A blog from the road by Festival Executive Director Mary Lou Aleskie.
Sitting in Warsaw's Frederic Chopin Airport waiting for my connection home from Tbilisi, I am trying to sort through the details of the past month's travel and all the opportunities collected.
I find myself feeling anxious to keep the interconnected network of artists, colleagues and politicians I encountered engaged and energized in discussion. Everywhere there seems to be equal parts anxiety and hopefulness about the times we live in and new ways to move into the future. In all my meetings this month, the unique opportunities for enlightenment and engagement presented by a festival equally committed to artistic expression, informed discourse and inclusiveness seems more essential than ever. Our artists need it. Our community needs it. The world needs it. So the purpose of the International Festival of Arts & Ideas moves from being essential to urgent!
SALZBURG OF THE 21ST CENTURY
Nations emerging as global economic forces seem to be capturing headlines worldwide. In some cases for decisions gone wrong but in many, as attractive partners in building economic strength for the future. As these new global players develop their strategies for attracting the assets that will sustain them, many are investing in their arts and culture both for high profile export and to attract cultural tourism to their countries. Supporting this strategy the European Union and others are investing significantly in European Cultural Capital Cities animated by newly minted festivals designed to show off the cultural substance and financial stability of their regions. And not all of these places are household name brands.
If you have never heard of Wroclaw Poland, I guarantee that you will by 2012. That is the year it will host the European Football Championship. It also hopes to be successful in its bid for designation as a European Cultural Capital. And it has even recently been a recommended destination in The New York Times Travel Section.
The city has been host to one of the more vibrant festival scenes in eastern Europe for decades with its larger than life sacred music festival, Wratislavia Cantans, as the crown jewel in a collection that boasts a vibrant jazz festival, theater scene, opera house and more, all set in a beautifully restored 13th century university city with a population of about a million.
Wroclaw's dynamic Mayor, Rafal Dutkiewicz, is confident in his efforts. He has a plan. With Poland's recent admittance into the European Union, he was able to convince the EU to invest directly in his city. The strategy is basic, he says. He must build three things. A beltway: this allows manufacturing companies (mostly computer and automotive producers) to use the land outside the city yet easily gain access to its amenities. This he calls his production investment. Next an airport: To invite the world's brightest and most successful to visit or live in Wroclaw but still stay connected to the world. He counts on this to fuel his investment in intellect and creativity. And finally, a world class performing arts center, the country's first in a century. Because he says that the other investments will not blossom without investment in the human spirit.
I met with the Wroclaw Mayor and its cultural leadership when invited to join with International Society of Performing Arts (ISPA) CEO, David Baile, in a discussion of possible collaborations including the potential of hosting an ISPA Cultural Congress there in 2014.
The interesting thing for our Festival in these visits is looking for ways to work together that raises visibility for their city and cultural assets on an international platform while using their promotional resources to invest in our community by supporting their artists' performances at our Festival. The trick is to build the relationships before these cities of the future become too accessible and overexposed.
We have been successful at this in the past but it is clear that these relationships will be increasingly important in the future. Katona Joszef's production of Ivanov was brought to us this way, with much of the international costs handled by Hungarian cultural agencies. Our success in supporting Irish theater started a few years back when Ireland was beginning to boom economically and even before their formal establishment of Culture Ireland, the agency that has done so much to spread Irish culture around the globe. It is a relationship that continues to grow.
The biggest lesson in all of this for us, I believe, is that while we exist in a specific place...a town...with neighbors...in New Haven, Connecticut...much like the nation states whose local actions are effecting global economies, our actions too have far reaching implications that can attract investment while bolstering the spirit.
CELEBRATING GLOBAL INTERDEPENDENCE
Coinciding with my trip to Wroclaw came an invitation to participate in a forum and celebration in Berlin focusing on global interdependence. For the past nine years, leading political philosopher Dr Benjamin Barber, has been convening scholars and thinkers to celebrate Interdependence Day on September 12th in a major world city to focus attention on our responsibilities as global citizens. The conversation this year in Berlin over a three day forum, centered on sustainability with a particular look at environmental issues and arts and culture.
Putting the arts center stage in this significant conversation was a brave and insightful move on the part of Dr. Barber. Even more meaningful was the willingness to include young artists from around the globe in active exchange with the world's leading scientists, scholars and parliamentarians. The encounters were eye-opening and often a reminder of the vast cultural differences between even those of us who share the same language.
Hosted in part by Berlin's RadialSystem V and House of World Cultures; both are progressive performance spaces creating new models for how the arts and artists relate to their local communities as well as the world around them.
This is an annual convening that is quickly evolving into a global movement. Next year it will have a strong presence in New York on September 12 and throughout the year. I was honored to be an invited senior delegate to this forum and to speak about the power of arts and culture and its relationship to the media. But the power of this forum, not unlike our Festival, was not in the presentations as much as it was in its ability to animate a civil exchange that can lead to democratic change. The Interdependence Forum even used the World Café model for civic engagement as we have at our Festival to try to focus specific aspects of the conversation.
Performances ranged from extraordinary classical Indian dance to the most creative and intelligently informed spoken word improvisation and hip hop. Artistic expression standing side by side with scholarly discourse, each inspired by the other, is a noble and brave representation of interdependence in and of itself. And something to consider as we look to future Festivals.
CULTURE AT THE JUNCTION OF EAST AND WEST
The month wrapped up for me with a trip to Tbilisi, Georgia where I was an invited guest along with 40 other international delegates at the Georgian Showcase of their new International Theater Festival.
The Republic of Georgia is a fascinating place with an ancient history that is strongly rooted in eastern traditions yet it is geographically, and in attitude, a very European place. Its history informs its architecture as well as its rich cultural heritage.
Here in New Haven, the Festival was fortunate enough in 2007 to be one of a handful of US organizations to present the premiere tour of the Georgian State Ballet Theater led by its artistic director, the international ballet star Nina Ananiashvili. This American tour not only heightened visibility for the company and its tremendous artistry but also gave the world a look at the seriousness of Georgian artists as important players on the world cultural stage.
So it was with great anticipation and excitement that I accepted the invitation to attend this theater showcase. Over the course of four days, I had the chance to see 15 productions by 7 different theaters. Most striking were the unique integration of puppetry in dramatic works staged with actors and puppeteers working side by side.
I had a vague awareness of this theatrical tradition since the Tbilisi Marionette State Theater has toured to the US a number of times with its production of The Battle of Stalingrad which again appeared just this summer at Lincoln Center Festival. But the real revelation came at the Marjanishvili State Drama Theater where the tradition was expanded to full stage theatrical productions of Faust and Chekhov's Yalta. The intricacy of the marionettes themselves and the life-like manipulations of up to 5 puppeteers per puppet made for a mystical and magical telling of these universal stories.
When the world outside of Georgia will get to see these traditions is unclear. And where they might end up is an even more interesting question. The Georgian government invests significantly in their arts and culture as their calling card to the west to attract tourism and investment. But the markets around Georgia have been a bit jittery. Development and refurbishment of basic infrastructure has slowed. The Cartier's on Rustaveli Street is mostly empty.
Moving these works to the world stage will take money and commitment, both from the Georgians as well as international partners. The delegation I was part of included many colleagues from countries that also invested in supporting this Festival showcase. The Baltic countries, Russia, Iran, the UK and Italy were well represented in the delegation and actually invested in supporting the Festival. Colleagues from China, Japan, Poland, Norway, Finland, Hungary and Ukraine made up the balance of the delegation. I was one of only two people from the US. There is a lot to consider in all of this, both in terms of the energy and resources available to make a performance possible at our Festival but also in terms of what it takes to truly represent international work in the US.