORM Shift+ connects theatre makers with young people in an artistic dialogue. An extensive programme of activities encourages transnational exchanges of artists/artistic products and provides training in digital technology through Creative Forums.

5 | PLATFORM SHIFT+

DIGITAL CHALLENGES IN THEATRE FOR YOUNG AUDIENCES

6 PARTNERS

Project Management

1. Pilot Theatre Company (York/Great Britain)

Artistic Director Dirk Neldner

2. South Bohemian Theatre (České Budějovice/Czech Republic)

Literary Adviser Odette Bereska

3. Elsinor Centro di produzione teatrale (Milan, Forlì, Florence/ Italy)

Project Coordinator Sven Laude

4. Emergency Exit Arts (London/Great Britain)

Project Assistance Sophia Neubert

5. Kolibri Theatre (Budapest/Hungary)

Education/Engagement Mandy Smith (Pilot Theatre)

6. Theatre Massalia (Marseille/France)

Creative Forum Ben Pugh (Pilot Theatre), Johanna Malchow

7. Teatro O Bando (Palmela, Portugal)

Financial Administration Charles Moore (Pilot Theatre)

8. tjg. Theater Junge Generation (Dresden/Germany)

Financial Assistance Jackie Raper (Pilot Theatre)

9. VAT Teater (Tallinn/Estonia)

Support Project Administration Lucy Hammond (Pilot Theatre)

10. Teatret Vårt (Molde/Norway)

Website & Social Media Administration Sam Johnson (Pilot Theatre)

11. University of Agder (Kristiansand/ Norway)

Dirk Neldner Platform Europe 2.0 8th Annual Encounter Programme Felicitas Loewe: Welcome to Dresden 8th Annual Encounter Your Story

Co Productions 16 tjg. Theater Junge Generation (DE)

Emergency Exit Arts (UK) 22 Pilot Theatre (UK)

Teatret Vårt (NO) 28 VAT Teater (EE)

Teatro Elsinor (IT) 34 Teatro O Bando (PT)

Theatre Massalia (FR) 40 Kolibri Theatre (HU)

VAT Teater (EE) 46 South Bohemian Theatre (CZ)

Emergency Exit Arts (UK) 52 Outlook Season 2017/2018 53 My Digital Addiction

CONTENTS

56

3rd Creative Forum

TED Talks 58 Kalev Pihl 59 Hannes Grassegger 60 Dirk Emmrich

Stefan Albrecht 61 Jürgo Sören Preden 62 Loore Martma 63 Martin Koplin

Jørgen Callesen 64 Marian Ursu Workshops 65 Marian Ursu 66 Claudia Mayer 67 Dr Rebekka Kill 68 Jørgen Callesen 69 Ahmet Kose 70 Jukka Eerikäinen 71 Stefan Horn 72 Students of Mektory 73 Simon Will 74 Frank Tentler

Youth Encounter 75 Tallinn 84 Yorkshire 92 My Digital Addiction 93 My Digital Addiction Presentations and Reference Productions 94 Pilot Theatre (UK) 98 tjg. Theater Junge Generation (DE) 102 Emergency Exit Arts (UK) 106 Teatret Vårt (NO) 110 Kolibri Theatre (HU) 114 Theatre Massalia (FR) 118 Teatro O Bando (PT) 122 VAT Teater (EE) 126 Teatro Elsinor (IT) 130 South Bohemian Theatre (CZ) 134 University of Agder (NO) 136 My Digital Addiction Platform Shift+ Activities 139 7th Annual Encounter 146 My Digital Addiction 147 Mid Term Evaluation 154 My Digital Addiction 156 Timeline 158 Addresses

7 | CONTENTS

8 10 12 14

8

Platform Europe 2.0 The Project PLATFORM Shift is based on the shared conviction of 11 European cultural organizations that especially Theatre for young audiences must examine and deal with the digital transformation in our society and, in doing so, redefine itself.

We have to learn to understand the daily routine of the “digital natives” in the social media and Internet and simultaneously recognize the opportunity to expand on forms of Artistic Expression thanks to the new digital technology.

The third year placed the much talked about “intercultural dialogue” in the centre of the common work. The dialogue took place equally as much between the cultures and the generations as between the real/analogue and the virtual world.

These two aspects alone justify the four year time span of the Project. The more time we invest in the theory and practical side of this theme, the more we experience the huge potential within our ambitious set of goals.

The first of the two Platform Shift Youth Encounters took place in Yorkshire (UK) and in Tallin (EE), where young people from different countries met with artists. The presentations, which explored the different ways with which young Europeans deal with the social

media, arose out of a participative process.

At the 3rd CREATIVE FORUM, the participants of the meeting in Tallinn discussed, with theatre makers, the dangers of the digital transformation, the ways of dealing with Big Data and in what ways the possible abuse of data could effect our society.

The focus of the season 2016/17, the development of the international coproductions, made clear the extent to which the artists were busy with the consequences of the digital transformation.

Who can be trusted in this social-mediacommunication? How can I tell who seriously concerned about me? “Traitor” (Pilot Theatre & Teatret Vårt) dedicated itself to this theme and allowed its audience to take part actively in a crime story about betrayal.

“No Entry“ (tig & EEA) also studied communication behavior in the social media area. How to obtain access and to what information do we have access? What should we know and from what should we be shut off? Through an augmented reality, the production contains a specific story telling level, which the audience can discover for themselves.

The audience is also requested to interact in the production „Only Three Musketeers.“ (South Bohemian Theatre & EEA). Using the means of social media activity, the

audience takes a direct influence on the story and through this learns a lot about the manipulation of Data.

The theme of „That is (not) Europe“ (Teatro O Bando & Massalia) is already evident in the title. Where is Europe going with its crises? What effects do they have on the people who come to Europe but also on those who no longer feel as if they belong?

The six performers offer varied and multilingual interpretation approaches.

“Mr Green” (VAT Teater & Teatro Elsinor) places the virtual in relationship to the inviolacy of nature and comes across strongly through the fascinating 3D set and Animation. By playing with free association, the audience develops its own stories to the question: How and in what environment do we want to live?

The true, analogue life of a family is observed and judged in an abusive way in Internet.

Big Data doesn’t feed itself through the traces we leave behind us in Internet, it feels its way directly to us in our homes.

In “Short Circuit” (Kolibri & VAT Teater), the audience is presented with a gloomy fiction.

Dirk Neldner at the conference “European Success Stor ies from Creative Europe Cult ure” at the representation of the EU in Berlin (DE) in April 2017

With seven multi-media performances, the “Your Story” Festival in Dresden presents a strong message to its audience: Theater has arrived in the digital world, strong, brave and capable of development. In the process, it loses nothing of its meaning, nothing of its effect. It can, however, profitably capture the new-and because of this, remains an indispensable part of European cultural life.

Dirk Neldner, Artistic Director PLATFORM Shift+

9 | DIRK NELDNER: PLATFORM EUROPE 2.0

In the process, they clearly grapple for a stance, for criteria that would enable the young audiences to move around in the virtual world with a clear and individual standpoint.

Programme 8th Annual Encounter & Festival of Co-Productions “Your Story” Wednesday, June 7

16.00 Traitor (Pilot & Vårt) Dresden International School 18.00 No Entry (Pilot & EEA) Preview tjg. Foyer 19.15 Opening and Welcome tjg-Foyer 20.00 No Entry (tjg. & EEA) Opening tjg. Foyer

Thursday, June 8

18.00 Short Curcuit (Kolibri & VAT) tjg. Small Stage

Saturday, June 10

20.30 Three Musketeers Only (South Bohemian Theatre & EEA) Kraftwerk Mitte open air

10.00 – 13.00 Advisory Board Meeting

Friday, June 9

10.00 – 14.00 “Forms of Digital Protest in Europe” (Speeches & Round-Tables) 15.00 – 17.00 City Walks 17.30 No Entry (Pilot & EEA) tjg. Foyer

11.00 Mr Green (Elsinor & VAT) tjg. Studiostage

18.00 Presentation of tjg. - Theater akademie

10.00 | 14.00 | 16.00 Traitor (Pilot & Vårt) Dresden International School

19.30 This is (Not) Europe (Teatro O Bando & Massalia) tjg. Studio Stage

10.00 – 13.00 QLAB – Workshop with Philippe Domengie (FR)

10.00 – 13.00 Actors & Directors Workshop 14.00 – 17.00 Feedback-Talks (Co-Productions) 18.00 Sindbad (tjg.) tjg. Main Stage

TEAM 8th Annual Encounter & Festival of Co-Productions “Your Story”

Executive Director/Artistic Director tjg. Felicitas Loewe

Artistic Director Dirk Neldner

Head of Stage and Engineering Lutz Hoffmann

Literary Adviser Odette Bereska

Administrative Director Friederike Ludewig

Project Coordinator Sven Laude

Festival Director tjg. Ulrike Leßmann

Project Assistance Sophia Neubert

Festival Management Anne Schmid

Support Annual Encounter Elisa Braun Johanna Malchow

Educational Programme Coordinator Julia Kuzminska Press Officer Norbert Seidel Dramaturge for Digital Media Tabea Hörnlein Sales and Marketing Sophia Littkopf

11 | PROGRAMME

PLATFORM Shift +

JUNE

tjg. Theater Junge Generation, Dresden

12

It seems that a peaceful and united Europe is drifting apart politically and socially, and that is a matter for us all. Our responsibility to a young European audience should be to focus on how to better understand this world and how to adapt to this Europe.

In the meantime, this audience is handling a generally well-networked world, especially at the digital level. The interweaving of analogue and digital realities, the simultaneity of both worlds, the permanent presence of digital devices has long been an everyday practice for young people, and yet, it represents a quite astonishing challenge to equally experienced artists and theatre makers because the kind of communication with each other has changed so fundamentally.

For us, as one of Germany’s largest children’s and youth theatres with a constant mission to create cultural education and to create art on an equal footing with the audience, it is a great blessing to be part of the PLATFORM shift+ network. It enables us to research and explore the interfaces

between theatre and digital work, together with other European practitioners that focus on children and youth theatre who have different structures and working practices.

This happens for real in June 2017, when we are hosting the four-day PLATFORM shift + Festival “Your Story”, where seven bi-national co-productions with the participation of the theatres from nine countries will be encountered - real, virtually, digitally and analogue.

Welcome to Dresden!

Felicitas Loewe, General and Artistic Director tjg. Theater Junge Generation

13 | FELICITAS LOEWE: WELCOME TO DRESDEN

Welcome to Dresden

14

PLATFORM Shift +

The Platform shift+ delegates will meet from the 7th-12th of June 2017 for their Annual Encounter in Dresden. Kraftwerk Mitte, the fantastic location in the middle of the city, new home of the German partner tjg. Theater Junge Generation, is ideally suited for the festival of Platform Shift+ Co-productions. On the impressive grounds of a former power station, with its various indoor and outdoor areas, there is a suitable space for (almost) every production.

The foyers will be used as well as the stages and the attractive outdoor area. The only exception is for the performance of „Traitor“ (NO, UK), which will take place inside a school. The audiences will be able to mingle in all of the performances: The European

guests will meet students from the tjg-partner schools, the exact target audience for whom the theatres have been working.

The whole of the 2016/17 season for the PLATFORM shift+ partners was on the theme of collaborative work. The „My Story“ Festival of the National Productions at the end of the last season in Budapest provided a good insight into the different working methods and means of expression of the individual theatres. Because of this, the development of the partnerships and common concepts had already begun there. Co-productions grew out of a stimulating and exciting but, needless to say, complicated and occasionally arduous work process. In these productions, the two partners collaborated on the theme of “digital challenges” and put their

ideas into practice, each in their own way.

In this they aimed to achieve the challenge they had set themselves: to successfully speak to a „hard to reach audience“. The results are convincing and varied und will be carefully evaluated.

In addition there will be a large Round Table discussion about the contemporary digital political protest forms and a workshop for actors on the program of the Annual Encounter. It’s a tightly scheduled program but it does allow time for individual conversations, the essential part of getting to understand cultural differences and finding ways to work together outside of national boundaries.

Odette Bereska, Literary Adviser

15 | 8TH ANNUAL ENCOUNTER

8th Annual Encounter and Festival Your Story

16

tjg. Theater Junge Generation (DE) Emergency Exit Arts (UK) Co-productionS

No entry

On screen, there is a large and diverse cast: professional performers, young amateurs, young offenders in Dresden, interviews with people in London, Fukushima, Berlin, America. Experts in their field tell us about their experience.

The “game master” is the digital device.

Commands about how to move through the piece are issued in writing by the device.

The device has two live “minions” who rush around, constantly shifting roles in order to fulfill the commands of the game master. A young man (Moritz Stephan) and a young woman (Iris Pickhard) slip into different roles to allow the audience to follow the instructions of the device. They do not give instructions; they are the gateway to the zone.

17 | CO-PRODUCTIONS

No Entry is a video walk exploring the zones where young people are not allowed to enter: no go zones. There are zones that you long to get inside. There are zones that you are forced to leave. There are zones in cities, zones in the body, zones in the mind.

When you are not allowed in, how do you create access for yourself? What role does imagination play in this? The structure of the piece is an anthology. The audience is given access to different “zones” which are forbidden to them - or to other people.

People move from physical zone to physical zone by moving through the building.

On their mobile/tablet, digital content is triggered by their movement. They see dance films, interviews, no go zones in different countries, photos, drawings, animations. Through headphones they hear interviews, spoken word, songs.

18 Conception, Direction, Choreography Jo Parkes Camera Marco Prill Film Editing Lena Hartebur, Marco Prill Animation Alex Evans , Robin Stratton (Emergency Exit Arts) Spoken Word/Sound Design Arjunan Manuelpillai (Emergency Exit Arts) Dramaturgy Ulrike Leßmann Theatre Education Julia Kuszminska Digital Realization Tabea Hörnlein, Frank Tentler Production Assistant Thomas Scheuffler Scenography Assistant Yvonne Binnewerg Playing Moritz Stephan, Iris Pickhard In the Video: Marc Simon Delfs, Daniel Langbein, Christoph Levermann, Judith Nebel, Iris Pickhard, Moritz Stephan, Gregor Wolf and young People from the Theaterakademie.

Working process At the first meeting in September 2016, the teams from the tjg and EEA agreed to deal with young people’s handling of urban space.

We have been interested in the limitations as well as the possibilities and the creative potential of space, and also in strategies of appropriation. We decided to investigate these questions with young people in both cities. It remained open how this thematic interest would be linked to the issue of digitalisation. In the next two months, both theatres explored this idea further. The team at tjg was inspired by an encounter with Frank Tentler at the PR meeting in Marseille and developed the idea of an app that leads through the foyer of their new theatre. Frank Tentler agreed to develop such an app together with the theatre. In the course of the work process, it became clear that it would be easier and more cost-efficient to use existing app solutions and adapt them to our needs.

At a further meeting in January, both theatres faced the challenge of combining the different needs and ideas into a creative process. We decided to continue the cooperation with

the same artistic team but with two different artistic outcomes in the two cities. We decided that the development process should enrich and inform each piece. Elements from both works should be visible in each other.

This parallel working process required a lot of communication and transparency and we experienced both the great enrichment and the limitations of a digital exchange.

The active involvement of young people in the creative process beyond research is an important part of the creative work of both theatres. Alex Evans came to Dresden to work with young people, Jo Parks went to London to work with young dancers. In addition, many young people from different social contexts were asked to actively deal with their environment and formulate their needs. Many of these voices and opinions are directly visible and audible in both artistic outcomes.

Jo Parkes (Director)

Emergency Exit Arts (UK) tjg. Theater Junge Generation (DE)

Paper Cities is a film that is the culmination of ideas told through a fusion of multiple art forms, giving young people a platform to share, dissect and celebrate the subject of the city. The outcome of much of this work has contributed to No Entry but is also edited into a short film animation that will be seen online and projected on a screen at Theater Junge Generation. Over a 3-month period, the artists have worked on a weekly basis in both schools and with our partners at the University of Greenwich Department of Creative Professions and Digital Arts where our young people had the opportunity to use state of the art animation studios to bring their drawings to life. The drawings are inspired by the young people’s fantasies and real life experiences of living in a metropolis.

19 | CO-PRODUCTIONS

PAPER CITIES

20 The poetry project has centered on capturing the shifting landscape of London, celebrating its diversity, exploring differences between communities and the young people’s own experiences of being citizens in a busy metropolis.

We have continued to work with Plumstead Manor School to inspire young dancers to devise a series of movements that bring to life themes and ideas stimulated by the animations and poetry of Paper Cities. The animations were projected onto the young people while they were being filmed and the poetry from Plumstead Manor students was used as the soundtrack. The combination of these art forms created a moving illustrated world, which captured the young people’s experiences and aspirations of their shape shifting city.

21 | CO-PRODUCTIONS

22

Pilot Theatre (York, UK) Teatret Vårt / Barneteatret Vårt (Molde, Ålesund, Norway) Co-productionS

A girl is hiding. She did something wrong when she was trying to do something right.

Can she trust you? Can you trust her?

What is the right thing to do when it is a matter of state security?

And whose side are you on…?

This breathtaking thriller takes place at a secret location in York. This is a journey that will test the kind of citizen you want to be and question how we should act in more dangerous times.

Will you be a hero or a traitor? #TraitorUK “This is no ordinary production… an unforgettable hour of theatre.”

The Yorkshire Post

Working process The show was the result of a three and a half week devising process with Esther Richardson, Cecilie Lundsholt and Richard Hurford, following on from a series of workshops with a group of Year 10 students from the school that had taken place over preceding months.

The co-production was initially envisaged as an opportunity to reach out to new audiences, especially teenagers, who might never consider theatre-going to be for them, which is where the idea of making a production after hours in a school or public building was sparked.

23 | CO-PRODUCTIONS

TRAITOR

24 The idea of creating a fiction which was about breaking into a building which you would never normally be allowed into after closing time, felt exciting and perhaps rebellious. As co-producers we also wanted to investigate whether it was possible to make a show that used the resources intended for public good that were already in these spaces (especially the technological resources), and we wanted to work with a theme that would be powerfully relevant to the lives of young people in the UK and Norway and hopefully beyond.

After considering different ideas we found this exchange on Twitter: Twitter follower: Hero or Traitor? I just think of you as a nerd.

Edward Snowdon: I’m just a citizen with a voice.

It gave us our starting point for the show’s content. In a world that is going through seismic political changes, and where the trust between citizen and State is breaking down, we started talking about the question of how young people can make their voices heard, and became captivated by the idea of making a piece about a whistleblower who has broken into a public space.

A final extremely important aspect of our co-production was our aim to make it fun and participatory for the audience. Since we were already breaking into a public building, what other rules of conventional theatre could we re-examine? We were shaping a story where the audience was a leading character, and the actions of this audience would determine the outcome of the piece: so we aimed from the start to bring together an interactive experience with an action adventure, to create a chance for the audience to decide the kind of world we want to make for our future.

We also ran an initiative where two free tickets were available to under 25 year olds for each performance. Increasing access to our shows is always integrated into our audience development, but the site specific nature of “Traitor� meant that we approached this in a new way.

25 | CO-PRODUCTIONS

Audiences For Traitor we wanted to reach not only young audiences, but those students who may never have experienced a theatre performance. York High School is in an area with low engagement in the arts. The choice of venue meant that throughout our rehearsal process, which happened on the site of the school the curiosity of many students, cleaning staff, caretakers and teachers was sparked. This resulted in young people outside of the specific group we were working with choosing to come to see the show.

26 Director Esther Richardson & Cecilie Lundsholt Writer & Dramaturge Richard Hurford Designer Kate Unwin Sound Designer & Composer Richard Hammarton Cinematographer Anders Nybø Production Manager Ben Pugh Stage Manager Georgina Alexander Deputy Stage Manager Martha Everett Producer Lucy Hammond Voice Over Andrina Carroll Cast York: Thale Tornes, Line Brå Johansen, Theo Solomon Molde: Thale Tornes, Line Brå Johansen, Kevin Mbugua, Jonas Delerud Opening 23rd March 2017 at York High School (UK) Opening 21st April, 2017 in the Library of Plassen (Molde, NO)

27 | CO-PRODUCTIONS

28

VAT Theatre (Estonia) Teatro ELSINOR (Italy) Co-productionS

Mister Green

Marco, the hero of our story, has to learn these tricks quickly because he gets lost in a forest and is forced to spend the night there. He only managed to grab two things from his home: his favorite pot plant and a phone on low battery. He understands that he needs stronger allies to survive this adventure. But how does he convince the trees to help him?

Is it possible to understand and speak the language of plants? And can he even be sure that the trees don´t see him as an unpleasant intruder?

A visual adventure for children about the forest “Mister Green”, the co-production of VAT Theatre and Teatro Elsinor, premiered in Tallinn in March 2016 and now lives in the imagination of the young audiences that experienced it. But what´s the story behind it? Writer of the text, Mihkel Seeder, tells this story from his perspective, because otherwise soon no-one will remember anything. And the person who doesn´t remember the past lives in a world of uncertainty, wondering how on earth did we end up creating a thing like that...

29 | CO-PRODUCTIONS

Thankfully, some of the land is still covered with forest, but the humans don´t feel comfortable there anymore. The modern person feels lost and afraid between the trees. We don´t notice the silent activities of plants or see what an amazing network – a World Wide Wood – the forest has created for itself. If only we could do that!

30

March 2016, Forli (Italy) – Meeting of PLATFORM shift members PROJECT LEADER: Dear friends, the Shift is possible! Let´s start with the second phase of our project. Please find yourself a partner and start discussing your co-production.

WRITER: Wait, what? Right now?

MANAGER (OF VAT): That´s why we came here. We all had to bring ideas.

WRITER: Well...

MANAGER: You don´t have any ideas?!

WRITER: What about plants?

MANAGER: Plants... This is a project about the digital world!

PARTNER: I like plants.

WRITER: Where did you jump out of?

PARTNER: We had to find a partner and I happened to hear your conversation about plants.

PARTNER: I love it! (Laughs out loud.) Elsinor is in!

WRITER: Well... There is this movie, where a man is given the task to adapt a movie script from a book about flowers. And it drives him completely mad.

MANAGER: (Also starts to laugh.) Great.

Let’s do it!

PARTNER: ...

WRITER: Oh...

WRITER: You know, maybe it should be about trees.

June 2016, Budapest (Hungary) – The Annual Encounter PARTNER: I have given our idea some thought.

PARTNER: Trees?

WRITER: Or... lets go even wider: forest.

PARTNER: Forest? Are you sure?

WRITER: And...

WRITER: I´m not sure about any...

PARTNER: Plants – they´re the symbol of the fragility of life. But still they seem stronger and more enduring than the internet. The two create wonderful opposites. From where did you get the strongest impulse for this story?

PARTNER: But of course! Fantastico!

Partner suddenly sees the full picture and tells the whole story in such speed that the writer has difficulties getting it all on the paper.

August 2016, Tallinn (Estonia) – pitching the idea to the director DIRECTOR: If I understood you correctly, then you want this to be an audio-visual wordless play about forest?

WRITER: And with only one actor.

DIRECTOR: An audio-visual wordless monoplay about the forest?

WRITER: If you say it like that… it sounds weird...

DIRECTOR: You just have to explain to me why we´re doing it and it won’t be weird anymore.

WRITER: What do I have to say?

DIRECTOR: Why this kind of a combination?

WRITER: Um... sounds exciting?

(A long pause. The director looks deep into the writer´s eyes.)

DIRECTOR: I will choose the actor, okay?

31 | CO-PRODUCTIONS

WRITER: It wasn´t...

32

PARTNER: Yes. This wordless and visual production helps us to reach children, who wouldn´t usually come to see theatre.

WRITER: I renovated my apartment.

September 2016 Kristiansand (Norway) – Platform Shift mid-term evaluation meeting

WRITER: But I have never created anything for so young an audience.

PROJECT LEADER: It seems… as if you have everything under control…

PROJECT LEADER: Even better. Targeting a new audience is a noble quest.

PARTNER: (Smiles) Fino al più piccolo dettaglio!

PROJECT LEADER: I´m so happy and excited that all the preparations for the coproductions are going so well. Let´s break that digital door down once and for all!

And you… Estonian-Italian team, you´re still doing the thing about the bushes?

WRITER: About the forest.

PROJECT LEADER: Forests, bushes, sticks…

PARTNER: We also decided, that the show is for the children from the age 10+.

WRITER: We did?

PARTNER: Exactly! And the first draft of the text is almost ready. Isn´t it?

WRITER: Well… I´m looking for the last push, if you know what I mean.

PARTNER: ??

January 2017 Tallinn – first rehearsal WRITER: Sorry for sending the last draft so late. I had troubles with some...

PARTNER: A push for what?

DIRECTOR: The story-line is now clear. That´s what matters.

WRITER: To start writing.

ACTOR: I still have some questions though.

PARTNER: You haven´t started writing yet?!

COMPOSER: For me the play has a computer game vibe.

WRITER: Well, it was summer… and I needed inspiration.

PROJECT LEADER: So you went into the forest?

VIDEO DESIGNER: I can show you my storyboard.

WRITER: Wait for a moment! I just sent it yesterday night. How can you already have solutions? Where did you get it?!

DIRECTOR: (Hands him the text.) From here.

Read it.

MISTER GREEN

WRITER: How can you get the key... if even I...

Director Helen Rekkor

The team leaves the rehearsal room. Only the writer stays behind. He looks at the text doubtfully, opens the first page and starts to read. And suddenly he gets it. He gets why a man born in the digital world is suddenly so stressed in his home environment that he must flee from it. This man ends up in a forest – in a place that is completely unknown to him, but thanks to this situation he discovers a new world for himself. A new truth.

It seems the same rule applies for the character and for the writer – sometimes you just need the last little push.

Designer Annamaria Cattaneo Video designer Henry Griin Composer Ardo Ran Varres Actor Rauno Kaibiainen Photographer Siim Vahur

MISTER GREEN VISUAALNE LAVASTUS

www.elsinor.net

METSAST

Idee autorid ja dramaturgid: Mihkel Seeder ja Giuditta Mingucci (TEATER ELSINOR, ITAALIA) / Lavastaja: Helen Rekkor (TEATRIÜHENDUS MISANZEN) / Kunstnik: Annamaria Cattane (TEATER ELSINOR, Videokunstnik: Henry Griin ITAALIA) o / Helilooja: Ardo Ran Varres / / Näitleja: Rauno Kaibiainen (IMPROTEATER IMPEERIUM)

33 | CO-PRODUCTIONS

DESIGNER: Let´s go see the stage. I have some ideas I would like to discuss with you.

Authors Mihkel Seeder, Giuditta Mingucci

34

Teatro O Bando (Palmela, Portugal) Théâtre Massalia and Collectif Le Nomade Village (Marseille, France) Co-productionS

This is (not) Europe

Texts HENRI MICHAUX Artistic direction COLLECTIVE choreography VIRGINIE COUDOULET-GIRARD text selection and editing MIGUEL JESUS stage design PHILIPPE DOMENGIE hardware, software and light design PHILIPPE DOMENGIE, SYLVAIN DELBART costumes JULIANA PINHO music MIGUEL JESUS, PHILIPPE DOMENGIE car mechanics YOAN MOURLES If Europe is a car, how do we drive it?

Actors, musicians and dancers reflect on the different paths taken by Europe.

They explore its advances and setbacks, accelerations and major slips, accidents and damage, small falls and victories on this winding contemporary journey.

Notes on the working process We all decided to be part of the stage process to avoid any tensions that a creation made by two artistic teams, each with their own director, might develop. We really enjoyed building and performing this show.

It has been tremendously easy and difficult at the same time, trying to understand what the other means when they want to cover all the stage with grass (but we forgot that idea). We had discussions in very rough English and maybe that saved us. Because we had to slowly choose our words, trying to express the weird feeling one could have about a scene (already tricky in your own

35 | CO-PRODUCTIONS

Developed in co-creation by Teatro O Bando (Palmela, Portugal) and Collectif Le Nomade Village (Marseille, France) by and with JOÃO NECA, JULIANA PINHO, MIGUEL JESUS, PHILIPPE DOMENGIE, VIRGINIE COUDOULET-GIRARD, YOAN MOURLES

36

language) it gave us some humility. It helped us to think simply and have clear ideas. We tried to make this show as near as possible to our own personal feelings about the situation in European today.

About how to reach an audience that is not very concerned by theatre: We attached a lot of importance to constructing and designing This is (not) Europe with regard to the 15-25 year olds that engage with TV shows, YouTuber’s videos and a lot of artistic material shared through the Internet. So, we decided to make it fun, dynamic and articulated through strong characters. We also included a filming setup in the staging, linking a strong visual link between theatre’s stage and screening experience.

About digital tools: The entire light, sound and video line is controlled from inside the Renault 4L. Its heart is filled with electronics and a computer centralises all the information produced by different sensors. Apart from classic projectors, the lights that equip the car and those on stage have been made to measure. In case of an accident we have to adapt to problems.

We are the rats of our own laboratory. This direct relation between lights, sound and video is therefore alive and we use it during the phases of improvisation and the writing of the spectacle.

This dynamic allows us to use technical and numerical tools as ingredients of the writing of the show in the same way that the play, dance, texts and music do.

The first glances. The rehearsal room we began to occupy. A journey to the north. The arrival in Vela, an incredible meal. The return with the 4L inside our luggage. A week of shared directions and common sensations.

A full day of filming improvisations in the poor surroundings of Lisbon. By the farewell the glances had changed. We are now a team.

I flew to O Bando as I would have flown to the moon. I figured out strangers were living there. I turned around and remembered I had come with my own family. We were all speaking awkward languages; words would fit and then suddenly vanish or twist. Some turned to flowers, others to stakes. Our shuttle was a bit rusty but we made it fly with our thoughts, misunderstandings, laughs and silences. The room was changing from bright to dark, and we laughed, because we didn’t know where to sit. We found home in an ever-spinning hug, in epicurean meals, mouths shouting, burning and breathing.

And now we’re here. We’re home. Foreigners longing to share our entfremdung. Yoan Mourles

NOVEMBER 2016 - Marseille, France An exciting journey. The 4L arrived before everyone else and it kept waiting for our bodies, voices, ideas, images, sounds and places. We spent many hours sitting inside, our legs up, although it would be simpler to walk on the roof. After that, we opened the room, glued the structure to the wall of our memory and showed our first audience what had been built. By night, we watched a filmed rehearsal so we could rebuild it in the morning.

Some are building walls between countries.

They speak of fear! They say that this way we are protected from the foreign, the danger, the unknown. Without our notice, disguised dictators emerge between walls, dictating new ways of not thinking, not speaking, not feeling! Between walls diversity is not permitted because it instigates the confrontation of ideas and it claims the fundamental democracy! Between walls

there is no space for critical intervention, much less that this intervention becomes diverse or adverse! It is absolutely necessary, between walls to feed the rotten peace that immobilizes the tongue and paralyzes the heart. Without people there are no countries. So what are frontiers for? This is (not) Europe is born between frontiers.

Here are no walls! Bridges are made!

Bridges between actual people, made of flesh, reason, delirium, immediacy, drive, confidence and love! Here are no walls!

We raise a thousand bridges to reinvent democracy in this wonderful rendezvous between Miguel, Neca, Ju, Virginie, Philipe and Yoan. Juliana Pinho

DECEMBER 2016 –Palmela, Portugal Plenty of days and a show’s structure to decide. It takes many arguments, much paper, pens, cigarettes and vivid debates to get to a common place without artistic compromise. Shred and throw away. Rewrite with straightforwardness. And finally getting to a place we agreed to try on as a group.

We did not need the 4L. First we needed to believe in the purpose of this journey.

37 | CO-PRODUCTIONS

Diary of the working process OCTOBER 2016 - Palmela, Portugal

38

structure we built in December. Not being absolutely sure, discovering until the end, gaining confidence step by step.

Democracy, it takes a long time. It takes a long time to grow, to settle, to find the way of answering to even the most silent voices. It has its time, democracy. It also has processes made of many processes, of many tongues, languages, experimental and experimented ideas. We commit to continuous and vivid debate on all the areas of show construction.

Seeking consensus. Seeking a democracy that supports an even greater power for each individual. An even greater power for each and every one. A democracy where power opposes authority. A democracy that, step by step, defined and confident, can oppose the speed and transitoriness that so many want to gift her. Miguel Jesus

The generation that will face the coming years will not see the future based on the real world. It is the consumption of the virtual that gives a similar sensation to what we have called previously the horizon and dream. At first glance we would say that theatre does not belong to the things that foretell. Because it is an Art to be enjoyed in the present moment, with all sensations of presence, without referring to technology which mediates between who does and who watches. PLATFORM shift+ has tried to prove otherwise, providing moments of sharing, debate and creation related to the triangle Theatre-Real-Virtual among companies and collectives from 9 different countries. This is (not) Europe is a great symbol in which the capacity to fall in love with each other, as people and as artists, is a powerful direction that surpasses distance, cultures, languages, ages and aesthetics. Theatre is flesh, sharing and trust. And to forget that is to follow the strict line to the virtual future. João Neca

JANUARY 2017 - Marseille, France The 4L returned to stage completely renovated. As the characters kept gaining bodies, our travel companion gained even more preponderance. Rehearsal days were times for questioning each detail of the

FEBRUARY 2017 - Palmela, Portugal Days of assembling and adjusting scenography to O Bando’s stage room. Last rehearsals, mixed anxiety and happiness of knowing that the next moment will be with the audience. Finally a show premiere! A room full of many familiar faces and plenty good motives to celebrate. The audience left us as good critics and spread the word with so many people who kept filling our room almost every day, they even “made us” have an extra show on the last night.

Faced with the problems of Europe, I feel so useless. Sadness here often mixes with anger.

It tightens my throat when I look at my 5-yearold daughter living in that nameless shit called the world. So I get on stage and spit my guts up with our improvised band, half cod, half French fries. I needed to at least share that with an audience, to jostle and make them think a little. Philippe Domengie

The return to Marseille and La Friche to host three shows for French audiences. The previous rehearsals were about translation matters: what should be translated and which meanings are kept by the audience when listening to a language they do not understand? The universality of theatrical work has prevailed but through the tongues of actors, new words came out, shared ones.

Something was clear to everyone: language aside, the show is a living being, vibrant and appealing that gives all of us the pleasure of acting in it. And when it happens, the audience feels it.

What I will keep in memory of this incredible adventure is that we could create and preserve a space in which our convictions, our doubts and our differences did not cease being a common force. I believe that more than ever we need this united force as artists, as people, as citizens. Virginie CoudouletGirard

Throughout this period, Théâtre Massalia was like a production house, dealing with budget, rehearsals rooms, organisation, etc. It was a very exciting experience to see the six artists dealing with their differences and their common desires in the same time, sharing a lot of respect and admiration for each other.

We had delegated the artistic direction to the Collective Nomade Village and were proud of their work. Meanwhile, we had begun another workshop programme with our group of young people, headed up by the puppeteer Cyril Bourgois.

Emilie Robert (Artistic Director Théâtre Massalia)

39 | CO-PRODUCTIONS

MARCH 2017 - Marseile, France

40

Kolibri Theatre (Budapest, Hungary) VAT Theatre (Tallinn, Estonia) Co-ProductionS

SHORT CIRCUIT Based on the concept of György Vidovszky, Péter Horváth and Kristiina Jalasto

Director György VidovszkySet & Costumes & Puppet Design Inga Vares

Have you ever wondered what makes your gadget so clever, up-to-date and thoughtful?

It remembers everything that you have done, it follows your desire and tries to figure out what you want to hear or see. But what - or, more accurately, who is behind the screen? Let’s take a look at the mission of the Cookie Academy’s best students, the Smart Commando. Their task is to secretly follow a family whose members are online nearly all day. However, the son, Erik goes online in a very unusual way…

Digital Design Tamás Zádor

Puppets Ákos Mátravölgyi Choreography Eszter Gyevi-Bíró Cast Gábor Krausz, Gergő Bárdi, Rita Alexics, Dániel Nizsai, Gergely Blahó and Dániel Fehér Working process The topic of our co-production is the result of some very fruitful conversations with Mihkel Seeder. However, we changed our focus several times. We agreed that what we were most interested in was how much our digital environment influences our life.

41 | CO-PRODUCTIONS

Music András Monori

42 Recalling Hannes Grassegger’s TED Talk during the Creative Forum in Lisbon in 2015, which had a huge impact on me, we tried to formulate our vision in the frame of a possible storyline.

We had a meeting in November 2016 in Tallinn with Péter Horváth and Kristiina Jalasto, who planned to write collaboratively using our initial ideas as a starting point.

We all agreed that we would somehow impersonate programmes and gadgets in our play. Our first vision was to do that with Smart Dust, which is definitely one of the creepiest future plans in the development of the digital world. Our intention was to create an interactive production in which the audience would have the chance to act as part of the digital world within the frame of a huge board game. That would have put a huge responsibility on the playwrights because maintaining the storyline in one direction but letting the young people decide the way

the story should go is very challenging, even impossible. (Both of these ideas – Smart Dust and interactivity – we had to drop during the process.)

In the months following our meeting, we tried to create something together. Being in three different countries (director and the two playwrights) and no one using his or her mother tongue in the creation made this difficult. Our ideas, solutions were going slowly in different directions and the co-writing seemed to be holding everybody back rather than inspiring each other. The playwrights felt they were losing ownership, the director felt stressed because of not having a play in hand with which to start all the preparation.

At the end of some months of searching, I asked the help of a Hungarian dramaturge Attila Eck, who created a script based on our common ideas in a very short time – in his own mother tongue, naturally. Meanwhile we started to work with Inga Vares from Estonia (who was involved in the previous Platform project too) on the set, costume and puppets.

The production We worked with six actors, two projectors, two screens, a camera and a green box on stage. Our main technical challenge was how to use live green box editing in a production.

The actors – mainly dressed in green – acting with puppets in a green box, on which the picture is projected with a constantly changing, live edited background. Although I had never had the chance to take part in any of Philippe Domengie’s green box workshop, I was interested in the possibility of using it in a live performance.

Our audience sees the result and the creation at the same time, because they see the green box (with the actors and puppets) and the edited picture side by side.

In the story, the human beings are puppets and the Cookies – which you have to accept when you enter a new website – are played by actors who are moving the puppets. That concept gives a reason and a meaning to our decision to use live green box on stage.

43 | CO-PRODUCTIONS

44 We have mapped the “behind the screen” world as a command centre in a spy movie with all it’s well-known military attitude, in which a group of smart Cookies are on their first real mission. Obviously nothing goes the way they plan. However, their goal seems to be very simple: they should make a family as happy as possible for 24 hours – using all the technical gadgets they can.

Educational programme According to the ethos of Kolibri Theatre we offer an educational programme for each of our productions for young adult audiences. Sometimes an idea, which comes up during the creation of the show – but won’t be part of it – can give the frame of it. In this case we could successfully adapt the interactivity and the board game method in the post show activity.

The production, suited for young people 12+, is also offered for people who are hard of hearing or sight-impaired. Kolibri is part of the initiative of theatres, which make their productions accessible for audiences with disabilities. György Vidovszky (Director)

VAT Teater (Tallinn, Estonia) Kolibri Theatre (Budapest, Hungary) Co-ProductionS

Log off (Working Title)

By Kristiina Jalasto

The premiere of the Tallinn´s production will take place at the end of March 2018.

CV Kristiina Jalasto Kristiina was born in 1985 in Tallinn, Estonia. In 2004, she graduated from theatre-specialized high school. She spent 2,5 years abroad working as a volunteer in Brazil, UK and Mozambique.

In 2012, she graduated the Drama School of Estonian Academy of Theatre and Music and has been working as a freelance dramaturge since.

So far, she has written about two dozens plays and theatrical adaptations of different length, several of them have won awards on drama competitions. In 2010, her first book with four drama texts was published. She also translates plays from Portuguese and English. In the previous PLATFORM 11+ programme, her play “Salto Mortale”, written in co-operation with Michaela Zakutanska from Slovakia, was staged in 2011 in VAT Teater.

45 | CO-PRODUCTIONS

The co-operation between Kolibri Theatre and VAT Teater continues in the 2017/18 season. Estonian author, Kristiina Jalasto, will create a new play based on the material gathered whilst creating ideas for the Hungarian show “Short Circuit”. In the new play, with the working title “Log off”, “Kristiina Jalasto will let her plot unfold from the perspective of Al., who tries to understand the behaviour of humans both inside and outside of the Internet. As the two worlds, each one with very different logic and rules, melt together with increasing pace, the machines feel they have to learn everything they can to prevent errors or maybe even something worse.

46

South Bohemian Theatre (České Budějovice, Czech Republic) Emergency Exit Arts (London, Great Britain) Co-Production

Three Musketeers Only Open-Air Summer Imaginarium A story that is older than your grandma. A theatre performance that is even better than a holiday in Provence.

What would happen if only three of the three musketeers remained?

One of the most famous novels of all times, in a unique summer-style traveling adaptation for three actors. Don’t wait for d’Artagnan and take cover!

We perform under the stars.

Director Janek Lesák Set & Puppet Design Karel Čapek Puppet & Model Technology Gordon Allum Costumes Tereza Vašíčková Music Ivo Sedláček Dramaturgy Natálie Preslová Cast Martin Dobíšek, Aleš Surma, František Hnilička, Terezie Jelínková, Petr Hubík, Jan Ptáček/Libor Hlaváč, Lukáš Zahradník Co-Production Process We agreed with Emergency Exit Arts on a co-production called “Invasion”. Our original idea was to have a five day long happening, with a large space ship installation during the big student festival in Budweis in May.

47 | CO-PRODUCTIONS

Alexandre Dumas/Janek Lesák et al.

48 We started to work on it and prepared a rough concept, which did not contain the whole idea. We expected that this idea would arise out of our meeting with the two colleagues from EEA, which took place in Budweis in December 2016. We worked on the concept for three days and developed lot of ideas, but the plan was quite risky. We were not sure that we could reach a successful end product with it. The concept did not fit the idea of having an installation, which would be managed by a maximum of three people who would travel with it. The idea developed into a big spectacle with a large number of actors and volunteers. We would be hardly able to present it in Dresden or anywhere else (it would only be possible in Budweis). And there was almost no chance to go to other festivals due to the big organizational requirements of the project. So we had to rethink the whole concept.

After New Year 2017, we had a radically different concept of a street theatre show.

The name of the show is “Only Three Musketeers”. It is inspired by the world famous novel of Alexander Dumas, but the story is about what happened before D’Artagnan appeared (something like the prologue of The Three Musketeers). Three musketeers tell their stories of how they became heroes after starting out as normal men.

Here are some Shift key questions and answers: Where is the digital element of it?

Our musketeers have lost their historical shape throughout the years. They have become a “brand”, they are “rolling stones” among elite soldiers, hipsters who are busier giving autographs than actually doing any real fighting with their branded swords. They use modern equipment.

49 | CO-PRODUCTIONS

They will be snooping around the town with a drone camera and live streaming concrete (directed) situations, which will be happening two streets from the place of the performance. A short movie (filmed by us) will be a part of the performance. Several parts of the performance will be told through an existing instagram account of the musketeers. If the audience take a photo during the performance and put it on instagram with a correct hashtag, it will appear on the projection on stage.

50 We shall use the topic of instagram world, in which historical figures can be made out of an average photo by using several filters.

How does it connect with young audiences?

We think that young audiences are the target group, thanks to the topic of heroism and the search the personal identity. This production will be partly a prologue for The Three Musketeers. The current musketeers are reflecting on how they grew up. What do teenagers have to do to become “The Three Musketeers�? This is the question, which the audience has to confront through seeing this story.

It will be a street theatre piece played by 3 actors, a live music band of 4 people and a larger-than-life size puppet of Pegasus - the symbol of heroes.

Deb Mullins (Artistic Director, Emergency Exit Arts): We would like EEA to cooperate with us by being the engineers of the big puppet, because that is an EEA skill that we were interested in from the beginning.

We believe this topic (how to become a hero) will be interesting for teenagers. We plan to incorporate modern digital technologies in the show - live stream from a drone, instagram pictures of teenagers becoming heroes etc. This show should be suitable for an outdoor space - garden, park or similar. We plan to play it in The Bishop Garden in Budweis through the summer season.

“We are also very excited to have been invited by the South Bohemian Theater in Budweis to be part of their cooperation.

For this project EEA associate artist, Gordon Allum, has designed a marvellous mechanical, puppet horse that will be the centrepiece of an outdoor production.�

51 | CO-PRODUCTIONS

EEA agreed with this idea and continued on the co-production with us. This concept of this co-production seems to be more realistic.

Planned premiere of the show is on May 6th in Budweis.

52 PLATFORM Shift +

Outlook Season 2017/18 PLATFORM Shift + is approaching its final period: Now that the partners have worked on the theme „Digital media for young audiences” in national and bi-national productions, they will co-operate with other partners from the PLATFORM Shift+ Network on the Final Project Phase. Young people are involved in the development of the productions to an even larger extent than in the previous work processes. At first, the themes for the National Productions were filtered out of the research, which had been done by the young people. Then, in the binational co-productions, the emphasis was placed on the predominately young “hard to reach audience”, and now - in the final phase - the young people themselves will be active in the shows.

Through this, groups of at least 3 partners will join together to collaborate on one production with digital technology being at the centre of the artistic process. Each production will involve the participation of young people as performers and co-creators.

These productions will tour to all partners’ locations integrating local young people into each performance.

Alongside the work on the final productions, the 10 CREATIVE FORUMs stand at the center of the project. Up until now there have been 3 central Forums (Lisbon 2015, Budapest 2016, Tallinn 2017). The 4th CREATIVE FORUM will take place decentralized, in 10 European cities.

Each partner will create their own conference (including TED like speeches and workshops by international experts) shared with all other partners and worldwide through digital channels. The Final production will be a central element combined with home-produced artistic products and technological events/artistic demonstrations in collaboration with schools and other local/ regional partners. Also here, young people

will be involved at every level as performers, artists, proactive collaborators and audiences.

In combination with the Final Youth Encounter PLATFORM Shift+ plans, for Autumn 2018, a final large Encounter, the Evaluation Meeting in Marseille, France. The partners will meet there to disseminate the Project Legacy.

Sustainability is at the centre of all PLATFORM shift + activities. The project’s ultimate goal is to guarantee the partners’ future through professionalization, audience development, enhanced capabilities and ambitions in digital technology and networking. By working together on a European scale, the position of all the partners will be strengthened.

During its last phase this international work is combined with contemporary participatory theatre models – and again dedicated to the theme of the project, “the digital challenges”.

PLATFORM shift + sees its mission as stimulating and supporting a new beginning for European theatre in the digital age, to lead by example and generate debate about the future for theatre and audiences.

Odette Bereska (Literary Adviser PLATFORM Shift+)

OK, I admit it. I’m addicted. I’m addicted to finding all the different ways that I can merge traditional/ real life/analogue drawing and painting technology with the digital. From capturing vectors from 3 meter chalk boards to photographing moving bits of black paper. If it’s in the real world and I can make a mark with it, then I shall also be itching to get it onto a screen.

Screens are things I see far too much of!!

(Robin Stratton, Associate Artist, Emergency Exit Arts, Great Britain)

53 | ODETTE BERESKA: OUTLOOK 2017/18

MY DIGITAL ADDICTION

54

MY DIGITAL ADDICTION It is easier to live in a fantasy world. It is easier to organize everything from the comfort of your armchair. It is easier to explore the world safely in our homes. It is easier to communicate and yet stay alone. It is easier to be online when you are terrified of this decaying world. My addiction is Network...

FrantiĹĄek HniliÄ?ka, actor, South Bohemian Theatre, Budweis, CZ

The one digital thing that I cannot quit is Pinterest. It all started when I was planning my wedding four years ago, it was a great way of finding dĂŠcor ideas as well as easy crafts, cakes and costumes. But it never stops there. You never find exactly and only exactly what you want. You end up going down a rabbit hole of curious objects and strange uses for everyday detritus. I would start by looking for the best way to dry flowers, which would spiral down to how to make a bee garden and then all the way round to instructions on making a plastic bottle igloo.

Whenever I want a mood board or inspiration ideas or How To instructional articles, I go to Pinterest. Then of course when I close the app down I find that several hours have gone by and I suddenly have the urge to make a cocktail bar out of old wooden pallets!

(Ruthie Carlisle-Brown, Administrator, Emergency Exit Arts, Great Britain)

55 | DIGITAL ADDICTION

MY DIGITAL ADDICTION

56

3rd Creative Forum Tallinn / Estonia (April 6 – 8, 2017) In PLATFORM shift + educative opportunities concerning digital technology are delivered through annual CREATIVE FORUMs, meetings with lectures and training opportunities. They are attended by PLATFORM shift+ delegates and are also open to a local/regional public audience. Global audience is connected through digital channels.

The 3rd CREATIVE FORUM in Tallinn, following the previous ones in Lisbon and Budapest, was a very special conference in more ways

than one. The tightly scheduled one day program developed in to a three day meeting and, as a one and only event in this year, it was not tacked on to an Annual Encounter.

On top of this, an international group of young people from Norway, Germany, the UK and Estonia participated and contributed to the structure and content of the Forum.

The main goals of CREATIVE FORUMs are acquisition of digital, technological knowledge and offering a better access to high quality training for the delegates. Through this, we

are consequently pursuing our finding that particularly Children’s and Youth Theatre makers must face up to and deal with changes in behavioral and value systems in these constantly developing times. Do such changes really affect our young audiences or do they only affect older people like us?

After the TED style talks, a young Norwegian surprised us all by asking “Was the world back then, when you were young, so much different from today?”

Our European theatre co-operative efforts are one clear answer and our serious involvement of young people is another step into the right direction. We have to continue the debate with young people. We can learn from their digital narratives, from their stories – but we should insist on telling our stories too. To achieve this, together with our audiences, our “co-creators,” we must learn understanding in order to perceive whatever holds // The world together in its inmost folds” (Faust by Goethe).

But we have to learn more: We have to get a GPS system, which will lead us through the new world and we have to learn the language of programming. Only when we are able to understand how the digital world functions, are we back in the driver’s seat. That’s the reason for the emphasis

in the workshops during the 3rd CREATIVE FORUM on Programming: Robots, Apps and Music. How can we actively transform the technology so that it serves our creativity?

The panel discussion on the 2nd day was dedicated to the major political themes of the digital revolution: the threatening presence danger of manipulation of our Data (Big Data).

The catch phrases of recent months – fake news, nationalism and populism, things, which attack our democracy - were central issues.

The debate led by Hannes Grassegger and Kalev Pihl dealt with existential elements of modern democracy and it was of utmost importance that this discussion took place together with young people from the Youth Encounter.

Having seen the VAT production „Faust“ at the end of the debate, I end with one more quote from Goethe: “And here poor fool I stand once more// No wiser than I was before”. Yet, perhaps such conferences as these are a great help in the urgently necessary acquisition of knowledge.

Dirk Neldner, Artistic Director PLATFORM Shift+

CREATIVE FORUM Tallinn 2017

Culture

57 | 3RD CREATIVE FORUM

The central point is: What can we do, how do we can prepare ourselves, how can we steel ourselves? As Europeans and as artists, we have to face up to this shared challenge so that we can continue to determine the changing world.

58

TED STYLE TALKS & PANEL DISCUSSION

MODERATION HENRIK ROONEMAA (ESTONIA) TED speaker

Kalev Pihl (Estonia) Big Data – So What!

Big Data is accompanied by a lot of other big things like: big opportunities, big responsibilities, big expenses, big risks and big fears. A lot of our fears arise not directly from some risks, but rather from our lack of knowledge or misinformation. So why should we not base our daily actions on the negative and rather seek what is useful in the data? History shows that if an activity makes economic sense to any group of people then

the activity will continue. We may already say today that big data analyses make sense to politicians, marketers and social scientists.

Therefore the practice continues and we all need to ask how it could help us personally.

At the same time big data needs algorithms and it is obvious that there will be more people relying on the algorithms than there are who understand them. We need to know that algorithms are always meaningful in a context and do not reflect an “objective truth”. We have to face questions of an ethical nature and also in algorithms while working with big data, but these questions have been here before and will not go away due to some technical change.

CV Kalev Pihl Kalev is an expert in electronic identity management and data protection and has taken an active role to promote safer behaviour in digital world among youth and children around Estonia. Over the last nine years he has been CEO of SK ID Solutions and a lecturer in Tallinn University and IT College.

Hannes Grassegger (Switzerland) Targeting Democracy On the automization of the public arena.

How a technology, that was meant to form a global community, leads to a personalized virtual reality instead.

At first, with the help of M. Krogerus and P. O. Dehaye, I had simply portrayed one aspect of the Trump-Campaign: his digital operations. We focussed on the efforts of the company Cambridge Analytica (CA), which had helped the Brexit campaign, later on, Ted Cruz and finally Trump. CA claimed to have had substantially contributed to the surprise successes of those campaigns.

What we found interesting: a company with a long-standing military and info war history was apparently using personal and Facebook data, credit and membership cards etc. of millions of US-citizens (they claimed 230 mill) - in order to establish

right-wing populist politics in the West.

CA did so through advanced but common methods, first gathering personal data through open data markets, secondly analysing it by using state-of-the-art psychometrical techniques developed partly by the University of Cambridge, and thirdly by the „micro targeting“ voters according to the understanding of their individual personalities they had developed through the data assessment.

The bomb exploded in December 2016, after the publication of our story in DAS MAGAZIN (CH). With each translation, the blaster echoed through another language

zone, finally touching the Anglophone sphere, when VICE published it under the title “The Data that Turned the World Upside Down“. Since then the discussion hasn’t stopped.

CV Hannes Grassegger Hannes is a reporter for DAS MAGAZIN (CH) and REPORTAGEN and writes long-form and opinion pieces for mainstream media, several of them translated around the world. His Book «Das Kapital bin ich» (I’m the Capital) is an essay about how we could make a living from our personal data. He participated in the 1st Creative Forum with the TED-talk “I am the Capital” (Lisbon, 2015).

59 | TED TALKS

TED Speaker

60

TED Speaker (Via Skype from Dresden/DE)

stefan albrecht (germany) Political Communication Shift happens in political communication – but how to deal with it?

TED speaker (via skype from washington dc/usa)

DIRK EMMRICH (GERMANY) Social Media and the Arab Spring As from 2011, Dirk has been working as a field TVcorrespondent, reporting from all the flash points of international development, focussed on the development in Middle East and Northern Africa.

The Arab Spring and its aftermath have had a great influence on the international development and changed a lot in this area. Social media such as Facebook were an essential tool for the opposition in that period.

Political communication is at the heart of democracy, and it is deeply influenced by the rise of digital and social media. Many people fear that this influence is mainly negative: That social bots manipulate voters, that echo chambers reinforce biased opinions, that fake news distort peoples’ decision making. But fear is a bad counsellor when dealing with the shift that happens in political communication. An alternative way of looking at technological change is a method called ‘technology assessment’ – an interdisciplinary scientific endeavour that helps to analyse technological change from multiple perspectives. In his talk Steffen demonstrated how technology assessment can help us analyse the effects of digital media on political communication and find ways to make the most out of it for our democracy.

Steffen works for the Office of Technology Assessment at the German Bundestag as scientific adviser.

TED speaker (via skype from California/Usa)

Jürgo Sören Preden (Estonia/USA) Smart Dust – Future Visions

CV Jürgo Sören Preden Jurgo is the founder and CEO of Thinnect, Inc., Sunnyvale, California / USA and a senior research scientist of the Research Laboratory for Proactive Technologies at Tallinn University of Technology. His research has been focused on cyber-physical systems, more specifically the situation awareness of such systems and computation and communication in ad-hoc sensing systems. Jurgo has been a keynote speaker, presenter and a panellist on numerous technical conferences, such as MILCOM, CogSIMA, SoSE and SPIE.

61 | TED TALKS

The computer has become an indispensable device in our everyday lives and with the advent of Internet of Things, their importance is going to increase even more as computers become part of the environment, being embedded into the spaces we move in and the devices and tools we use. The concept of Smart Dust has been around more than a decade, having its foundations in military applications. Smart Dust or autonomous miniature computers with wireless communication interfaces are also the basic building blocks for Internet of Things. Jurgo has been working with Smart Dust for over a decade and described how these tiny computers can work alongside us, improving efficiency of buildings and work processes and making our lives more convenient.

62 TED speaker

LOORE MARTMA (Estonia) The Anatomy of Collaboration Loore has been working with Theatre Cabaret Rhizome in Tallinn since October 2016 striving to come up with an interactive performance that is based on digital learning games in the context of collaboration among groups. A concept of a game/play between two teams that work with and against each other was created, combining elements of individuality and personal growth, efficiency, hierarchy but also motivation, punishment, strategy and trust. The artists plan to bring more digital means to the theatre. They are curious about the younger audience - what are their interests, goals, motivations and their vocabulary? And they focus on the question how can one bring young people’s keywords

“social”, “digital” and “fun” together? The production they are creating has to include fun and edutraining.

Digital - Theater Cabaret Rhizome is sharing the space with Club of Different Rooms, already having an interactive space full of digital possibilities (interactive tables, screens, live cam, green screen etc).

Therefore this is the perfect place to face the challenge of developing a new model for an interactive performance.

CV Loore Martma After her studies in Music and Performing Arts Loore is currently doing her master studies at Tallinn University on digital learning games. She has been working as a freelance director, actor, sound designer and composer since 2014.

MARTIN KOPLIN (GERMANY) Jørgen Callesen (DENMARK) Interventions for People’s Smart Sculpture (PS2) Participation has a long cultural tradition in Europe based on the cooperation between different social groups, spheres of action and institutions. In most of the Western countries the realm of urban development has generated its own strategies on how citizens can be involved in decision-making and participation. But the rising complexity of life in so-called smart urbanity, the re-design of our cities, and the multidisciplinarity of digital approaches is challenging the traditional forms of participatory concepts in urbanity. Urban re-design, place-making for future urbanity therefore require an enhanced approach to citizen participation, artistic interventions

and user-friendly articulation on the one hand and on the other hand technologies and methodologies for a new perception of the urban environment.

In PS2 people of any age and background work together in experimental design of tools and methodologies for the collaborative and participative smart development of their urban environment.

By doing this it tries to find answers on how the urgent needs of urban participation can be adapted to future demands. The project is about the re-design and the cultural construction of future spaces by real people as performative spaces.

CV Martin Koplin Martin is the founding Director of M2C Institute (established in 2007 as media2culture institute) in Bremen (DE).

He is coordinating “The People’s Smart Sculpture – PS2”, a Creative Europe project that engages 12 partners from art, digital media and computer science in 11 sub-projects in 8 countries. www.smartsculpture.eu

CV Jørgen Callesen Jørgen works with digital media and performing art for more than 20 years. He is the artistic director of the live art venue Warehouse9 in Copenhagen established in 2007. His present work includes curating the International Performance Art Festival and producing the final site specific digital art exhibition for the PS2 project.

63 | TED TALKS

TED speaker

64 TED speaker

MArian ursu (great britain) Interactive Media: New Stories in New Forms for New Audiences.

New Theatre Mediated storytelling has been crucial for humanity. Technological developments continued to provide new media for capturing and telling stories, from the printing press, through still photography, radio and television. All these media forced stories to be captured in a linear, immutable form. Now we have entered the era of interactive media: recorded content can respond and adapt to the contexts in which it is experienced.

Mediated stories can be interactive. We can now all have our personal digital storytellers.

We can talk back to the stories we are told.

We can re-shape them and have conversations with each other though them.

But how do we author such stories? How do we tell them? For whom?

In his TED-talk Marian focussed on the link between interactive media and theatrical performance: How can interactive media shape the theatre of the future? How can we learn from and integrate games, interactive TV, social media and telepresence into theatre?

CV Marian Ursu Marian is the Head of the Interactive Media subject group at the Department of Theatre, Film and TV at the University of York, UK. He is also Co-Director of the Digital Creativity Labs, an interdisciplinary centre for impact-driven research in digital games and interactive media, built on a ÂŁ18 million - investment by three UK research councils, four universities and over 80 partner organisations.

Workshop

Marian Ursu (Great Britain) Rehearsing with actors from different locations is one of the holy grails of modern theatre. How can they be “teleported” into one performance space?

How can a theatrical performance be delivered from two or more separate stages, each with its own local audience? Can cameras and screens be automatically controlled to allow actors on different stages to perform together and each local audience to receive an attractive performance? In this hands-onworkshop participants experimented with a simple, manually driven, telepresence system – two locations, three cameras, one mobile with its own cameraman, a mixing desk and two screens. A small scene, actors, the director and the audience were chosen, and the participants tried some meaningful partitions and different directorial choices. This experiment built on the findings of a multi-million project on smart telepresence and theatre – Vconect.

The answer has been sought in smart telepresence.

65 | WORKSHOPS

Theatre and Smart Telepresence

66 Workshop

CLAUDIA MAYER (GERMANY) Actionbound Did you ever think about how exploring your surroundings could be more exciting for you and your friends? Originally started as a media education project, Actionbound is now used by many people all over the world for a variety of purposes.

Actionbound is a great app for telling stories and inviting one’s audience to interact with the app and the surroundings. The workshop explored an Actionbound App and the participants tried to build a short one themselves in order to find out how to use the app for theatre purposes like a site-specific-walking performances.

CV Claudia Mayer Claudia is working as a freelance theatre and media educator, as a media artist and as a Cultural Educator and Project manager of ‘Rückenwind für Familien’ (Tailwind for families), an association for underprivileged children and young people. She is teaching art and media at the Institute for social profession in Ravensburg (DE).

At the 2nd Creative Forum she ran the workshop “Creating treasure hunts with your mobile devices”. During the 3rd Youth Encounter in Tallinn, she was leading the theatre workshops and prepared the final presentation of the young people coming from four different countries.

Workshop

DR REBEKKA KILL (GREAT BRITAIN) Facebook is like Disco and Twitter is like Punk Dr Kill’s works explore the boundaries between analogue and digital, audience and performer, visual art, music and theatre and event: For “24/7” she played 7 inch vinyl singles for 24 hours in alphabetical order without stopping; over 500 records, in an empty space in Leeds (UK). For “Socialist Jukebox” she asked audience members to exchange audio and visual artefacts for personal memories and stories. For “Environments for Encounter” she toured music festivals with a circus show, exploring how audiences can become co-creators in live art at music festivals.

The 2nd part – following Dr Kill’s experiences as a DJ skills trainer - was a hands on opportunity to try DJing on decks…and to find your “inner DJ”.

CV Dr Rebekka Kill Dr Kill is Head of School of Art, Design and Computer Science at York St John University, UK. She teaches in critical, cultural and historical studies, also in visual and performing arts and in education. Her career as an artist is interdisciplinary. Trained as a painter she has continued to work in the visual arts. In addition to this she has worked as a DJ and began to produce performance, visual and multidisciplinary artworks in unusual spaces.

67 | WORKSHOPS

Her workshop had two parts; First a presentation of some of Dr Kill’s key projects, incl. Facebook is Like Disco and …, a kind of TED talk where she doesn’t talk… not a word. This work examines how we can find a shared language to talk about technology.

68 Workshop

Jørgen Callesen (DENMARK) Digital Arts Digital Media for the stage arts, immersive theatre and audience participation.

In the workshop Jørgen gave an introduction to some of the theoretical concepts on which he had worked in different projects as well as examples of his work as the Digital Art Festival ”WanderLost” in Kristianstad (SE) in April and in Copenhagen (DK) in May 2017.

Finally there was a practical exercise exemplifying different aspects of audience participation and staged digital media representations.

CV Jørgen Callesen Jørgen works with digital media and performing art for more than 20 years.

He is the artistic director of the live art venue Warehouse9 in Copenhagen established in 2007. His present work includes curating the International Performance Art Festival and producing the final site specific digital art exhibition for the PS2 project.

Workshop

AHMET KOSE (ESTONIA) Virtual Reality (VR) VR has a great potential to engage audience and actors efficiently like never before.

In addition to abilities of performers, it can give presence Âťbeing thereÂŤ feeling to audience with its cutting edge technology. Furthermore, scenarios can be demonstrated before the play is performed. For instance, they can use VR devices to convince the theme and immersive environment for the audience. Hence they can attract more people; the audience might have better understanding with less effort.

The art of the theatre has many similarities to the phenomenon of virtual reality. A theatre performance and a VR experience both are time based, existing only during that time that the human participants are engaged with them. Both rely on the creation of a fictive universe designed to entertain, inform, and enlighten.

CV Ahmet Kose Ahmet is a doctoral student at Tallinn University of Technology. The topic of his PhD thesis is focused on Computational Intelligence in Virtual Reality for Industrial Revolution. Engagement of industrial revolution with virtual reality meets profession into artificial intelligence and deep learning. The integration of multi-disciplines is desired by his university research group.

69 | WORKSHOPS

VR is one of the fastest growing and changing industries with tech, games, film and TV companies falling over themselves to work out how best to use it.

70 Workshop

Jukka Eerikäinen (finland) Music and Programming with Sonic Pi Coding is ultimately a creative act, and learning the basics of programming can introduce useful tools to any artist’s personal toolkit. Programming can free the artist from the tedium of repetitive tasks or act as a doorway to new, unexplored territories. Most of all programming is fun.

In the workshop, the participants explored programming as a way of making music. They learned how to create melodies and beats and process samples using a free source programming environment, Sonic Pi. They went through the basic techniques of algorithmic composition – the ideas behind making the computer to compose music for us. Basic concepts of programming and computer science were introduced.

The workshop focussed on the creative side and self-expression – learning coding as a happy accident. At the end each participant programmed a song using the techniques learned in the workshop.

CV Jukka Eerikäinen Jukka is a media artist and a programming instructor and has taught creative coding both in Finland and abroad. Recently, he volunteered as a programming instructor on CodeBus Africa project teaching Sonic Pi programming to teenagers in collaboration with local partners.

In his own creative work, Jukka is interested in combining algorithmic and generative multimedia content and tangible interfaces. He is also active within Helsinki experimental electronic music scene.

Workshop

STEFAN HORN (GERMANY) GPS – Drawing: My image in Urban Space The workshop provided first hand experience with GPS Drawing.

Within youth arts projects in particular, this opens up a range of playful possibilities. The image receives anchorage and feeds back to the place of its origin. Digital photography is infused with a new kind of physical experience, in which place and time are conjoined. And with the help of online cartography tools, the city can be turned into a surface and becomes a ‘message board’, composed of news and announcements. As I move through the city, I become myself the quill or pencil, and use the virtual view of the city to imprint my message.

CV Stefan Horn Stefan works internationally as a free-lance curator, project manager, set and exhibition designer, and in the field of visual communications. He has been the artistic director of the Berlin-based art association ‘Urban dialogues’ since 2000, which engages with urban issues through sitespecific and community-based art projects and urban interventions.

71 | WORKSHOPS

During the early 2000’s, artists began experimenting the urban space by using so-called GPS-loggers on their photographic journeys, which allow them to track their movements http://www.gpsdrawing.com. Afterwards, the geo-positional data was added to any individual picture by means of specialized software. This image can then be opened in combination with a freely available online cartography service, such as Google Maps.

What may seem like a redundant technical feature adds was a whole new dimension to urban digital photography.

72 Workshops by students of Mektory (estonia) Creating Apps Mobile applications are easy to install and use, but development may seem to be something for nerds. In this workshop this myth was broken by taking a walk through all steps of application development with learning code on the go. No matter which system your smartphone uses: Android, iOS and Windows - all these systems were supported by only making an application once! It was a challenging, but really exciting experience.

Workshops by students of Mektory (estonia) LEGO robots This workshop was held with LEGO Mindstorms EV3 robotics sets. After familiarization with the robot’s sensors, each participant built a LEGO robot. Than an overview of programming was given and the robots were programmed for racing. The workshop ended with a exciting race between the robots of the different teams of robot builders.

lecture

simon will (germany) My Square Lady In July 2015, the two and a half hour long performance “My Square Lady” was performed for three nights in Berlin. It was the result of a two year co-operation between the British-German arts collective Gob Squad, the opera house Komische Oper Berlin and the Neurorobotics Research Laboratory at Beuth University of Applied Sciences, Berlin.

Simon Will from Gob Squad talked about the process that took place from this original idea to the final outcome.

Gob Squad, founded in 1994, is a British-German collective based in Nottingham and Berlin.

They have worked collaboratively since 1994 in the fields of performance, video installation and theatre. They have made approx. 28 projects to date creating mid-scale work that combines audience interaction with real-time video editing. The company often use popular culture to explore the complexities of everyday life. Gob Squad present work in urban spaces, theatres and galleries. Simon Will has been a core member of the collective since the beginning.

73 | WORKSHOPS

The original idea proposed by Gob Squad borrowed from the original musical, “My Fair Lady” in which a simple cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle is plucked from the streets of London and trained by linguistics professor Higgins under a bet that he can pass the commoner off as a lady of high society after 6 months of intensive tuition. Gob Squad decided to re-cast the flower girl with an autonomous, self-teaching robot called Myon.

74 MARKETING Workshop

FRANK TENTLER (GERMANY) #WTF am I doing?

Content is the king and content management is his Emperor.

The workshop demonstrated to the marketing people of the partner companies how they can successfully use social media as their primary marketing and communication tool.

Topics, which were discussed: •

Why social media is so important for our daily communication.

•

How to build up an unique and sustainable social media strategy.

•

Why Big Data is also relevant for theatres.

•

How to build a social media tool box and a individual Social Web Command Centre

•

How to react successfully to the technical and interactive challenges of the upcoming 4th generation of the web

•

How to transform a shit storm into a valuable marketing project etc.

CV Frank Tentler Frank has been working with social media since 2004. He developed the first German transmedia storytelling project and the first concepts for interactive places (smartplaces).

Since 2014 he has been working intensively on the opportunities and risks of the so-called “digital transformation”. Frank advised cultural institutions, local and state authorities in finding appropriate communication- and marketing-strategies, with the focus on sustainable consulting projects via web technologies and Location Based Services.

75 | YOUTH ENCOUNTER TALLINN

Youth Encounter Tallinn/Estonia April 2017

76 A BIT OF ME – My Digital Identity Participating Theatres: VAT Theatre (Tallinn, EE), Emergency Exit Arts (London, UK), Teatret Vårt (Ålesund, NO), tjg.

Theater Junge Generation (Dresden, DE) A loud babble of voices occupies the lobby of the St. Olav Hotel, located in the old town of Tallinn. It is a lively mix of Norwegian, Estonian, English and German. 37 young people from four countries have just arrived for one week to visit workshops and to work on a theatre presentation. The topic of the 2nd Youth Encounter under the working title “A bit of me – My digital identity”, is the digital world and how it can be seen as a

playground, a place for responsible and creative learning. Its aim is to question how the digital world can meet the performing arts.

During the encounter, we discussed how the digital world influences our identity and how we make decisions about it. We interrogated our personal use of digital technologies and the impact it has on our lives and the society we live in.

It was April, but spring hadn’t yet found its way to Tallinn. The young people, still wearing winter coats, happily received their welcome bag and their name tag. In the evening, everyone gathered together and the ice was broken right away. An exciting and tough programme awaited the young people in the coming days. At three places, picked out by our Estonian partner theatre, VAT, they visited different workshops, whose inputs

The theatre workshops On day 1 we visited the Tallinna Lilleküla Gümnaasium (TLG), a school which has a technical focus and 1000 students between the ages six and nineteen years old. The school is equipped with a range of technical tools that were introduced to us in the workshops. There are little robots that can be programmed, a music application called Makey-Makey, iPads that the students learn how to play different instruments on, a 3D printer and much more.

The Makey-Makey workshop was particularly popular. Through connecting a cable from the computer to different objects (a carrot, water or a part of your own body like your nose) the music application allows you to create a sound and make music. After a small concert from the iPad orchestra, the students of TLG presented a pop-up workshop for us. It contained their own business ideas, e.g. an app that enables parents to organise picking up their kids.

Our young people left this exceptional school very impressed and full of ideas.

77 | YOUTH ENCOUNTER TALLINN

were stimulations for the theatre workshops in the afternoon. There we confronted the question: how we can implement the use digital technologies in a theatrical way.

Firstly, some of the TLG students presented their school to the guests. Part of the school’s ethos is the right for the students to codetermination. The students can build working groups from a young age so that they can develop professional ideas.

Through this they get the chance to start their professional career whilst still going to school. Also, the workshops that were given to us were led by the young students themselves.

78 On day 2 we went to Mektory, a part of the Tallinn University of Technology that brings together scientists, students and entrepreneurs. They help connect theoretical students at the university with the practical side, encouraging student’s start-up companies to move forward. Our young people, very enthusiastic about the very modern and stylish interior and atmosphere, had the chance to join workshops. For a few hours they were immersed in the world of building and programming LEGO robots, making a green screen film and programming an App. On day 3 we went to discover the home of theatre company Cabaret Rhizome.

The venue is in Telliskivi, an area which is full of little wooden houses, railroad tracks and young creative people. Johannes Veski, the head of Cabaret Rhizome, invited us to follow

him into the “Club of Different Rooms”, a huge hall with many vintage sofas put together in small seating groups. In front of them, tables with an illuminated surface had magnetic buttons lying on them.

There is a big screen for each seating group, hanging pendulously from the ceiling. Johann Veski run through an interactive performance or rather an interactive game with us. We have been told a story, which we could

influence through the decisions we made in our group by turning the magnetic buttons.

When the show is presented to a thrilled audience in the evenings, there are actors performing the story on a green screen stage.

They are filmed and we could see the stage set on our monitors. The working method of the Cabaret Rhizome offers a great example to the young people how digital technologies and theatre can be interwoven.

79 | YOUTH ENCOUNTER TALLINN

80 Participation in the 3rd CREATIVE FORUM The 3rd PLATFORM shift+ Creative Forum took place alongside the Youth Encounter.

The young people had the chance to join the speeches that were held on the topic “Big Data – Targeting Democracy” and to exchange views with the professional theatre makers.

In return, the professional participants of the Creative Forum could enjoy watching the final presentation of the Youth Encounter.

Final Presentation On Saturday morning the young people from the four countries bustled through the wide halls and corridors of the national library of Tallinn. The venue of VAT Theatre, our partner theatre in Estonia, is in that huge building. The vast entrance hall of the library was flooded with light as the audiences assembled. Two big staircases protrude on the right and left and lead you to the reading rooms.

“I am Alberta, and a very nice girl from Norway, do you want to follow me?”

Suddenly nine young performers appeared from behind the stony banisters, starting to move their arms like tentacles toward the audience as if they were trying to catch them.

Next, they started to run down the stairs towards the audience. They asked every single person “Do you want to follow me?”

If you answered with “yes”, you got a sticker which says: “I follow Alberta”. This divided the audience into three groups who were taken into the world of the young people and their personal stories and experiences.

They questioned who they are in their analogue and digital lives, analysing their own identity: “Are there differences between their analogue and virtual ME?” We listened to personal stories, sometimes sad or shameful, and were introduced to the question: “What would happen if I showed my real ME in social media?”

Once each of the audience groups had experienced the three scenes, the performers started to hum a vibrating “mmmm” and moved through the library towards the big staircases. The echo made the sound grow and the young people gathered from different corners like a swarm of bees. The audience stood on the other side of the staircase and appreciated the performers lining up on the stairs. A final part of the choreography delivered a loud and simultaneous “a bit of me”. Thundering applause and happy faces everywhere.

After a week of exchanging ideas, the young people flew back to their home countries full of new inspirations and perspectives. Once they return home they are asked to share the inputs they got in little CREATIVE FORUMs that they will organise at their schools or theatres. Undoubtedly, all the

participants gained new international friends - at least on Facebook. Sophia Neubert (Assistence PLATFORM Shift+) Direction Claudia Mayer (DE) Production Team Sophia Neubert (DE), Lucy Hammond (UK), Johanna Malchow (DE), Elisa Braun (DE), Tiiu Talvist (EE)

81 | YOUTH ENCOUNTER TALLINN

We took the elevators with one freaky and one cool guide, stopping on each floor and encountering a surprise. “Wi-Fi” personified welcomed us at the next scene and guided us through an App store in which the application showed a dance where each performer embodied and presented one application. We joined a party where Snapchat and Facebook started an affair and had a baby together.

82

Home task: Real live challenge The young people were asked to challenge their digital addiction. They could choose one out of 19 challenges, which were all about foregoing the use of a digital tool or device for 24 hours.

The young people reflected on their experiences in little videos, here are some quotes:

No pictures or videos for 24 h: “I love sending pictures. It was really hard. I could not send any snaps on snapchat or post any pictures on Instagram. I was really excited when I could send pictures again.

I realized I am quite dependent on sending pictures, whether it’s selfies or pictures of my food. Whenever a chat is getting boring I like to spice it up with some pictures.” Alex (NO) Not listen to music for 24 h: “It was horrible. I think I’m addicted because I got a headache without having music.” Hazem (UK) No PC for a day: “This was pretty easy because I went to sleep early.

It was kind of fun to find out that I can survive without my computer.”

Sven (EE) Goodbye emoji’s - to write messages without emoji’s: “I had the feeling that my messages sounded very rude and annoyed. My

friends were very confused and didn’t know what was going on with me. I am very happy that today I can use my emojis again.” Roxy (DE) No PC for a day: “The day started pretty good. When I reached home I would normally sit down and play computer games or watch YouTube videos. I said to my brother: let´s play football. We went outside and we had a good time. Time went by so quickly, it was worth it. My eyes are better. Don’t be scared to face to challenges!”

Aron (EE) Not being on the phone while being with friends / family: “I was with my grandparents and fell asleep. I was just tired and bored. I will never do that again, though it was fun.” Alberta (NO) Thanks to Anita Valderhaug, Rune Steter, Shermaine Scolombe, Sam Jones, Tas Emiabata, Julia Kuzminska, Eva Kalbus, Mari-Liis Velberg, Mihkel Seeder

83 | YOUTH ENCOUNTER TALLINN

The challenge: Not using my phone for 24 h: “I choose this challenge because my battery was finished. It was quite hard because I socialise quite a lot on my phone.” Daniel (UK)

84

Youth Encounter

Yorkshire, Great Britain October 2016 108,000 Seconds and Counting Participating Theatres: Massalia (Marseilles; FR), Teatro O Bando (Palmela, PT), Elsinor (Forli; IT), Hull Truck (Hull, UK) and York Theatre Royal (York, UK) “108,000 seconds is the average amount of time young people in Europe spend online per week. That’s 30 hours.

This week we have been exploring how young people spend this time, what it has meant to their lives and what they see as the internet’s biggest problems and greatest strengths.

We hope you enjoy our journey into the online world of Europe’s young people.”

Tom Bellerby – Artistic Director of the Youth Exchange In October 2016 four groups of Young People from four countries in Europe came together for the PLATFORM Shift+ Youth Encounter ‘108,000 Seconds and Counting’. The young people supported by their associated theatres from Teatro O Bando (Portugal), Elsinor Centro di Produzione Teatrale (Italy), Theatre Massalia (France), York Theatre Royal (UK) and Hull Truck Theatre (UK) were brought together in Yorkshire and hosted by Pilot Theatre. Over the week they worked together and devised ‘108,000 Seconds and

The artistic leaders for the project were Tom Bellerby and Jon Beney working on drama and movement respectively.

The group began their week in Yorkshire by experiencing a special site specific performance of ‘The End’ by Teatro O Bando at Bootham School in York. This was a great opportunity for the groups to meet and see O Bando’s most recent work for PlatformShift+ performed by a mixed professional, youth and community cast from Palmela in Portugal. The next day this was followed by an initial workshop session at York Theatre Royal where the groups participated in ice breaker sessions and drama games to begin the week.

They also took part in a treasure hunt around the city of York.

This was both a chance to explore this historic city and start working together as a culturally mixed team.

Following the short stay in York the whole group travelled to Leyburn in the Yorkshire Dales National Park to stay at the Jonas Centre.

The Jonas Centre is located in the Yorkshire Dales National Park and made up of several wooden cabins set in the woodland. This would be the home for the Youth Exchange for the remainder of the week – far away from the distractions of the city and an interesting and provocative setting for working on a piece about technology whilst immersed in nature.

85 | YOUTH ENCOUNTER YORKSHIRE

Counting’, a production made in the space of a week under the guidance of professional theatre and performance practitioners.

86

On each day a group from each country led a warm up session for the rest of the young people. This was a chance to share practice and games from their own theatre groups that the others could then hopefully take home and lead with the groups back in their home towns.

On one afternoon the whole group and the leaders went on a walk to explore the surrounding area in the Yorkshire Dales National Park.

87 | YOUTH ENCOUNTER YORKSHIRE

Small groups of young people shared cabins which built a real sense of community for the project in the beautiful outdoor setting. From this starting point Tom Bellerby and Jon Beney began their sessions to start devising the show for the final sharing at the end of the week, these would include both movement and drama. There would also be several discussions around how the Young People related to the technology in their every day lives with discussions and stories about how they used it to socialise, play and work.

88 The walk led everyone through the countryside and past a medieval castle, Bolton Castle, where once Mary Queen of Scots lived. The journey was a great chance to have some social time between the groups and learn more about the area for those who had visited from different countries.

The theatre sessions during the week began to take shape as devising groups formed amongst the young people.

These groups then worked on short scenes for the final sharing focusing on what they liked and disliked about the internet. In these groups young people from the different countries worked together to discuss their different perspectives on digital technology and how it impacts on both their individual and collective lives. The directors of the project oversaw this devising and the final scenes came directly from ideas drawn from the discussions between and improvisations of the young people.

89 | YOUTH ENCOUNTER YORKSHIRE

90 Youth Encounter Final Co-Production At the end of the group’s time at the Jonas Centre everyone travelled back to York for the sharing. Pilot Theatre invited guests to watch the participants with 30 attendees arriving as audience for the performance. As part of the show each student had chosen their favourite emoji to represent themselves and here is a selection of the emojis chosen:

Lucy Hammond (Support Project Administration)

108,000 Seconds and Counting Directed by Tom Bellerby and Jon Beney Thanks to Nathalie Delmasso (FR), Raffaella Sintoni (IT), Margarida dos Santos Mata (PT), Sarah-Louise Penney (UK) CAST Roman Abu Rish, Zoé Broneer, Isabel Santos, Madalena Costa, Matilde Cignani, Chiara Bassi, Genny Bianchi, Emma Cerasoli, Alice Lefevre, Diogo Fernandes, Carmo Abranches, Joana Miranda, Claire Baulès, Emília Veloso, James Thomas Newton, Michelangelo Ballardini, Gavin Brooks, Joe Beckett, Brandon Anderson, Francesco Monari, Maria Pereira, Matteo Castellucci, Lorenzo Biondi, Matilde Santos, Kelly Gale, Izzy Foster, Zacharie Noëll, Fabien Capelier

91 | YOUTH ENCOUNTER YORKSHIRE

92

MY DIGITAL ADDICTION My name is Raoul LALA. According to my Ratologue, I am the only web addicted rodent listed on our planet. The infantile addiction of my puppeteer to the Jim Henson series The Muppets and Roland Topor’s Telechat dangerously mutated when it made contact with the web in the early 2000s. Thanks to my r@tstore, I became a compulsive consumer of clips from Puppetmastaz, but also puppet web sagas such as Chris Waitt’s Fur TV or Maude Morissette’s La DUMP.

And at the end, I have sunk into a total and irreversible addiction: I, too, started making movies for web TV called www.trash-tivi.com...

(Raoul LALA, Marseille, France)

I remember when I was a little girl, walking into church and, in the entrance, my grandmother would tell me to not give money to the homeless people because they were going to spend it on vices. I guess that is why I have always associated the word “vice” with heroin, alcohol, tobacco, cocaine. I would imagine middle aged men with black circles around their eyes and long skinny faces and not adolescents that can’t take their eyes away from a screen, even though these don’t seem like real addictions and don’t feel so raw. But I guess we all have our own addictions.

Even I.

I always need to have multiple pages open on the computer, I can never have only one. And it’s always Twitter. So, I guess, I am addicted to Twitter.

Matilde Santos, a Twitter-a-holic, (Teatro O Bando, Portugal)

93 | MY DIGITAL ADDICTION

MY DIGITAL ADDICTION

94

Pilot Theatre Company (York, Great Britain) Pilot Theatre is one of the UK’s leading touring theatre companies. It seeks to create a cultural space where young adults can encounter, express and interrogate big ideas. Our passion is to tell extraordinary stories that properly reflect the internationalism and diversity of the UK, and that are powerfully relevant to the lives of young adults now.

Pilot Theatre Company is based at York Theatre Royal, York, UK.

95 | PILOT THEATRE

Pilot Theatre Company is committed to innovation through using technology in its work and pursues a relationship with its audience that is often playful, interactive and participatory. It nurtures emergent talent and aspiring artists from all walks of life and gives them the opportunity to share their voice and their art in the world.

96

Reference Production

The passion these lads have for achieving their final goal, season tickets, is infectious and the play sings with humanity.

Based on the novel of the same name by Jonathan Tulloch

For “The Season Ticket” we wanted to create a show that spoke to young people and made connections between theatre, sport and shared experience. Gerry and Sewell are in pursuit of two season tickets but their search reaches further than the tickets themselves. They are looking for a shared experience, to feel part of a community and to take part in the rituals and roars of the crowd that bring people together; live, raw and exciting.

Adapted by Lee Mattinson Co production between Pilot Theatre (York) and Northern Stage (Newcastle) “I believe the greatest gift we as a society can offer our young people is hope. A belief that their future can be as bright as they can imagine. However, like the fortunes of the football team, our story revolves around, sometimes these dreams are checked by the harshness of reality.” Katie Posner (Director) The show is based on a novel about a pair of boys who become men as the tale unfolds.

Set in Gateshead over the course of a year, it explores the forgotten voices of these young people and how their love of Newcastle United offers them a sense of hope and belonging that is missing in their lives.

Cast GERRY Niek Versteeg SEWELL Will Graham GEMMA/CLAIRE Laila Zaidi DEE/PAULA/MISS MOON Victoria Elliott DAN/PAUL Kevin Wathen TERRY/MIKE/STEPHEN/ELMO Joe Caffrey

“Posner’s cast are electric, passionate, heart breaking too.” York Press “The Season Ticket is a wonderful live experience to be a part of, and has been one of my favourite Pilot shows so far.”

A Younger Theatre “Deeply felt emotional performances all round” Northern Echo

97 | PILOT THEATRE

The Season Ticket

AUTHOR Jonathan Tulloch WRITER Lee Mattinson DIRECTOR Katie Posner SET & COSTUME DESIGNER Jean Chan LIGHTING DESIGNER Alexandra Stafford SOUND DESIGNER & COMPOSER James Frewer

98

tjg. Theater Junge Generation Dresden, Germany

The tjg. presents performances for children, young people and families on three different stages at Kraftwerk Mitte, and at various summer stages. The performances are enjoyed by nearly 93,000 viewers each season. The city of Dresden‘s puppet theatre amalgamated with the tjg. in 1997, and will be celebrating its 65th birthday in 2017.

The theatre academy was founded in 2008, and it functions as a research laboratory for theatre educators, as an experimental workshop for children and young people interested in theatre, and as a further education centre for teachers and kindergarten teachers. The founding of the festival “Theatre from the Beginning“, artistic involvement with “Theatre for the Youngest Audience”, extensive work of the tjg.

theatre academy, further development of theatre with children and young people, the partnership with PLATFORM shift+ represent several current examples of projects that describe the concept of the tjg. The broad assortment offered by its various branches enables the theatre to integrate current trends, e.g. from the fields of dance and performance, into its own productions in a contemporary way. The exchange and cooperation that takes place between different cultural organisations and institutions and artists active outside of children‘s and youth theatre also play an important role. Since 2008, the general and artistic director of the tjg. has been Felicitas Loewe.

99 | TJG. THEATER JUNGE GENERATION

tjg. theater junge generation operates on three levels: acting, puppet theatre, and theatre academy. It presents over 600 performances every year, making it one of the largest theatres for children and young audiences in Germany. Indeed, since it’s founding in 1949, it is impossible to imagine life in the city without the theatre as a part of the local cultural scene.

100

Reference Production

ON TRADITION: THE YOUNG GENERATION The tjg. presents performances for children, young people and families on three different stages at Kraftwerk Mitte, and at various summer stages. The performances are enjoyed by nearly 93,000 viewers each season. The city of Dresden‘s puppet theatre amalgamated with the tjg. in 1997, and will be celebrating its 65th birthday in 2017.

The theatre academy was founded in 2008, and it functions as a research laboratory for theatre educators, as an experimental workshop for children and young people interested in theatre, and as a further education centre for teachers and kindergarten teachers. The founding of the festival “Theatre from the Beginning“, artistic involvement with “Theatre for the Youngest Audience”, extensive work of the tjg. theatre academy, further development of theatre with children and young people, the

The broad assortment offered by its various branches enables the theatre to integrate current trends, e.g. from the fields of dance and performance, into its own productions in a contemporary way. The exchange and cooperation that takes place between different cultural organisations and institutions and artists active outside of children‘s and youth theatre also play an important role. Since 2008, the general and artistic director of the tjg. has been Felicitas Loewe.

The production was one of seven events commissioned for the opening of the tjg.’s new venue in the centre of Dresden. The production continues the work of a major Berlin-based project entitled On tradition from 2015, created by the choreographer and video artist Jo Parkes. The video series On tradition was created in the Wedding district with twelve residents or shopkeepers from one street. It focused on the cultural

diversity and differing perspectives around tradition.

On tradition: the young generation is also a video series: seven young people, who live in the centre of Dresden or go to school there, deliver short films reflecting on an aspect of their lives that is linked to the topic of tradition. They tell of celebrations and rituals, of self-assertion and about how their own interests are shaped by the family environment. All these themes are expressed by them in the form of dance.

The videos are presented on the stage via monitors. The spectators, sat at stage-level, look at them as seven other young people revolve around them in real-time. All the participants are experienced in dance and/ or theatre and some of them have been active in the Theaterakademie for several years. They act as mediators between those who are portrayed in the video and the audience by appropriating the gestures of the new “neighbors” and by using them to build new movements. This creates a dialogue between interior and exterior, foreign and familiar, present and absent.

Concept and choreography Jo Parkes Stage design and costume design Grit Dora von Zeschau Shooting Ute Freund Editing Lena Hatebur, Marco Prill Music Pete Fraser Dramaturgy Kathi Loch Theatre education Julia Kuzminska Premiere 17. Dec. 2016

101 | TJG. THEATER JUNGE GENERATION

partnership with PLATFORM shift+ represent several current examples of projects that describe the concept of the tjg.

102

EMERGENCY EXIT ARTS LONDON, GREAT BRITAIN

•

ACTIVATING and ENHANCING the artistry and creative potential in every child, young person and participant.

•

IGNITING agency and curiosity in participants; inspiring them to make positive changes in their communities through a spectrum of creative processes and encouraging an artistic enquiry based approach to learning.

EEA’s Youth Arts programme encourages young people to become creative activists through…

•

EXPLORING creative risk taking; encompassing a multi-art form approach that allows children and young people to EXPERIMENT with new ideas/approaches.

• MOBILISING and nurturing creative communities; in schools,

museums, libraries, public spaces and spaces with low cultural engagement.

•

COLLABORATING and INVENTING opportunities WITH schools, communities and cultural organisations, with the ambition of creating long term dynamic partnerships.

Our work happens in places and spaces where people who don’t regularly come into contact with arts and culture can be surprised and enriched by our outdoor theatre and visual art installations. EEA has over 35 years of experience working with schools, communities and cultural organisations. We design and deliver bespoke creative projects, which are designed to immerse participants in spectacle of all shapes and sizes, enchanting and delighting audiences locally, nationally and internationally.

•

CREATING a world of possibility and wonder through surprising, playful and spectacular happenings, which involve children and young people as co-creators, artists and spectators.

103 | EMERGENCY EXIT ARTS

Emergency Exit Arts (EEA) has been the leading light in outdoor arts since forming in 1980, creating unforgettable events and participatory experiences. Our vision is to inspire change through creativity. EEA makes dynamic, surprising and ambitious work in the public realm by using a multi-disciplinary approach that responds to people, places and current agendas.

104

Cabinet of Oddities & Curiosities The Cabinet of Oddities & Curiosities is a co-produced creative learning project with Corelli College, who are a Greenwich based secondary school. The project was designed to inspire young people’s curiosity, imaginative thinking and creative writing through involving them in an unravelling narrative, instigated through an interactive cabinet installation which would magically appear in school one morning.

Throughout January – March 2017 the project toured to multiple primary schools and museum settings and it tracked the story of a missing explorer (Louisa Potts) who collected unique and strange objects and placed them in the cabinet for safekeeping.

Since her disappearance on her expedition to the Bermuda triangle, the young people learnt that the cabinet appears in locations where it believes inspiration lies and stories are waiting to be told.

Using the objects and the cabinet, EEA’s artists (in role as “Collectors”) worked with the young people to use the contents as sources of inspiration that could inspire pieces of creative writing, from writing memoirs from the objects’ perspective to creating pieces of poetry. A spectrum of approaches was used to engage the young people including: object handling, large scale storytelling and stories being shared through Bluetooth wireless headphones.

Creative Team Collector Simon Batchelor, Amie Taylor Co-Producer & Writer Ross Bolwell-Williams Designer Jessica Drader Stage Manager Diana Jones Collector Madeline Kludje Associate Artist & Sound Designer Arjunan Manuelpillai Co-Producer Shermaine Slocombe

105 | EMERGENCY EXIT ARTS

Reference Production

106

Arbeideren, venue of Barneteatret VĂĽrt, Ă…lesund

Teatret Vårt | Barneteatret Vårt Molde, Ålesund, Norway Established in 1972, Teatret Vårt is one of Norway’s most well respected and influential regional theatres. As a state-funded theatre, they aim to produce both modern adaptations of classical drama and newly-written Norwegian and European plays, in an attempt to take social responsibility into modern Norwegian society.

They tell stories that reflect regional identity, offer a window towards Europe, and showcase theatre as art form.

Plassen, venue of Tea tret Vart in Molde

In 2012 they moved into a new theatre. They now reside in an architectonical regional landmark, sharing the site with four of the most important cultural institutions in the region; the communal library, the Regional Centre for Artists, the Bjørnson festival, the Norwegian Festival for International Literature and Molde International Jazz Festival.

107 | TEATRET VÅRT

In 2009, because of their work with children and young people, they were granted the funds to open their children’s theatre Barneteatret Vårt that is now producing work exclusively for children aged 2 -15.

108

Romkadettene – klar for landing (Original title: ground control) SPACE CADETS - READY TO LAND “I have been informed that you are indeed Romkadettene: a team of highly sophisticated young minds brought together in this one room. You are the best people to be here.”

You are Romkadettene, and Fremtirion (Futuretron) is asking for your help. Here’s the situation: in 1974, a manned mission was sent into space to look for inhabitable planets. Now, in present day, the sensors aboard Shuttle X27-40 indicate that it may have found just such a planet.

The three astronauts on board are about to be woken from their hypersleep, and they are going to need to know how to go about setting things up. Problem is – they’re from 1974. They think that Charles Aznavour is groovy and that the computer mouse is a cutting edge invention. They need to know what the world is like today – what is cool, what is relevant, what is fair and important and what is on the minds of the population – and who better to advise them than…you?

If you had to start from scratch, how would you decide on the name, the laws, the cuisine? What do you love, what’s important to you, and what will everybody be dancing to when the anthem comes on? Through a series of ‘modules’, Fremitirion playfully asks participants to decide an identity for the planet, to decide its laws and what it will hold culturally important. The result is a civilisation unique to each group that takes part.

Using a giant projection screen and a live, highly intelligent computer (well, Fremtirion), the participants are given control of the

technology and asked to work in a team, and individually, to decide the future of their new planet.

The show is for 7-12 year olds. There are up to 40 young participants, seated in Grid Squares, and no adults allowed.

109 | TEATRET VÅRT

Reference Production Co-production of Barneteatret Vårt with the English Theatre Company non zero one

110

Kolibri Theatre Budapest, Hungary Located in the heart of Budapest, Kolibri Theatre occupies an impressive 100-year old building in the city’s historic theatre district. Founded in 1992 by Executive and Artistic Director, composer and theatre director János Novák, it is the only professional children’s and youth theatre in Hungary that has its own company. Kolibri Theatre performs for children aged 0 to 18.

Our international cooperations, Small Size – Performing Arts for the Early Years and PLATFORM shift+, have contributed greatly to the enrichment of our repertory of plays for early years and young audiences.

Kolibri Theatre celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2017! The company keeps working together towards their overall goal of providing meaningful entertainment for children of all ages, and to make it possible for every child in Hungary to see a theatre performance appropriate for their age at least once a year.

111 | KOLIBRI THEATRE

The big auditorium stages comprehensive productions for 6 to 12-year-olds, and it has two smaller performance venues as well: Kolibri Fészek (Kolibri Nest) is a theatre room for the youngest audiences, while Kolibri Pince (Kolibri Cellar) offers productions for young adults and activities for schools. Kolibri has a vast and varied repertory of 33 performances per season, consisting of the theatre’s most successful productions for all ages from toddlers to teenagers.

Kolibri is a pioneer in establishing new genres in Hungarian children’s and youth theatre by introducing live music on stage, early years performances, classroom theatre, youth plays, operas, and new adaptations of works by Hungarian and international authors.

112

Borbála Szabó Withoutfather withoutmother The play is about a teenage girl who has bad grades at school and often gets into trouble for being cheeky and outspoken.

Her parents are divorced, so she is left alone with no one to count on. She only has two true friends: Dezső and Frici – two cats who act really strange. They smoke cigars and cite Hungarian literature, especially the works of Dezső Kosztolányi and Frigyes Karinthy, two poets from the turn of the 20th century. The two cats – or as the girl sees them, the two poets – help her to overcome the trap she finds herself in with her family. A drunk mother, abusive stepfather, unseeing grandmother, lying brother, weak-willed father and a thick-skinned teacher.

The story is based on true elements of the playwright’s life, who, when she was a teenager, didn’t love or understand literature the way that it was taught.

However, she had an intimate and personal relationship to it, which helped her to deal with problems more easily.

The play is full of humour despite the cruel circumstances that the girl spends her everyday life in. The title of the production refers to the first lines of a well-known Hungarian poem, which are cited in the play by the girl.

Director György Vidovszky Set & Costume Ákos Mátravölgyi Music András Monori Movement director Eszter Gyevi-Bíró

Cast Anna Nemes, József Tóth, Juli Erdei, Dávid Szanitter, Szabolcs Ruszina, Krausz Gábor, Éva Farkas, Melinda Megyes, Bodnár Zoltán

113 | KOLIBRI THEATRE

Reference Production

114

Théâtre Massalia Marseille, France Théâtre Massalia is a non-profit organisation that is dedicated to performing arts for young audience. It is situated inside La Friche Belle de Mai, a former tobacco factory in Marseille transformed into a cultural hive. The theatre shares five venues with other companies or festivals located in la Friche or in Marseille.

In 2016/2017, Théâtre Massalia shared the co-production element of PLATFORM shift+ with the Collectif Nomade Village. The collective seeks different kinds of relationships with the public through innovative projects. It is a laboratory of artistic and technical research that deals with dance, theatre, music and digital arts. In their work,

new technologies allow a different connection to the audience and a new dimension to the storytelling. They try to channel all possible fields that enable digital tools, inside and outside the theatre.

In January 2017, Théâtre Massalia also started to work with a puppeteer, Cyril Bourgois, who created a web TV, trash tivi international.

He began a new project with the group of young people that the theatre worked with for PLATFORM shift+.

115 | THÉÂTRE MASSALIA

In November 2017, it will be the 30th birthday of Théâtre Massalia.

At first, it programmed puppet theatre, mainly for adults but the families sometimes attending the performances convinced the previous director to programme puppet shows for children as well. It is now dedicated to young audiences, presenting 20 to 25 shows per year from all performing arts including drama, puppets, dance, circus and more. Apart from the shows, the theatre also delivers educational and artistic activities in schools and the wider community. It supports several outsider artists in their work each year, giving money for the production and for access to rehearsal rooms in la Friche. It is considered as a referent company in theatre for young audiences in France.

116

Master

by David Lescot This season, Massalia programmed a guest show aimed at youth audiences, called Master. The play was written by a famous French writer, David Lescot, for Jean-Pierre Baro, a director, whose productions are now played in the most important theatres in France. The play takes place in a classroom.

The pupils don’t know that they are going to attend a performance. In front of the white board stands a teacher, actually a rap teacher, and it’s time for a short oral exam.

A young man is chosen by the teacher to answer his questions. Here begins a battle between the teacher and the student about the history of rap music. Through this battle, the author and the director raise questions about the 1980s and post-colonisation in France and how rap music has had a lot to say about it.

During the performance, the young people react, sometimes strongly, to the situations and to the confrontations between the teacher and the student. When the performance is over, a talk takes place between the artists and the audience and a lot of questions, remarks and music titles are discussed.

We presented this show nine times in secondary schools and high schools.

It was a great experience for the artists and the audience. It sometimes created new relationships between us, the theatre team, and the young people, most of them belonging to hard-to-reach audiences.

Director Jean-Pierre Baro Actors Amine Adjina, Rodolphe Blanchet Music Loïc Leroux

117 | THÉÂTRE MASSALIA

Reference production

118

TEATRO O BANDO Palmela, Portugal Founded in 1974, Teatro O Bando is one of the oldest cultural cooperatives in Portugal.

They are a group that applies transfiguration as an aesthetic method of civic participation and community engagement. O Bando’s creations are defined by their creative range and the many layers of meaning that can be drawn from their work.

The company continues to develop the uniqueness of their creations, aiming to achieve cutting edge, exploratory art works. Throughout their journey, the group has been connected to multiple national and international projects. Rural or urban, adult or child, high or low culture, national or universal, narrative or poetic - these are the boundaries that Teatro O Bando continues to break down.

119 | TEATRO O BANDO

Written mainly by Portuguese authors, their source materials are not strictly playtexts therefore these works can be explored with a range of theatrical forms that create new meanings and perspectives.

120

Reference Production

DAS NUVENS (OF THE CLOUDS) Based on “Das Nuvens” by Antonio Tabucchi

We arrive on an almost imaginary beach, with a disquieting girl speaking with a disquieted ex-military man. Meanwhile, the clouds go by, falling, as the harp’s chords echo, the wool piles up and time flies.

This is an intimate show where video feeds take us back and fourth between future and past.

“Let’s see how the world is going, this wide world that dances so joyfully, maybe not that much. The newspapers are tiresome, the news is tiresome, the world is tiresome. The world is tiresome because it is tired.”

Take a seat here.

It’s good to occupy the body with this simple act of seating and thinking.

We are on this side of the clouds.

We’re two, two ages and two faces.

- She’s a little girl full of logic.

- He’s a tired man.

We’ll gladly tell you this tale of war and peace, but you can write it yourself.

For you have an advantage, compared to us: you don’t know who has lived through it.

Its simple: some build, some destroy.

There is no justice in this story. Just two ideals.

Dramaturgy and Direction JOÃO BRITES

121 | TEATRO O BANDO

Based on a tale written by the ItalianPortuguese author Antonio Tabucchi, Das Nuvens is a show about the future, hope and tolerance.

Direction support JULIANA PINHO Music JORGE SALGUEIRO Scenography RUI FRANCISCO Costumes and props CLARA BENTO Support to the Orality RITA BRITO Light design JOÃO CACHULO Video MIGUEL MARES and RITA SANTANA (Dragonfly) Cast GUILHERME NORONHA and MARIA GONÇALVES

122

VAT TEATER Tallinn, Estonia VAT Teater isn´t very big – we have a staff of 14 people, including 4 actors. We don´t have too much space – two small theatre halls, a rehearsal room and an office inside the National Library´s colossal building.

VAT Teater has a wide range – we work as a repertoire theatre, having around 15 shows running parallel each season. The aim of VAT Teater is to have thought-provoking and surprising shows for various age groups. We invite directors, stage designers and other artists from all around the world to visit Estonia and create fresh shows for the local audience. Over the years VAT Teater has also traveled the whole planet, to show our craft to other cultures and exchange new ideas.

VAT Teater is most certainly tireless. The executive director Tiina Rebane and artistic director Aare Toikka formed the theatre in 1987 and have been leading the way ever since, making VAT Teater the oldest independent theatre in Estonia. On the 1st of October 2017 we will celebrate the 30th birthday of our energetic team!

123 | VAT TEATER

But VAT Teater is fearless – we tackle new challenges and bizarre theatre projects, like a ballet with actors who don´t have any dancing education, or fitting an audio-visual adventure about the forest into our complicated and tiny theatre hall.

124

away while the welfare of their own children is at stake. But to their surprise this experienced teacher will not accept her fate and performs a counter-attack.

REFERENCE PRODUCTION 1

The well-known German writer Lutz Hübner describes with witty humor the parents’ turmoil. The German and Estonian education systems are quite different, but when observed closely, both countries reveal very similar problems. In a success-oriented society it is of pivotal importance for a child to get into a good school. It seems as if only this can ensure a bright future for them. Because of this, the parents start to battle for their children so fiercely that soon it is hard to tell what exactly are the real goals of this fight or against who they are battling at all.

Ms Müller Must Go!

by Lutz Hübner Translation by Mihkel Seeder Do parents lie?

The parents have gathered to the parentteacher conference with a clear aim – to get rid of teacher Müller! This teacher has lost all control over the pupils and instead of a supportive learning environment anarchy prevails. The children are nervous, pick fight with each other and worst of all – get bad grades. Some say that this is because of problems in the teacher’s personal life. Maybe she needs a break? It doesn´t matter what the reason is, the parents can no longer look

Director Margo Teder Designer Pille Jänes Light Designer Triin Hook Cast Elina Reinold, Liisa Pulk, Maria Avdjuško, Meelis Põdersoo, Ago Soots, Tanel Saar

Don Quijote Comical tragedy based on the same-titled work by Cervantes In 2017 it will be 401 years since the death of the famous Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes. A lot of time has passed and some things really have changed. Today no-one will be sold as a slave on a galley, as happened with the world-famous author.

But the pirates are still there – they just forgot about the galleys and use modern technologies now.

Now it seems that we´re living in a bigger world than Cervantes was. We have airplanes. We land on planets and melt the ice sheet. But has human nature also changed? Fame and honor, joy and desire, sadness and jealousy still accompany the modern don Quijotes on their journeys.

Time is a deceptive fella, he creates the illusion of change, but the human soul doesn´t develop like this and suddenly it feels that the legendary novel of Cervantes is writing about the present-day.

Director Aare Toikka and designer Kaspar Jancis create a playful world, where many realities exist at once: the golden days of Spain, the grey days of Soviet Estonia and the completely confusing days of today´s global village. Suddenly Don Quijote doesn´t seem the craziest of us at all.

Author & Director Aare Toikka Designer Kaspar Jancis Light Designer Sander Põllu Choreograph Marge Ehrenbusch Fight Choreograph Tanel Saar Musical Design Aare Toikka, Kaspar Jancis and Peeter Rebane Cast Ago Soots, Elina Reinold, Meelis Põdersoo, Margo Teder (all VAT Teater), Lauli Otsar, Risto Vaidla, Markus Habakukk (all Kuressaare City Theatre)

125 | VAT TEATER

REFERENCE PRODUCTION 2

126

3 theatres Elsinor is based in Milan, at the Sala Fontana Theatre, but it is composed of two other local units: Cantiere Florida Theatre in Florence and Giovanni Testori Theatre in Forlì. These theatres share the same commitment in exploring new contemporary theatrical text and have created a synergy that lets them exchange their experiences inspired by traditional and new approaches.

3 theatrical seasons Elsinor organises three kinds of seasons, namely shows for schools, families and for adults. Moreover, it organises theatre festivals such as Segnali, in partnership with Buratto Theatre, one of the most important children’s theatre festivals in Italy as well as Platform Milano, a youth theatre festival created and hosted by Sala Fontana Theatre since 2011.

130 new shows Since 2000 Elsinor has created over 130 new shows and plays for theatres or specific locations, such as museums, cathedrals, harbour canals or monumental cemeteries.

20 different countries on 5 continents Elsinor has performed all around Italy and abroad, reaching Oceania, North and South America, Africa and, of course, Europe.

A million reasons to go to the theatre Besides shows Elsinor offers the audience presentation meetings, special events, post-show discussions, lectures, workshops and seminars for students, amateurs and professionals.

127 | ELSINOR CENTRO DI PRODUZIONE TEATRALE

Elsinor Centro Di Produzione Teatrale Milan, Forlì, Florence, Italy

128

The Betrothed An original novel by Alessandro Manzoni Adaptated by Michele Sinisi with the collaboration of Francesco M. Asselta The Betrothed is Italy’s most famous novel, a masterpiece that everyone has studied at school. Because of this it is linked to a pedagogical dimension and not to a personal one. At school, the exchange with teachers is now changing as it is characterised by multidisciplinary aspects.

The internet, e.g., provides a series of instruments (and shortcuts) to facilitate the learning process. There, you can find diagrams, historical events, philosophical and political trends that characterised the complex context of The Betrothed. The ability of theatre is to transform content into something more physical, to be inspired by new suggestions and possibilities. It is interesting to connect theatre practice to Manzoni’s work as an investigation about

the relationship between human beings and historical events. Manzoni could describe a community so alive and full of simplifications and clichés thanks to a very deep psychological analysis that let him go beyond the concepts of positive and negative characters.

Sinisi’s adaptation aims to investigate the relationship between people and history through contemporary awareness. The Providence, another important character of the novel, today represents an ancestral need for living together in a community where people respect each other’s differences and can shed their fears. It is going to be a fresco made with a new perspective, in order to show what a classic is, i.e something boundless.

Direction Michele Sinisi Set Design Federico Biancalani Costumes Gdf Studio Cast Diletta Acquaviva, Stefano Braschi, Gianni D’addario, Gianluca delle Fontane, Giulia Eugeni, Francesca Gabucci, Ciro Masella, Stefania Medri, Giuditta Mingucci, Donato Paternoster, Michele Sinisi

129 | ELSINOR CENTRO DI PRODUZIONE TEATRALE

REFERENCE PRODUCTION

130 The South Bohemian Theatre České Budějovice, Czech Republic The South Bohemian Theatre is the only theatre with four ensembles (Drama, Opera, Ballet Ensembles and Little Theatre) in the Czech Republic. The last part, the Ateliér 3D (3D Studio), was established in 2014. It is responsible for educational activities, conducted by means of theatrical principles, workshops, special events and lecturing. The South Bohemian Theatre performs on five stages – the Historical building (for 260 spectators), Studio stage (for 100), Metropol House of Culture – Theatre Hall (for 500), Little Theatre (for 100) and the Open-Air

Each of the four permanent ensembles has its artistic director.

The artistic director of the Little Theatre ensemble is Petr Hašek and its in-house director is Janek Lesák. The permanent staff of the Little Theatre comprises 11 actors. Its repertoire focuses on young audiences, ranging from pre-school children to adult visitors. The repertoire (5 premieres in the season + other one-time events) deals almost exclusively with writer’s theatre or distinct authorial adaptations of literary works. Over several past seasons, the Little Theatre has established itself as one of the most progressive stages for young audiences countrywide.

131 | THE SOUTH BOHEMIAN THEATRE

Theatre with the Revolving Auditorium in Český Krumlov (for 750).

During one season, the Theatre produces around 18 premieres and stages over 500 performances. It works all year round – as a four-ensemble theatre on its interior stages from October to May, and on the open-air stage in Český Krumlov from June to September, where the individual ensembles perform in a block system almost every day. For several years, the summer season of the Open-Air Theatre, with the Revolving Auditorium ranks among the most successful and most frequently visited cultural events in the Czech Republic. The South Bohemian Theatre has a permanent staff of around 250 employees. Since 2014, the director has been Lukáš Průdek.

132

Charles – Father of the country Theatre manual for rulers “I am buying a castle, building a church, extending a town wall and sending monks to my monastery.” Whose turn is it? Charles, of course! Building an empire is far from easy.

However, if you combine good luck in playing with love to your country, you can make miracles happen. Exactly as it was in the 14th century, under the first king of Bohemia who could read and write. A stage animation of a portrait of the “greatest Czech”, who managed to become the most powerful man of the world in his time and, at the same time, not to forget where he came from.

An original writer’s production about Emperor Charles IV on the occasion of the 700th anniversary of his birth. Realised in a very playful and grotesque form with a large number of topical allusions concerning the current events, the production covers

the most significant moments in the life of the most successful and important ruler of the Czech lands (he was even declared the “greatest Czech” in a well-known Europewide opinion poll). The production is inspired not only by historical facts from the era of Charles IV’s reign, but also by popular strategic board games.

The resulting stage form combines a play of puppets and an actor with video mapping.

The stage then consists of unbleached linen, period shields and a royal throne with 17 projection areas.

Director Petr Hašek Authors Helena Kebrtová & Petr Hašek Set Jitka Nejedlá, Animation & Video Mapping Marie Jarošová Music Jan Vejražka Dramaturgy Helena Kebrtová, Cast Petr Šmíd, Denisa Posekaná, František Hnilička, Dana Chroustová, Lucie Škodová, Lucie Valenová

133 | THE SOUTH BOHEMIAN THEATRE

Reference Production

134 University of Agder Kristiansand, Norway The Faculty of Fine Arts has around 500 students and 85 staff in academic positions. It comprises of the Departments of Visual Arts and Drama, of Classical Music and Music Education and of Popular Music and cooperates with all the established music, theatre and visual art institutions in the region of Agder. It is also involved in national institutions and in collaborative research through international networks and organisations. Research activities are connected to artistic performance, and the faculty’s academic staff is qualified with both artistic and academic skills. The faculty offers study programmes in popular and classical music, music education, fine arts, arts and crafts and drama education and a PhD programme with two specialisations: Popular music performance and Art in Context. Shorter programmes and courses are offered as elective subjects in the university’s education programmes.

The theatre section at Department of Visual Arts and Drama produces approximately twenty performances every year, most of them touring in kindergartens and schools. Some of the performances are artistic research generated by the academic staff; others are devised with students as performers. The department utilises a broad and open drama definition, and the education offered combines educational, academic and artistic practice.

As theatre-practitioners, teachers and researchers, several of the employees have extensive experience in Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA). The section has a long cooperation with the Assitej, and was one of the funding organisations behind ITYARN (International Theatre for Young Audiences Research Network).

Reference Production

KRIGEN (The War)

During the research phase, the students read the story and showed the expressive pictures in the book to children. Afterwards, the children drew their own pictures and the students made a short animation based on them. The actor playing Inga used a smartphone both as a prop – in direct dialogue with the audience, as a camera documenting and showing her parents quarrelling as projection - and as a device to control the projector.

The production is a part of the first-year work for the Bachelor’s Programme in Theatre Education.

Devised and performed by the studentactors Thor Åmli, Kathrine Oktavia Johannesen, Natalie Dybdahl Khan, Alexander F.C. Johansen, Thale Sæter Sundtjønn, Andreas Vedvik Supervision Ida Fugli

135 | UNIVERSITY OF AGDAR

Based on Gro Dahle’s picture book (Illustrations Kaia Dahle Nyhus) The protagonist of Gro Dahle’s third children’s book is Inga. Her parents are separated and we see how Inga goes through the divorce with feelings of fear and guilt whilst travelling between the parents.

136

MY DIGITAL ADDICTION My digital addiction is watching TV series: House of Cards, Top of the Lake, House, The Americans‌I love seeing a character evolve over a long period of time. Sometimes I start late at night after I have finished my emails, and think I will watch one episode‌Do you know that after you have watched around three or four episodes in a row, there comes a message on the screen which asks you if you are still watching? The TV presumes you have fallen asleep. If you do know this, then you are probably a fellow addict.

Jo Parkes (Director, Germany)

In order to inspire me for roles and my work for a new show I do research on the net. To be always available for my agents to quickly turn an ecasting, to call up the text of a play via G-Mail-App and to book an online ticket for the train to the shooting location I use my smartphone. And to switch off I watch series on Netflix or play games on my x-box.

Moritz Stephan (Actor, Germany)

My digital addiction is neither a special hardware or software.

I must confess that my iPhone never leaves my side, and I undoubtedly feel a certain love for every product with an apple logo. Still my addiction or borderline obsession is making all kinds of digital tools work together either in stage performances, working by my office desk or at home. When I bought my new car, I spent one hour driving it, and perhaps 8 hours connecting the car with a simcard, setting up wifi

For stage purposes Qlab is my favourite software hub to work with. You can start imagining an utopian idea of how you want to include digital solutions to a performance, then immerse yourself in the world of specialized software and hardware that can make your utopian idea come to life. Through physical cables like USB/Art-Net or Midi, or through digital connections inside your mac, Qlab can be the hub making all the software and hardware “talk together”.

It’s unbelievably satisfying when all stage technique within lighting, sound, and video can be controlled by a go button, and all the different components of your rig fluently talk and work together. Øystein Flemmen (Higher Executive Officer, University of Agder, Norway)

137 | MY DIGITAL ADDICTION

MY DIGITAL ADDICTION

and direct live connections to online news, twitter etc. and making all the car info available through my iPhone and iPad with remote control functions.

138

MY DIGITAL ADDICTION My digital addiction is Facebook. As an actress I use it a lot for work since more and more castings are now being posted on Facebook. I have actually got several jobs from Facebook casting posts, so because of that I really feel like I am “missing out” if I can’t check my Facebook regularly. Also, when it comes to networking I feel it’s important to stay in touch with directors and casting directors through Facebook and post things that gives them the impression that I’m constantly working on exciting new projects :) Line Brå Johansen (Actress, Norway)

Budapest /Hungary, June 16 – 19, 2016

139 | 7TH ANNUAL ENCOUNTER

7TH Annual Encounter & Festival My Story

140

The 2nd Annual Encounter brought the PLATFORM partners to Budapest. As the leading children’s and youth theatre in Hungary, Kolibri Theatre has many years of experience in putting on festivals and international meetings. It was consequently the ideal host for the PLATFORM - Festival of National Productions “My Story”.

The challenge set for the first stage of the project was: The digital world as the direct starting point for the content or the form of theatre productions for young audiences. The presentation of the concepts at the 1st Annual Encounter in Portugal provided the opportunity for the theatres to exchange and develop ideas which then flowed on into the work on the National Productions in the 2015/16 season. Several productions grew out of the direct involvement of young people in the artistic process.

141 | 7TH ANNUAL ENCOUNTER

142 The focus on participation in the concept of PLATFORM shift is reflected in the opening of this year’s Annual Encounters. Together with his European colleagues and young people from Budapest, Andrew Siddall from Emergency Exit Arts London worked on a digitally embossed open air Event My Story, which marked the beginning of the Festival of National Productions. Following this, the young target audience and audiences from 9 European countries could view and discuss 8 complete shows and 3 staged presentations. The last day of the meeting was determined by experts from the digital world who came for the 2nd CREATIVE FORUM with the title “cmd - Creative Media Delivery” to Budapest.

The experts passed on their knowledge and experience to the participants in numerous TED like speeches and various workshops.

143 | 7TH ANNUAL ENCOUNTER

144

145 | 7TH ANNUAL ENCOUNTER

146

MY DIGITAL ADDICTION My digital addiction is online Scrabble. I am a bit of a nerd and when it comes to playing Scrabble I do prefer to play it in real life and with my friends. Often I don´t that option because 142have Digital Addiction sometimes I want to do it 3 o´clock in the morning. So I play it online with strangers with a Scrabble app. The game serves as kind of a meditation for me. I can put the rest of my brain on stand-by whilst playing.

Helen Rekkor Director (VAT Theatre, EE)

For two days the Artistic Leaders of all participating companies were guests of the University of Agder, also partner in the project. The meeting took place during the theatre festival SAND, held by the Norwegian Assitej.

Dirk Neldner, Artistic Leader of PLATFORM shift, gave a speech on the project’s concept to the Norwegian festivals participants.

The PLATFORM-representatives used the chance to see some performances and to meet Norwegian artists.

147 | MIDTERM EVALUATION

Midterm Evaluation September 2016, Kristiansand, Norway

148 The Artistic Directors of the PLATFORM Shift+ partner companies met to discuss the first period of PLATFORM shift + and the state of affairs of the project. The participants discussed lively their detailed experiences and expressed their positive sight on the results in their companies. There were intensive talks concerning the second half of the project and future ideas.

How did your expectations meet till now?

Are there Any proposals for the next 2 years?

The project is certainly meeting our expectations of being involved in an EU project - offering unique opportunities to our artists, staff and audiences to be involved in work with a broad European reach and influence.

Pshift+ is the necessary pain in the ass, that forces you to leave your comfort area.

Tiina Rebane, VAT Theatre (EE) Our expectations have certainly been satisfied in the best sense of the word, as this project makes us continually think about a theatre for teenagers, its themes and forms. We learn how to apply modern technologies to the operation of the theatre to the widest possible extent. I would like to propose a higher degree of critical reflection of our endeavours and the theatre in general, from teenagers themselves‌ Lukas Prudek, South Bohemian Theatre (CZ)

149 | MIDTERM EVALUATION

Mandy Smith, Pilot Theatre (UK)

150 The project is certainly meeting our expectations of being involved in an EU project - offering unique opportunities to our artists, staff and audiences to be involved in work with a broad European reach and influence.

Mandy Smith, Pilot Theatre (UK)

We are very satisfied with the outcomes so far. The widening of horizons and comparative reflection are a duty and an essential need for artists and cultural institutions…

PLATFORM shift+ always challenges us to leave our comfort zones and try something new.

Giuditta Mingucci, Teatro Elsinor (IT)

The Creative Forum talks and workshops give us food for thought and insight into new technology. I’d like to see more presentations and debates with arts practitioners who use digital technology creatively in their theatre and live art work.

Deb Mullins, EEA (UK) We gained experience in developing two parallel co-productions in two cities and integrating the respective perspectives into both processes. We hope to further implement the contemporary use of digital media into the artistic process as well as in mediation and marketing, tailoring it to different age groups.

Felicitas Loewe, tjg. (DE) I mostly expected to open my and our mind by involving the company in an EU project. I wished to find inspiration to improve our relationships with young people and to take time to learn about digital tools.

Emilie Robert, Theatre Massalia (FR) Being part of PShift+ has exceeded our expectations. With Labyrint and Traitor we have made productions we would not have made. Both productions have been great successes. We have explored new ways of working and ideas that we know would not have seen the light of day without being part of this EU-project.

Cecilie Lundthold, Teatret Vårt (NO)

It gives us the opportunity to exchange our ideas and practice with professionals from different cultural perspectives and traditions in a really practical way, enabling the exchange of both learning and knowledge alongside personal and professional development to transcend those differences and create new ways of working and seeing the world.

Mandy Smith, Pilot Theatre (UK)

Being part of P Shift has coincided with our drive to integrate digital technology in our artistic work and the use of social media for communications and marketing.

We are particularly interested in gaining insight into our audiences through digital platforms in the context of making work for outdoor spaces.

Deb Mullins, EEA (UK)

Working in this network creates new impulses that are crucial at this moment for our company and for theatre in general in our country.

The confrontation with other important groups that are facing similar or different situations in the same field is challenging and extremely useful for finding effective and innovative solutions, as well as for keeping our horizons wide open.

Giuditta Mingucci, Teatro Elsinor (IT)

151 | MIDTERM EVALUATION

What is the benefit for your institution in exchanging with other theatres on a European level?

152 VAT has been developing its educational work since the last project Platform 11+. Now we have a broad system with a lot of different workshops and educational programmes. Thanks to P Shift+ educational work is now an inseparable part of the theatre.

Tiiina Rebane, VAT Theatre (EE) The project allows us to let employees from various departments of the tjg. participate in international encounters whilst working practically on co-productions.

This results in important new ideas for the content of our work.

Felicitas Loewe, tjg. (DE) The French arts sector was pretty comfortable in the 80s and 90s but now we have to face a lot of difficulties and to invent new organisations and working methods. Exchanging ideas and experiences with other theatres on a European level, helps a lot. It’s a good way to look at our problems with distance and understand that there may be different ways to solve them.

Emilie Robert, Theatre Massalia (FR)

Did you integrate any of the new gained experiences/know-how in the normal work of your company?

Giuditta Mingucci, Teatro Elsinor (IT)

We have created a new job at our house, the dramaturge for digital media, to implement the new findings in practice instantly.

Felicitas Loewe, tjg. (DE)

We have integrated into our work some of the marketing and communication tools that we learned. The experiences with young people have influenced a lot our new work, the actual experimentation we are sharing with a group of teenagers should be the base or our proposals to them in the future.

Emilie Robert, Theatre Massalia (FR) Partners have taken different approaches to the project – some using the digital world as a subject matter that informs the narrative of their theatre work and some using technology to create and present the work.

It seems to be a very open process where we get to choose how we approach the digital technology. EEA is seeking out more partnerships and collaborations with digital artists in the UK and through exchange with the P Shift + partners.

Deb Mullins, EEA (UK) Our performances for audiences aged 14+ have become a regular part of our repertoire, we have established a much closer and more personal cooperation with students of local secondary schools, we have stopped being afraid of modern technologies and started to play with them by including them into the production of our performances, we have substantially increased the video content of our web pages and we now communicate with our spectators via social networks. We drew inspiration from a large number of details when visiting various partner theatres and their performances.

Lukas Prudek, South Bohemian Theatre (CZ)

153 | MIDTERM EVALUATION

P Shift+ strengthened our focus on the digital field, in both artistic and marketing areas. The marketing department was extremely influenced by the outcomes of the Marketing Meeting, an excellent occasion for comparing methods, allowing our professionals to have feedback on an international level and create a useful network of colleagues with the same kind of responsibilities – as well as for creating new connections between the marketing and artistic departments.

Due to our participation in the project, we have integrated more digital techniques, and accordingly, employed more digital experts in our new performances. Our initiatives to renew the theatrical language through the enhanced use of special digital effects in our shows have been appreciated by the younger viewers. We have also learned quite a lot about ways to develop our marketing strategy.

János Novák, Kolibri Theatre (HU)

154

MY DIGITAL ADDICTION As a freelancer I have to drive around Estonia a lot. There probably isn’t many places in my home country that I haven´t visited or passed through yet. That means I should know Estonia very well, but to be honest, I don´t. All of the thinking is done by the GPS-system. I just type in the location and switch my brain off for the trip. Of course I´m not completely “out” – I still admire all the beautiful landscapes.

The embarrassing thing is that afterwards I don´t know the name of the places. This is the price of having the convenience of GPS. Rauno Kaibiainen Actor (VAT Theatre, EE)

I am a bit of an excessive photo and video taker on my iPhone. My little girl (and I suppose her whole generation) will probably be the most photographed in history! The photo album on my phone had become almost unmanageable and somewhere where I had to swim through hundreds of dud pictures and videos before finding the good ones. I found an app called 1 second everyday which - as the name suggests makes you choose just 1 second of a video or 1 picture from your day and creates an edited video for you. This is both a challenge and a joy. So far, I have a record of 1 second every day since October 2016 of my daughter’s life and it is

Sarah Rorke (Company Administrator Pilot Theatre, York, UK)

155 | MY DIGITAL ADDICTION

MY DIGITAL ADDICTION

so fantastic to see how much she has changed in such a short space of time. I intend to keep it going for as long as possible. To see the difference over a year or longer condensed into a few minutes will be amazing.

156

157 | TIMELINE

158

DIGITAL CHALLENGES IN THEATRE FOR YOUNG AUDIENCES YEARBOOK 2016/2017

Kolibri Gyermek – és ifjúsági színház Budapest, Hungary Artistic Director: János Novák Jókai tér 10, HU-1061 Budapest www.kolibriszinhaz.hu

VAT Teater Tallinn, Estonia Artistic Director: Aare Toikka Uus 5, EE-10101 Tallinn www.vatteater.ee

Jihočeské divadlo České Budějovice, Czech Republic Director: Lukáš Průdek Doktora Stejskala 424/19, CZ-370 01 České Budějovice www.jihoceskedivadlo.cz

ACGD Théâtre Massalia Marseille, France Artistic Director: Emilie Robert Friche Belle de Mai, 41 rue Jobin, FR – 13331 Marseille cedex 03 www.theatremassalia.com

AS Regionteatret Møre og Romsdal Teatret Vårt Molde, Norway Artistic Director: Thomas Bjørnager Gørvellplassen 1, NO-6413 Molde www.teatretvart.no

Teatro O Bando Palmela, Portugal Artistic Director: João Brites Vale dos Barris, PT-2950-055 Palmela www.obando.pt

Universitetet i Agder Kristiansand, Norway Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts: Marit Wegeland-Yates Gimlemoen 25, NO-4604 Kristiansand www.uia.no

Emergency Exit Arts London, United Kingdom Artistic Director: Deb Mullins Rothbury Hall, Azof Street, GB-London SE10 OEE www.eea.org.uk Elsinor Centro di produzione teatrale Milan, Florence, Forlí, Italy Artistic Director: Giuditta Mingucci Via Boltraffio 21, IT-2059 Milano www.elsinor.net

tjg. Theater Junge Generation Dresden, Germany Artistic Director: Felicitas Loewe Wettiner Platz, 01067 Dresden www.tjg-dresden.de

ADDRESSES

159 | ADDRESSES & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Pilot Theatre Company York, United Kingdom Artistic Director: Esther Richardson c/o York Theatre Royal, St. Leonhard’s Place, York Y01 7HD www.pilot-theatre.com

160

Yearbook Season 2016/17

PLATFORM shift+ Digital challenges in theatre for young audiences Editor Odette Bereska Layout & Design www.wrappedagency.co.uk Printed by Druckhaus Köthen (Germany) | www.koethen.de English Corrections Sam Johnson, Lucy Hammond, Peter Scollin Picture Index Elisa Braun (DE), www.schmidt.fm (DE), Drewag (DE), Olliver Killig (DE), Topher McGrillis (UK), Paul Simpson (UK), Sam Johnson (UK), Shermaine Slocombe (UK), Martin Brown (UK), Alex Evans (UK), Siim Vahur (EE), Rolf-Inge Petersen (NO), Judit Szlovak (HU), Philippe Domengie (FR), Miguel Mares (PT), Thomas Corona (IT), Adam Mørk (NO)

© PLATFORM shift+ PLATFORM shift+ Digital challenges in theatre for young audiences is a European Theatre Network supported by the European Commission.

The views expressed in this publication are only the views of the authors. The Commission cannot be held responsible for any use, which may be made of the information contained therein.

Contact: Odette Bereska | odette@platformshift.eu Head Organisation: Pilot Theatre Company | York, United Kingdom Artistic Director: Esther Richardson | c/o York Theatre Royal, St. Leonhard’s Place, York Y01 7HD | www.pilot-theatre.com Office: Kalkseestrasse 7 A – D-12587 Berlin

www.platformshift.eu

161 | IMPRINT

Publisher Dirk Neldner

DIGITAL CHALLENGES IN THEATRE FOR YOUNG AUDIENCES YEARBOOK 2016/2017

Pilot Theatre Company (York/Great Britain) South Bohemian Theatre (České Budějovice/Czech Republic) Elsinor Centro di Produzione Teatrale (Milan, Forli, Florence/Italy) Emergency Exit Arts (London/Great Britain) Kolibri Theatre (Budapest/Hungary) Theatre Massalia (Marseille/France) Teatro O Bando (Palmela/Portugal) tjg. Theater Junge Generation (Dresden/Germany) VAT Teater (Tallinn/Estonia) Teatret Vårt (Molde/Norway) University of Agder (Kristiansand/Norway) www.platformshift.eu