The second edition of the Out of the Frame International Theatre Forum organised by the
Shoshin Theatre Association will take place on the 17 th of September. The event, which
will bring together local and international artists and theatre organisations, will feature an
intensive programme of talks, book launches and a theatre workshop at ZIZ – Art and
Social area in Cluj-Napoca from 10.30 to 19.30.
The international meeting is the final event of the R.I.O.T.E. 3 (Rural Inclusiv Outdoor
Theatre Education 3) project, supported by the Erasmus+ programme of the European
Union. The Forum’s programme will seek to showcase local and international practices that
put the community at the centre of theatre work and that are making artistic products – and culture in the broad sense – accessible to people living on the periphery or outside the
system and in rural communities.
The Forum programme will start with a two-hour workshop for artists, cultural facilitators,
organisations and institutions working in rural areas who wish to develop their knowledge
of community theatre practice. The workshop will be led by two legendary British artists,
John Fox and Sue Gill. Fox and Gill co-founded Welfare State International [WSI] in
1968, an organisation that has become world renowned for creating site-specific theatre,
fire shows, lantern parades, installations and participatory arts events.
The afternoon programme of the forum will start with a panel discussion with the cultural
organisations of Cluj that also run community theatre projects such as the Waitingroom
Project, Reactor, Create.Act.Enjoy, Magic Puppet and the organiser Shoshin. The
discussion will be moderated by cultural manager Miki Braniște, an expert on the
independent theatre scene in Romania. The panel will be followed by a round table
discussion with international participants, chaired by Tamás Jászay, Hungarian theatre
critic and editor-in-chief of Revizor – a critical portal.
The discussion will focus on successful international models of rural touring and possible
strategies for Romania, and will feature Claire Marshall, director of Carn to Cove, who
will present the British model of rural touring that has been in place for almost four
decades, and Iulia Popovici, cultural policy expert and former Secretary of State for
Culture, who will present Romanian initiatives.
One of the main objectives of the meeting is to share the experiences of the eight European partner organisations involved in the two-year project, including the Shoshin Theatre Association (which is researching the possibilities of rural touring in Romania), and to bring these experiences together in two publications of the project. ‘The Myth behind the Community’ is an anthology of theatre projects in rural areas of the theatre groups
participating in R.I.O.T.E., while the ‘Ninth Sense’ by Balázs Simon, reports on the
author’s research on the physiological impact of the theatre-making process and audience
participation. They will be presented as a continuation of the round table, and will be
presented by Csongor Köllő, co-founder and co-manager of the Shoshin Theatre
Association. Following the presentation, the intellectual outputs will be available on the organiser’s website, providing very useful material for professionals interested in
participatory theatre.
The meeting will conclude with a joint keynote presentation by the leaders of the morning
workshop, John Fox and Sue Gill, who will discuss the lessons learned from their decades
of work.
Out of the Frame’s talks will be held with simultaneous translation in Hungarian,
Romanian and English, and will be streamed live on the organizer’s Facebook page
(web.facebook.com/shoshin.theatre) thanks to the partnership with HowlRound
(https://howlround.com/happenings/livestreaming-convening-out-frame-two).
The event Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however
those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or
the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European
Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
Co-funders: the Cluj County Council, the Bethlen Gábor Fund (BGA) and the Communitas
Foundation.
Partners: the Romanian Cultural Institute (ICR) in Bucharest and HowlRound.
For more information, visit shoshintheatre.com and the Out of the Frame 2 event page:
https://fb.me/e/2NKgOpg57
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