SESSION 6 - Cultural exchanges: a European theatrical education?

Le séminaire prenait place dans un processus d’évaluation et de réflexion engagé depuis plusieurs années autour des Rencontres du Jeune Théâtre Européen et des échanges artistiques de jeunes comédiens.

En 2014, le besoin s’est exprimé d’une réflexion plus approfondie et d’un temps spécifique qui lui serait consacré.

In order to introduce this Seminar, I’d like to start by mentioning a Plea to Europeans, written by Stéfan Zweig in 1932. The text of his conference, recently published in French, is called “The Moral detoxification of Europe”. This plea was not heard at that time but it seems to me that it dealt with issues concerning the construction of Europe which are still real...

I was there. In May 2004 I was here with some of you that I meet again with a lot of joy, and others that for many reasons are not with us. I don’t hide that the emotion to be here today, twelve years after, is very strong for me. At that time we had, with Fernand Garnier, elaborated and proposed the Charter that is still today a constituent charter of the Young European Theatre Network...

Addressing the outcomes of the Young European Theatre Network for me and Pegasus Theatre in Oxford, UK, since we were members from 2009 have been immense.
We have brought over 100 young people to participate in the Rencontre in the last 6 years, many of these young people have never been outside of the UK, many are from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds, some from foster homes or state care...

“Art is not merely contemplation, it is also action, and all action changes the world, at least a little.”
Tony Kushner, 2001
My theatrical groups have attended Rencontres in Grenoble twelve times. We have taken part in another meetings and festivals connected with Rencontres, in Theatrical Season in Milano (twice), in TACT Festival in Trieste (twice).

As an introduction to this part of the Seminar, I propose to listen to some testimonies from   participants in the Rencontres, which were published in the review “Reportages”. It is an arbitrary and subjective choice among dozens of testimonies gathered all along the years by the team in charge of this workshop (Suzon Charbonnier, Thérèse Cousin, Jocelyne Jolibert and Michèle Marché).

My professional growth as a responsible of workshops in an international context is closely linked to my participation, for 10 years now, to the Rencontres.
Everything started in 2008, when I participated to the event as an actor. Fernand Garnier had the idea to ask me to come back the following year as a leader of the Commedia dell’arte and mask workshop.

What does the expression “theatrical exchange” mean? In Italy, and maybe in Europe, the expression gives little value to a theatrical product:  I come to you in order to present my show, and in return, you come to my theatre to do the same thing. So the remuneration of the work is even and the quality of the show comes after the budgetary problems that have become the central point around which the cultural exchange has been organised.

In 2012, Créarc of Grenoble and Théâtre de la Colline of Tizi Ouzou produced “Le Cadavre encerclé” by Kateb Yacine. This show involved 6 young French actors and 6 young Algerians.

The play is based on the slaughters perpetrated in 1945, in the Algerian town, Sétif, being then a French colony. On 8th May 1945, in order to celebrate the end of the hostilities of the World War II and the victory of the Allies on the forces of the Axe...

During the first European Seminar in 2004 and its preparatory meeting the year before, we had already lengthily discussed the relation between History, Memory and the construction of Europe that occurs in the Young European Theatre Rencontres.
We have analyzed these 2 different forms and their relation with past that are Memory (individual, community, emotional approach) and History...

We are shaped by our own perception, as we are: Women, students, pedagogy students, theatre enthusiasts, young adults and participants of the Rencontre...

Is it to be naive to believe that Theatre can be a place of resistance facing New Totalitarianism?

We can reasonably think that as far as Theatre is concerned, we perform stage left or stage right, but we don’t play with the big boys”. Nowadays, the “big ones” perform on television, on cinema screens and find their fame online. Facing these new media platforms, that increase everything and anything, our impact seems ridiculous...

Europe between humanist and logic of market principles:
Of progress made since the first agreements on coal and steel in 1958, and the stage of the Treaty of Rome, to the EEC, and the EU. The challenge of European leaders after two terrible world wars was to build a large space of peace, viable economically, rich in its cultural and open diversity on the rest of the world, and with a process of gradual enlargement...

The base of every cohabitation is the exchanges: exchanges among people, among groups, among countries. The knowledge of the other not only has a value for itself but it has also a value for the preconceived idea that we have of the other, which is known as stereotype.

Our team, which was created in 1987, has been renewed in the last 5/6 years. All the members of the team and the staff have less than 30 years. I believe that this is an important issue for the times and the place in which we live: Trieste, one of the oldest cities in Europe.
Throughout the year, we organize courses divided into different levels. We also organize different kinds of intensive workshops and performances. CUT has organized the TACT festival...

I would like to focus my presentation on the final question of this 6th working session. I have been coming to Grenoble since 1994.  Then it was for the 7th Rencontres and they were called “Rencontres Theatre and Youth for Europe”. From that moment, I’ve only been missing them for a couple of years. So I saw them growing, developing, getting into crisis and transforming.

I believe Cultural Exchanges are even more crucial today than previously. We are living in a time of cultural divisions, especially with the pervading attitude towards Refugees and a growing sense of Islamaphobia where Muslims are vilified like the Jews were at the time of Nazi Germany.

The artistic directors, directors of theatre groups and companies, persons in charge of cultural associations, were gathered together in Petit Théâtre of Grenoble from 5 to 8 May 2016, which was initiated by Créarc. They draw up an exhaustive assessment of Young European Theatre Rencontres...