Theatre Systems Compared

Amfiteater, 2015

This article presents the Project on European Theatre Systems (STEP) and its most recent research into the theatre lives of smaller European cities. It situates STEP's research in the tradition of sociological, philosophical and psychological inquiry into the arts' function within society and, in particular, into audience research. It explains, however, the particular benefits of STEP's approach and methodologies: that they enable international comparison and shift attention from the extraordinary performances favoured by theatre scholars to the ordinary ones that contribute to the bulk of spectators' experiences of theatre. The article explains the methods of the STEP City Study and surveys how its results will be presented in the rest of this special issue.

Polish Theatre Journal, 2017

The article presents theatre in Poland in its current organizational makeup, focusing on public theatres and how they operate. The relevant issues described here include public theatre funding and the shaping of the theatre network. The method of electing a theatre’s artistic director, and the problems that entails, have been presented as a separate theme. Management decentralization is a crucial aspect of how Polish theatres operate: most come under the authority of local government. Only very few have the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage as their founding organ. This has serious implications for the landscape of institutional theatre in Poland. Issues that the world of Polish theatre is currently grappling with have been outlined in the final segment of the text. https://www.polishtheatrejournal.com/index.php/ptj/article/view/118/595

2006

The Development of Organisational Theatre Systems In Europe: Sustainability and Changeability, 2018

When The Royal Theatre, Denmark’s first proper national theatre, opened in 1874 in Copenhagen, it was the result of a very complex cultural and political evolution beginning several centuries earlier. At the same time, it marked a significant turning point in Danish theatre history, whereby theatre developed from amateurism to professionalism, from baroque acting style to naturalism, from regionalism to internationalism, and, eventually, from the private initiative to the obligation of the state, marked by another important turning point, the Theatre Act of 1963. Until then, theatre had essentially been a private affair, driven by private interests, largely privately funded – and with broad support from the local population. It was the subject of the authorities’ growing vigilance, though, both politically and morally, and one may describe the Theatres Acts passed before 1963 as controlling and limiting, whereas the new Theatre Act sought to be democratizing, decentralizing and supportive. To understand this development, this chapter takes a look at social actors and structures in identifying the basis for the Danish theatre system from the Enlightenment to the present day, from private initiative to public responsibility (Kjeldstadli, Giddens). Our focus in understanding these changes is the concrete facilities in which the performing arts could unfold: The theatre buildings. The chapter presents the development of the Danish theatre system from a variety of socio-geographic factors previously only to a lesser extent taken into account when the country’s theatrical and cultural histories were written. It is based on a study of the unique theatre construction boom that took place in Denmark from 1874-1914 and reveals furthermore surprising regional cultural differences in, respectively eastern and western Denmark. It is the intention within this context to discuss the sociological mechanisms that control cultural growth by identifying theatrical activities and compare them with the socio-geographical conditions in the country’s different regions. The findings challenge the common perception of Denmark as a country where support for intellectual life has largely been the concern of the state, and where the theatre system is seen as a consequence of cultural policy and decision-making. Furthermore, this article intends to identify the cultural growth drivers in the Danish provinces, and it is obvious that it was the private sector, mainly industrial owners, who with popular support took the initiative to create those structures in the community, which supported social networks – by building theatres to serve as common meeting places. Cultural activities and offerings were not, as one might have expected, resulting from the cultural elite’s initiatives. Private enterprise has historically played a more significant role in the development of the current Danish theatre system than perhaps previously thought. The article draws perspectives of this historic study by finally asking what impact the actors or private initiators might have on the development of structures of today’s theatre system, and to what extent the cultural and other political processes of the 21st century – such as the development of periphery areas – could benefit from a political holistic thinking as well as secure business involvement in efforts to balance the inequality that prevails in the cultural field in the various Danish regions. The chapter is part of the forthcoming book Sustainability and Changebility: Development of Organisational Theatre Systems, edited by Karolina Prykowska-Michalak (Stockholm: STUTS 2016).

2017

An electronic version of this book is freely available, thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched. KU is a collaborative initiative designed to make high quality books Open Access for the public good. The Open Access ISBN for this book is 978-3-8394-3243-3 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 (BY-NC-ND). Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 (BY-NC-ND). which means that the text may be used for non-commercial purposes, provided credit is given to the author. For details go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Performing Arts Between Politics and Policies: Implications and Challenges , 2020

Mise en Abyme International Journal of Comparative Literature and Arts, 2020

This publication was developed as part of the Make a Move – An Art Incubator for European non-institutionalised and independent theatre project and co-founded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union. The Make a Move – An Art Incubator project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. The special issue of “Mise en Abyme” dedicated to the Make a Move project represents a complementary academic outcome to "Make a Move – An Art Incubator for Contemporary European Non-Institutionalised and Independent Theatre” (project co-funded by Creative Europe), with critical essays on excellence parameters and business model, case studies and specific focus, including a mapping section on festivals, markets, companies, training centres, and funding organization. The issue include contributions by Armando Rotondi, Valentina Temussi, Daria Lavrennikov, Eugen Păsăreanu, Raluca Blaga, Traian Penciuc, Freya Treutmann, Lyudmyla Honcharova. The initiator and leader of the project is an arts organisation – Creative Laboratory of Contemporary Theatre KRILA from Rijeka, directed by Ivana Peranić. The main partners of the project are the Galway Theatre Festival (Ireland), the Institute of Arts Barcelona (Spain), the University of Arts Târgu-Mureș (Romania). The associate partners are ACTS (Oslo, Norway), MOVEO (Barcelona, Spain), Platform 88 (Montpellier, France), Poulpe Èlectrique (Arcueil, France), ToTum TeaTre (Barcelona, Spain) and Workinglifebalance Ltd. (Graz, Austria). The project has been co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union, RIJEKA 2020 LLC, Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia, Kultura nova Foundation, City of Rijeka, Primorje-Gorski kotar County, Austrian Cultural Forum Zagreb, the European Capital of Culture Galway 2020, the Galway City Council, the Arts Council of Ireland, the Ajuntament de Sitges and the French Institute Barcelona. The Make a Move project has been developed under the European Capital of Culture programme – Rijeka 2020: Port of Diversity, project “Unreal Cities”.

Ekonomski Vjesnik, 2016

At a time when public funding of culture is being reduced and increasing attention is being paid to profitability, it is essential to apply an entrepreneurial mindset and management principles to the guidance and the financing of cultural institutions. This paper focuses on the theatre funding scheme and presents a survey analysing the structure of funding theatres in Croatia by weighting budgetary and commercial funding, as well as analyses possible measures to be implemented in order to improve the theatre funding model. A survey was conducted in 2015, which found that public theatres are predominantly funded by budgetary resources (62.14%), while the most important part of the revenue and income section of private theatres originates from selling their own products and services (43.99%). Theatres believe that budgetary resources still need to remain the dominant sources of funding, but in order to increase the level of operational excellence, a change of direction would be necess...

Amfiteater, 2015

This article investigates the similarities and differences on how spectators experience theatre performances grouped along large, transnationally present types as Spoken Theatre, Dance Theatre, Musical Theatre and Kleinkunst. Our findings are based on the analysis of the extensive data collected by the Project on European Theatre Systems (STEP) through a quantitative and qualitative audience research between 2010–2014 in Groningen (NL), Tartu (EE), Debrecen (HU) and Tyneside (UK). The results portray a generally very satisfied audience with small but significant differences between the types and the cities. The analysis is carried out along two interconnected tracks: dimensions of theatrical experience, based on a revised version of Van Maanen's TEAM model, are compared to clusters of keywords, which emphasise certain aspects of spectators' experience. The research manages to highlight specific patterns of theatre reception that fuel an exciting discussion on how to interpret certain key components of theatre experiences: immersion, personal and social relevance, cognitive and emotional engagement, complexity.