28. kongres AICT – IATC v Belehrade

V dňoch 26. septembra -1. októbra 2016 sa v Belehrade uskutočnil 28. kongres AICT-IATC spojený s medzinárodným festivalom Bitef.
Medzinárodná asociácia divadelných kritikov pripravila pre divákov Bitefu dvojdňovú odbornú konferenciu, odovzdala ocenenie Thalia Prize divadelnému umelcovi a kritikovi Femi Osofisanovi, vo štvrtok 29. septembra zástupcovia jednotlivých národných sekcií zvolili nových (aj staronových) reprezentantov.
Opätovne sa úradujúcou prezidentkou stala Margareta Sörenson, tajomníkom je už po niekoľkýkrát Michel Vaïs.
Desať miest vo výbore na najbližšie dva roky získali Mariko Anazawa (Japonsko), Emmanuel Samu Dandaura (Nigéria), Irina Gogobéridzé (Gruzínsko), Jean-Pierre Han (Francúzsko), Jeffrey Eric Jenkins (USA), Ivan Medenica (Srbsko), Martin Morrow (Kanada), Deepa Punjani (India), Konrad Szczebiot (Poľsko), Peng Tao (Čína).
Súčaťou program bola aj oslava 60. narodenín asociácie, ktorá podľa slov z úvodného príhovoru Margarety Sörenson, združuje jedincov z “osamelej planéty menom kritika”.
 
 
Speech for the opening, BITEF
Margareta Sörenson
President, International Association of Theatre Critics
 
Dear all,
I come from a lonely planet. Its name is criticism. Alone we keep the experience  of a performance we’ve just seen, we hold it close, silently, walking rapidly to our offices and computers.  And alone we sit and look into the computer screen, watching the cursor blink, waiting patiently for the next letter to come. The next word, the next sentence. Alone we have to consider whether the words we composed correspond to our feelings, to our knowledge, our understanding, our taste, and to all the many things we want to describe and express.
We are members of the audience, but we are not average theatre goers. We see an unnatural number of productions, we write about many of them, we analyse and discuss them afterwards in panels and round table conversations, but always as a kind of defense of our individual sensations and experiences. In some countries, we clap our hands along with the audience, in some we do not. Some of us take notes, others do not. We melt into the cultural pattern of our home culture, yet we are also often the first ones to challenge it.
We see and write on dramatic theatre and opera, on classical ballet and contemporary dance, on theatre for young audiences and theatre for babies, we write on new circuses and on performances where the performing arts are crossed with the arts of images and sounds, with other disciplines and new experimental crossover forms.
The deeply individual art of criticism needs its crossroads and meeting places. The International Association of Theatre Critics is such a place, such a space where we can exchange views on the performing arts and how to write about them. For two days we will discuss “newness” here in Belgrade: What is new? And what do we mean when we call something “new” on the theatrical stage? We will also be able to present our prize, the Thalia Award, this time to the Nigerian playwright, poet and theatre analyst, Femi Osofisan. In this way, many of us will learn new and useful aspects of one of the African continent’s foremost writers.
We, the critics, are permanently in deep need of these places and spaces where we can meet. Therefore I thank, most deeply, the organisers of this event, to which around one hundred international critics have been invited.
First, I would like to thank the City of Belgrade, which considered it important enough to have us all here for a whole week. I thank Belgrade’s Mayor Sinisa Mali, with whom I had the pleasure to meet last year and sign the agreement of this most generous invitation.
Secondly, I want to thank Vladan Vukosavljevic, the Serbian Minister of Culture and Information, who, when this event was initiated, was Secretary of Culture of Belgrade and a key person.
Then, I would like to thank BITEF, Belgrade International Theatre Festival, and its new artistic leader Ivan Medinica, who has been, for a long time, a dear colleague of mine and a co-member of the board of the Critic’s Association. Therefore I know that today BITEF has an artistic director as demanding as he is energetic, superqualified and always working. Such a person every theatre festival on earth should have.
I would equally like to thank Yugoslav Drama Theatre for the generous hosting and sharing of their impressive theatre building.
And last, I send my warmest thanks to the Novi Sad Symposium, our oldest partner for conferences for experienced critics in an old and trusting relationship between the International Association of Theatre Critics and the theatre festival Sterijino Pozorje—and its multitalented, patient and inventive director of international cooperation, Dusana Todorovic, who, in some magic way, seems to have all the threads in her hands.
I wish it was possible to thank all other team members and helpers that are important for all the big and small tasks which make up a festival, a congress and a conference. We, the lonely critics, are individualists and not always easy to deal with. But we are deeply thankful for the possibilities to share what we see and hear of all that you offer us here in Belgrade.
The possibilities to meet, write, speak and express freely are in many parts of the world limited or put in question. To us, the critics, they are essential. And we thank the many good forces which together make Belgrade a meeting point for the critics, always defending these fragile freedom rights.
BITEF celebrates its 50th anniversary and the International Association of Theatre Critics its 60th – I congratulate them both and wish them a long life!