World Theatre Day 2016

Today is World Theatre Day 2016!

The World Theater Day Message 2016 is written by the russian direktor Anatoli Vassiliev.

 

“Do we need theatre?

That is the question thousands of professionals disappointed in theatre and millions of people who are tired of it are asking themselves.

What do we need it for?

In those years when the scene is so insignificant in comparison with the city squares and state lands, where the authentic tragedies of real life are being played.

What is it to us?

Gold-plated galleries and balconies in the theatre halls, velvet armchairs, dirty stage wings, well-polished actors’ voices, – or vice versa, something that might look apparently different: black boxes, stained with mud and blood, with a bunch of rabid naked bodies inside.

What is it able to tell us?

Everything!

Theatre can tell us everything.

How the gods dwell in heaven, and how prisoners languish in forgotten caves underground, and how passion can elevate us, and how love can ruin, and how no-one needs a good person in this world, and how deception reigns, and how people live in apartments, while children wither in refugee camps, and how they all have to return back to the desert, and how day after day we are forced to part with our beloveds, – theatre can tell everything.

The theatre has always been and it will remain forever.

And now, in those last fifty or seventy years, it is particularly necessary. Because if you take a look at all the public arts, you can immediately see that only theatre is giving us – a word from mouth to mouth, a glance from eye to eye, a gesture from hand to hand, and from body to body. It does not need any intermediary to work among human beings – it constitutes the most transparent side of light, it does not belong to either south, or north, or east, or west – oh no, it is the essence of light itself, shining from all four corners of the world, immediately recognizable by any person, whether hostile or friendly towards it.

And we need theatre that always remains different, we need theatre of many different kinds.

Still, I think that among all possible forms and shapes of theatre its archaic forms will now prove to be mostly in demand. Theatre of ritual forms should not be artificially opposed to that of “civilized” nations. Secular culture is now being more and more emasculated, so-called “cultural information” gradually replaces and pushes out simple entities, as well as our hope of eventually meeting them one day.

But I can see it clearly now: theatre is opening its doors widely. Free admission for all and everybody.

To hell with gadgets and computers – just go to the theatre, occupy whole rows in the stalls and in the galleries, listen to the word and look at living images! – it is theatre in front of you, do not neglect it and do not miss a chance to participate in it – perhaps the most precious chance we share in our vain and hurried lives.

We need every kind of theatre.

There is only one theatre which is surely not needed by anyone – I mean a theatre of political games, a theatre of a political “mousetraps”, a theatre of politicians, a futile theatre of politics. What we certainly do not need is a theatre of daily terror – whether individual or collective, what we do not need is the theatre of corpses and blood on the streets and squares, in the capitals or in the provinces, a phony theatre of clashes between religions or ethnic groups…”

Anatoly Vassiliev

Translation: Natalia Isaeva

Happy holidays!

Happy

 

Teaterunionen/Swedish ITI wish you all Happy Holidays and a Happy New Biennial Year!

Demand for visa policy

6789560f-3ea0-419b-abe5-b128e7f31d1bDEMAND FOR FAIR VISA POLICY TOWARDS ARTISTS

We, the General Assembly of the International Theatre Institute, gathered in Yerevan/Armenia from 17 to 22 November 2014, are demanding a special and fair visa policy for artists.

As a global theatre organisation the ITI experiences very directly the obstacles for transnational mobility. For the 34th World Congress of the ITI in Yerevan, Armenia, the visa for the delegates from Congo, Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Sierra Leone have been denied.

The ITI expresses it’s protest to the Armenian authorities. We also protest against the ongoing exclusion by governmental agencies for artists to conferences, festivals or other events they are invited to.

To ensure a fair and appropriate visa application for traveling and touring artists the ITI demands to the European Commission, and to the decision making political bodies worldwide to create a special visa application for artists which respects their social and economic status.

Submitted by ACAR, the Swedish centre, the German centre, supported by the US centre and the Algerian centre.

Report from the ITI World Congress

bild bild 1During the recent ITI World Congress in Yerevan, Armenia, delegates from nearly 60 nations participated. The congress contained meetings with the general assembly as well as seminars, committee meetings and performances. The congress also presented the publication ”The World of Theatre” where every nation that is a ITI member presents its current situation for the stage performing arts.

The Swedish delegation took the initiative to a declaration about an international visa policy for artists. Read the declaration in its whole here