March 11th 2009

THE DIRECTORS’ FORUM: THE SIX SENSES OF THE DIRECTOR
Images from left to right: Cake Theatre, Cases of Murder - Ruth Kanner Theatre Group, New Jericho A'dam - Station House Opera.

[click on these small images to view larger versions in a new window]

Animating, articulating and illuminating the director’s craft

"Being a director is not a solo occupation – so most of my life is spent in a room with artists who are a lot more interesting than I am”
Peter Sellars: Theatre and Opera Director

Whilst the role of a theatre director is essentially collaborative - as evoked by Peter Sellars in the quote above - the co-ordinating centrality of the role nevertheless makes it a singular, responsible, and therefore sometimes an isolated one.

Across its many manifestations, the role requires the acquisition of a set of diverse tools for the trade, techniques, methods and knowledge/s, many of which are often acquired empirically ‘on the job’ (there being limited training opportunities) and ‘in the moment’ through primarily ‘hermetic’ processes of making and rehearsal. Furthermore, these tools, methods and processes are generally hidden in the processes of making/ rehearsal and are not usually revealed or fully disclosed in final production.

Programmes for directors’ exchange, development and training are primarily geared to the needs of the ‘emergent’ director; occasions for the exchange of the wealth of knowledge and experience of ‘mid-career’ directors and development opportunities are simply not available.

In this context, and building on a previous strand of work in this area, CPR has invited some of the most exciting and diverse Wales-based and international theatre directors to Aberystwyth for an intensive participatory project that offers a rare opportunity for both experienced and emerging directors to gather and share the methods, approaches and skills of professional directing practice via laboratories and presentations, demonstrations and dialogue.

The Directors’ Forum comprises a series of evolving and developing practical investigations (not simply workshops and training exercises) in two, three-day blocks that allow small groups of directors to explore know-how, intuition and embodied practices in a safe and intimate atmosphere. These six days of practical investigation are followed by a two-day ‘gathering’ where methods and approaches can be encountered through more presentational formats.

Engineer your own pathways and interests through a series of different ‘laboratories’, ‘exploratories’ and ‘forums’, practical and participatory sessions designed to animate, articulate and illuminate aspects of particular directorial/ making processes in exploration with others.

Guest Directors Include:
Veenapani Chawla (Adishakti Centre, India), Das Beckwerk (Denmark), Jaroslaw Fret (Teatr ZAR, Poland), Richard Gregory (Quarantine, UK), Bill Hamblett (Small World Theatre, Wales), Natalie Hennedige (Cake Theatre, Singapore), Adrian Jackson (Cardboard Citizens, UK), Ruth Kanner (Ruth Kanner Theatre Group, Israel), Anuradha Kapur (National School of Drama, India), Julian Maynard Smith (Station House Opera, UK), John McGrath (National Theatre of Wales), Philip McKenzie (Sherman Theatre Cymru), Anders Paulin (Sweden), Mike Pearson (Pearson/Brookes, Wales), Ralf Richardt Strøbech (Hotel Pro Forma/ Loop Group, Denmark), Tore Vagn Lid (Transiteatret-Bergen, Norway).

PROJECT PATHWAYS
Fri 9th - Sun 11th April
Tues 13th - Thurs 15th

The Forum aims to provide not the usual diet of workshops but the chance to try out new methods and formats and enable individual enquiries and curiosity. Two-hour morning ‘exploratories’ offer an opportunity to explore specific questions, issues, concerns, genres, obsessions and secrets with a peer group. These sessions will be proposed and led/facilitated by guest directors and other participants.
Please contact us if you would like to make a proposal for an exploratory session.

Morning Forum
A whole-group session, developing a theme over the three days, facilitated by a Wales-based director.

Exploratory
A two-hour session of practical investigation in groups of approximately 20 participants that explores particular concerns. This allows participants the chance to encounter different and diverse approaches and aesthetics and share their own problems and solutions.

Laboratory
A longer and more in depth practical investigation of the craft, technique or ‘intuitive sense’ of the director with a guest director of your choice. The investigation continues for three afternoons, shared with a small group of up to 14 participants.

Laboratory 1:
Natalie Hennedige (Cake Theatre, Singapore), Richard Gregory (Quarantine, UK), Julian Maynard Smith (Station House Opera, UK), Ralf Richardt Strøbech (Hotel Pro Forma/ Loop Group, Denmark)

Laboratory 2:
Adrian Jackson (Cardboard Citizens, UK), Ruth Kanner (Ruth Kanner Theatre Group, Israel), Das Beckwerk (Denmark), Veenapani Chawla (Adishakti Centre, India), Ong Keng Sen (TheatreWorks, Singapore)

For more information on our guest directors visit the conferences section of our website.

Presentation
A chance to view the work of guest directors, hear their vision for performance and theatre and gain a glimpse of their technique and approach in an informal setting in the evenings.

Gathering
Fri 16th - Sun 18th April
Following the intensive six days of laboratories, practical investigations and expositions, the ‘Directors Forum’ concludes with two-and-a half days of encounters to: draw together elements of the practical investigations; launch further enquiry, provocation and interrogation; encourage discussion and debate; platform several key speakers and international guests who will create illuminating contemporary and historical perspectives on the director’s role and offer case studies from other nations that have echoes of the geographic, demographic and bi-lingual complexity of Wales. In particular, this two day conclusion to the Directors Forum will gather constructive proposals for future programmes of training and development within the theatre in Wales and the UK and enable a space for aspirational and inspirational vision.

This project has been made possible with project funding from the Arts Council of Wales.

For more detailed information on the structure of the Directors' Forum and for project costs and booking information please download the documents below.

Images from left to right: Cake Theatre, Cases of Murder - Ruth Kanner Theatre Group, New Jericho A'dam - Station House Opera.

The Foundry, Aberystwyth, Wales

email:cprwww@aber.ac.uk
weblink(s):www.thecpr.org.uk/projects/conferences.php,
More information (click on the filenames to download):
Forum_structure__costs_and_booking_info.doc
DF_BOOKING_FORM.doc

March 11th 2009

PERFORMANCE RESEARCH JOURNAL – REQUEST FOR ORIGINAL ISSUES

Do you own any early issues of the Performance Research Journal? CPR holds very few of the first three series of the journal and the first issue of the fourth:

1996
1.1 Temper of the Times

1.2 On Risk

1.3 On Illusion

1997

2.1 Letters from Europe

2.2 On Tourism

2.3 On Refuge

1998

3.1 On America

3.2 On Place

3.3 On Ritual

1999

4.1 On Cooking

If you have any original copies of these journals that you no longer need (or indeed any later ones) please consider donating them to CPR to create archive sets. Or, if you were planning to sell them, please call Helen Gethin at CPR before you offer them to a second hand book-seller : heg@aber.ac.uk, 01970 622133

email:heg@aber.ac.uk

March 11th 2009

STAYING ALIVE : CPR UPDATE

You may have been wondering what has happened to CPR since we reported last year that our appeal against ACW revenue disinvestment was not upheld. As reported at the time, the proposed change from revenue to possible project funding was likely to cause the redundancies of key staff and suspension of CPR’s public and professional programme in Wales.

Well, as you will be aware, there has been a suspension of all the public-facing activity (presentation, production, co-production and professional training programmes) across the last nine months and we have sadly lost some members of staff and are still undergoing a process of restructuring and reorganisation. We write now in re-emergence.

CPR’s remaining major partner, Aberystwyth University, has continued to support the organisation’s academic and research projects and has given what other short-term support it can to keep previously ACW-funded staff in place during this unusual transitional period, for which CPR is grateful. CPR has continued to keep channels of communication open via the CPR Bookshop, website, Resource Centre, MA teaching and publishing programme whilst fundraising to enable the reinstatement of a public and professional programme. The period since the decision has been taken up with a great deal of strategic activity: head-scratching, dreaming, scheming, planning, research, writing, meetings, and – what CPR does best – action! – the fruit of which can be seen below in the collaboration with the Grotowski Institute on a special edition of the Giving Voice Festival in April and an innovative and challenging programme of professional development aimed at emerging and established theatre directors – the Directors’ Forum - (the result of a successful grant application to Arts Council Wales) to be held In September.

So, whilst CPR is pleased to announce an exciting range of activities forthcoming in 2009, we cannot yet report a long-term solution for the survival of CPR, for all the staff and its public and professional projects. For Wales, CPR intends to work to re-establish small streams of funding from ACW on their proposed project to project basis, as well as to pursue other opportunities initiated and propagated by ACW to enable the continuation of projects in Wales of the kind that have made an important contribution to its performance ecology for so long. At the same time, now that we have the freedom to work more often in other parts of the world we are now availing ourselves of the opportunity to respond to long-proffered collaborations with other partners and institutions.

We once again sincerely thank all those of you who have supported us, written to us and to ACW and on our petition, to try and reverse their decision to remove our funding. Your words meant a great deal to us and continue to do so. We may be cash poor but we remain rich in spirit, with many good friends, and the determination to survive, work hard and thrive.