Dates
| 16.10.2024 / 11:00 - 21:30 |
| 17.10.2024 / 14:00 - 22:00 |
Information
We imagine our work environment in independent performing arts as a garden. Not only as a romanticised place full of harmony, but above all as a space bursting with intricate relationships, individual needs, identities, and goals. A garden that needs to be tended to, so that some do not grow at the expense of others, in which the primary concern is to build mutuality and healthy collaboration. We would then wish this garden represents the world we strive for.
REGISTRATION FORM: https://forms.gle/EFLRvEgesRtHwU9P6
With the Cultivator project, we at Studio ALTA create tools to make the interdependence between different participants visible and to learn to communicate together. We perceive the fine lines between care and control, between support and manipulation, and we know that the only way to understand each other is to listen to each other’s needs, articulate expectations, and name the positions from which we act.
In the Artists and Venues format, we invite representatives of cultural institutions, Venues, and Artists to meet. Our relationships are often very strong, stable and long-lasting, but other times they can be (unintentionally) toxic, full of unspoken expectations and unmet demands. During this two-day meeting, we want to focus on two trajectories centred around themes and factors that fundamentally shape the dynamics of our relationships: Power and Success.
We will ask what Power we have, how we can imagine it, how our actions affect others, what Power we have over ourselves, and how we can distribute and access it to prevent its abuse. We are interested in exploring where Power comes from and how to use it to drive positive change.
We will also talk about Success, how to perceive it in an increasingly precarious sector where it seems that only the most “gifted” can succeed, or how to set new criteria for Success together so that we do not leave many of us behind, creating a feeling of inferiority. We are curious what Success can teach us about ourselves and the world we live in.
The first day of Artists and Venues will feature workshops aiming to help us think from new perspectives and open a space of common understanding between Artists and Venues.
Berlin-based choreographer Pauline Payen and Studio ALTA curator Petr Dlouhý will present a prototype of new cards and the practice of constellations to reflect on one’s own position within the cultural sector. Artist Kateř Tureček will guide us through the process of self-reflection on how to perceive success in the context of our work and the system in which we operate. With Anna Konjetzky, a choreographer from Munich, we will talk about career. Questions of Power will be explored by Berlin-based artist Eva Nina Lampić through her research on “Haunted Theaters” and the abuse of Power in cultural institutions, and with facilitator Dana Moree we will examine where the source of Power comes from and how to build stronger negotiating positions.
On the second day we will sit down at round tables and focus on what connects us and what is immediately relevant to us. We will present four thematic tracks to allow us to look for weaknesses in our relationships, clarify misunderstandings, and, perhaps most importantly, deepen our understanding. What happens when we let go of the idea that certain topics only concern some of us? What possibilities open up when we use our interconnectedness and the knowledge we create as Artists and Venues? The evening’s arts programme, prepared in collaboration with Venuše ve Švehlovce, features a double bill (two performances for the price of one): Black Dress by Becka McFadden and Move More Morph It! by Anna Konjetzky.
PROGRAM
16. 10. Wednesday
11:00–13:00 Pauline Payen & Petr Dlouhý / The FIELD (Konstelaci moci a úspěchu) *[EN]
14:00–16:00 Dana Moree / Moc *[CZ]
14:00–16:00 Anna Konjetzky / Career *[EN]
17:00–19:00 Eva Nina Lampić / Haunted theaters *[EN]
17:00–19:00 Kateř Tureček / Úspěch *[CZ]
19:30–21:30 Jaro Viňarský & Lucia Kašiarová / Every-Body on the same floor *[CZ+EN]
17. 10. Thursday
14:00 check-in
14:10–14:25 Jaro Viňarský a Lucia Kašiarová: Warm-up (the body is present!)
14:30–16:30 Round tables (Jiří Šimek, Adriana Světlíková, Alica Minar) *[CZ+EN]
17:00–18:00 Final sharing and reflection circle
VENUŠE VE ŠVEHLOVCE
20:00–21:00 Becka McFadden: Black Dress *[CZ+EN]
21:00–21:30 Anna Konjetzky: Move More Morph It!
DETAILED ANNOTATIONS
Pauline Payen & Petr Dlouhý: The FIELD (Constellations of power & success)
(16. 10. / 11:00-13:00)
What tools do we, as culture entrepreneurs, have to adapt to the changes in the sector that go along with the ongoing crises?
THE FIELD proposes a set of archetypes that appear more or less vividly in the arts sector and practice of CONSTELLATIONS to imagine new narratives, visualize the power dynamics and our positions within the art field and design the possible or not-so-possible scenarios of our models of organizing.
Anna Konjetzky: Career
(16. 10. / 14:00-16:00)
Is carrier the passway or the duration of our artistic practice? Is carrier how others view and label our practice, or how we label it? Is carrier the same as success? And if yes, how do we understand financial success, visibility success, fulfillment? How do we cope with putting our artistic practice within a market?
We will tackle these questions that shape our artistic identity by processing and reflecting on our professional experience – and we will see what kind of twist it makes when we call this experience a career.
Since 2005 Anna Konjetzky creates dance performances and dance installations in which choreographic thinking is a practice of reflection and transformation and is imbedded in a socio-political context, which can be found not just in the topic and aesthetics she works with but also in the settings and formats she creates for her choreographies, her artistic research and in the facilitation of exchange platforms, collaborative researches, shared trainings….
Anna Konjetzky’s works happen physically, aesthetically and politically within a queer-feminist discourse – she sees her work always as a proposition for a dialogue.
*** workshop is organized with the support of Bavarian-Czech Platform and the Czech-German Future Fund
https://www.bavarianczechplatform.eu/
Dana Moree: Power
(16. 10. / 14:00-16:00)
** workshop is organized in Czech language only
Kateř Tureček: Success
(16. 10. / 17:00-19:00)
** workshop is organized in Czech language only
Eva Nina Lampić: Haunted Theaters
(16. 10. / 17:00-19:00)
In the workshop, theatre director & performance maker Eva Nina Lampič will investigate questions of how power, prestige and status are generated, used and abused in the cultural field. She will share the findings of her research about power, harassment, and sexism in the theatre landscape in different countries, which will serve as a starting point to explore similar or different experiences of participants. Specifically, the workshop will look at more personal and “quiet” feelings of anxiety and the insecurities in responding to uncomfortable interactions, which seem to be expressed more rarely than anger and outrage. Together with participants, she will explore the logic of social transactions within artistic communities, deconstruct social rituals, and reveal unspoken rules.
Eva Nina Lampič (1985, Ljubljana) is a freelance theatre director, author and performance maker from Slovenia, living in Berlin. She studied in Ljubljana and Sheffield and now works in the independent and institutional theatre scene in Slovenia and Germany. She is interested in power relations in and outside of theatre from a feminist perspective. Her work focuses on deconstructing contexts and playing with performance and writing formats.
www.evaninalampic.substack.com
*** workshop is organized with the support of Culture Moves Europe
Jaro Viňarský & Lucia Kašiarová / Every-Body on the same floor.
(16. 10. / 19:30-21:30)
A space to stomp all ideas about success and power to the floor. Let´s release our bodies and let the mind blow to the space. Let’s dance out what a shared dance floor can teach us about dismantling the criterias of success and what sort of power can our bodies generate.
Round Tables on Power and Success
(17. 10. / 14:30-18:00)
Four round (or square) tables and four facilitated meetings between artists and venues provide us with a space to deeply dive into specific topics rooted in the infrastructure that shapes our daily working lives. We want to clarify our stances and needs, but most importantly, we want to learn from each other and collectively explore where each of us stands and how we can think about these topics from the various positions we hold.
Ludmila Vacková / CANCELED DUE TO ILLNESS: Have you founded, managed, or led a cultural organization, or are you curious about what institutions look like from the inside? Let’s navigate the possibilities for optimizing their setup and find inspiration in potentially updating the intricate system that breathes life into our organizations. The table is hosted by Ludmila Vacková, a director of Studio ALTA and association ALT@RT z.ú.
Jiří Šimek: What could a programming system for an institution look like if its primary focus was transparency, clarity, consistency, and openness? A system that considers the positions of independent artists who are constantly in a state of uncertainty, hoping someone will choose them or that they can convince someone that their work belongs in the institution’s program?
** Table is facilitated only in Czech Language
Adriana Světlíková: What do we really enjoy and we don’t? And how does it all relate to work and personal life? Adriana Světlíková, Director of the Nová síť, opens up the field for thinking about motivations and connections to one’s own work and self-organisation. What responsibilities are associated with it? Where are the boundaries of what we want to do and what we have to do? And what about working relationships? How much do we keep boundaries or open ourselves up completely to others? Or is it all a relic and are we looking for a new model of functioning?
** Table is facilitated only in Czech Language
Alica Minar: Let’s articulate our needs clearly and distinctly (Artists to Venues and Venues to Artists), at the same table, so that we can hear each other. There are so many things we expect and take for granted from each other and there are so many moments when we completely miss each other, as if we are speakingna different language. How can we be closer? How do we understand each other? How to dream together and how to create a healthier environment? Alica Minar, choreographer and new curator of Studio ALTA, brings back the successful format from the Trans Europe Halles 2022 conference.
EVENING ARTISTIC PROGRAM AT VENUŠE VE ŠVEHLOVCE
Becka McFadden: Black Dress
(17. 10. / 20:00-21:10 / Venuše ve Švehlovce)
An euphoric solo exploration of nonbinary femme identity told through story, dance and 12 black dresses from performer Becka McFadden’s own wardrobe. Shot through with humour, vulnerability and queer joy, Black Dress invites you on a journey of self-discovery and celebration. From a sunny terrace in Calabria, to the challenges of gender neutral pronouns in Czech, to a queer utopian ski lodge that doesn’t actually exist (yet), Black Dress will make you laugh, think and – above all – feel pleasure.
https://www.beautifulconfusioncollective.com/
Anna Konjetzky: Move More Morph It!
(17. 10. / 21:30-22:00 / Venuše ve Švehlovce)
Who, how and what can I be? This question is being asked by Munich choreographer Anna Konjetzky in her new piece. A body produces its own soundtrack for a journey across various identities, self-conceptions and fantastical characters. The sounds evolving reveal the movement in a different light and make the situations change unexpectedly. The images, moods, and super powers, drawn from individual or collective memory, are playfully layered and recombined. Through big effects and subtle notes, perception is fooled and the curiosity towards a creative way of handling attributions is triggered.
Choreography/Concept: Anna Konjetzky
Dance: Sahra Huby
Composition: Sergej Maingardt
TICKETS
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photo Simona Rybová
