Wie geregeld onze dagkrant leest is waarschijnlijk hun namen al tegengekomen: Alex Ferguson en Alexander Schnackenburg, onze buitenlandse journalisten die voor de editie 2010 het redactieteam van De Dagkrant komen versterken. Samen met hen maak ik deel uit van een 'internationaal researchprogramma' waarin onderzoek wordt gedaan naar festivals; de structuur, de samenstelling, het programma, het publieksbereik,...
Dit 'researchprogramma' werd opgericht door drie festivalcoördinatoren: Don Verboven van Het Theaterfestival, Thomas Kraus van Pazz-festival in Oldenburg (Duitsland) en Norman Fischer van Push-festival in Vancouver (Canada). Als onderdeel van het programma brengen we een bezoek aan deze drie festivals en gaan we in gesprek met coördinatoren, makers, programmatoren,...Onze bevindingen worden nadien, of ter plekke, tot teksten herleid die niet alleen een verslag zijn van de festivalstructuur op zich maar ook andere manier van 'schrijven over' willen onderzoeken. Hierbij wordt er ook gefocust op een sterke betrokkenheid van de makers die aanwezig zijn op de festivals. Deze bevindingen kan u nalezen op onze website die nu nog in volle opmaak is maar later deze week officieel van start zal gaan.
In de krant van vandaag kan u een eerste tekst terugvinden van Alexander waarin hij het concept 'dagkrant' nader onderzoekt en onze pers vergelijkt met die in Duitsland. Alex heeft de voorbije dagen al enkele kritische teksten gepubliceerd maar heeft voor vandaag een korte tekst geschreven bij de fotokeuze van Miet Warlop (te vinden op volgende pagina). In onderstaande tekst stelt hij zich ook even kort aan u voor. Later deze week volgt nog een uitgebreid verslag van het 'researchprogramma' en kan u meer teksten lezen van onze bezoekers.

I come from Vancouver, a strange city nestled in the mountains on the western shores of North America. It’s a mid-sized city that is 15-20 hours drive from the next closest big city (Calgary) in Canada. By now everyone identifies Vancouver with the 2010 Winter Olympics, an uncharacteristic orgy of national pride (who were those flag-waving patriots that descended on what became a giant outdoor shopping mall of a city, and how could they afford to attend hockey games with tickets priced at $800 and up―was this the Canadian nouveau riche?). Most Vancouverites aren’t even aware of the city’s theatre culture. And yet Vancouver hosts one of the most interesting new theatre scenes in Canada, as well as a few of the most progressive contemporary dance companies in English Canada. The theatre scene has become increasingly connected to the national, North American, and European festival circuit. Work comes in and work goes out. As a result, the calibre of work has improved. Someone should write about it. Could that be me?

Maybe that sounds altruistic, but I also have very selfish reasons for taking part in this three-festival, international theatre journalist exchange. I get to go to Europe and see great theatre, think about it, argue with it, get inspired, and use that inspiration in my work as a theatre artist and writer. Thanks to the PuSh Festival, which offers programming similar to Het Theaterfestival and PAZZ and other festivals like them, Vancouver gets a sample of some of the best of international theatre and contemporary dance―for two weeks out of the year. The rest of the time the pickings are slim. About every two or three months there’s something new worth seeing, either from the local scene or from somewhere else. But the most progressive artists in the city struggle within a theatre culture that’s stuck in out-dated ideas of what theatrical performance is supposed to look like. The level of conventional theatre in Vancouver isn’t very high. There’s a dearth of good directors and an almost total lack of imagination on the part of artistic directors. They seem to think the theatre-going public is incapable of enjoying anything that strays too far from formula television and cinema, or that fails to espouse the moral platitudes of a tired, but materially comfortable liberal middle-class. Sometimes I worry the artistic directors are right in their assessment, but mostly I think they and the artists they work with repeat themselves habitually and have lost the ability to surprise (if they ever had the ability). So hope lies with the smaller, artistically adventurous outfits and with PuSh.

Theatre writing in Vancouver is uninformed. Most of the critics writing for the major media outlets lack knowledge of theatre history or performance theory. Maybe that’s because the productions they are typically forced to review don’t require possession of such knowledge. Most of our theatre artists are in the same state of ignorance. They also lack basic knowledge of the history of their own theatre community. It’s not their fault. Documentation is scarce. University theatre departments are small and under funded, and it wouldn’t occur to the provincial or civic governments to fund an archive project (especially since the scarcity of arts funding encourages a poverty mentality―there’s always barely enough money to make art, but nothing left over for creating usable documentation of that art). As a result artists habitually re-invent the wheel thinking they are being innovative. So with a certain amount of hubris, I take it upon myself, occasionally, to educate. I know little, but that little is more than the nothing that’s out there.

I come to Het Theaterfestival and PAZZ to investigate theatre art, to criticize, and to learn. Especially to learn. Canada is young country with a young theatre culture. The professionalisation of theatre in the country began barely half a century ago. There wasn’t much in the way of indigenous production or playwriting before the 1950s. Most of the theatre models that exist, text-based or otherwise, are borrowed from elsewhere. Usually from somewhere around here.