{"title":"An Irish Perspective on Festival Making in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Case of St. Patrick’s Festival","authors":"Daniel Lynch","doi":"10.1080/10486801.2022.2118726","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10486801.2022.2118726","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In December 2021, Danielle Lynch interviewed interim director of St. Patrick’s Festival, Anna McGowan about the experiences and challenges faced by the festival in planning Ireland’s largest arts festival during a global pandemic. The discussion details immediate actions taken by festival organisers in the aftermath of the March 2020 cancellation. The interview also provides an insight into how the festival responded to ongoing public health constraints in planning the 2021 national St. Patrick’s Festival.","PeriodicalId":43835,"journal":{"name":"CONTEMPORARY THEATRE REVIEW","volume":"32 1","pages":"266 - 269"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49410210","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Evolving into Chameleons: Survival Strategies for Tampere Theatre Festival during the COVID-19 Pandemic","authors":"Hilkka-Liisa Iivanainen","doi":"10.1080/10486801.2022.2118724","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10486801.2022.2118724","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract From the point of view of the author Hilkka-Liisa Iivanainen, the co-artistic director of Finland’s Tampere Theatre Festival, the purpose of a performing arts festival is fundamentally challenged by the unforeseen and ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In Tampere, the festival’s core mission of coming together to celebrate theatre as an art form has almost become secondary to the constantly changing protective measures and regulations. Moreover, the pressure to make a strategic shift into digital or hybrid execution has profoundly changed the practice and goals of curating. After a cancelled festival edition in August 2020 and a downsized festival in August 2021, Iivanainen is rethinking the kinds of paradoxes hidden in the attempt to stay timely as a theatre festival.","PeriodicalId":43835,"journal":{"name":"CONTEMPORARY THEATRE REVIEW","volume":"85 8","pages":"240 - 246"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41312117","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Joining a Festival During a Pandemic: Martine Dennewald and Jessie Mill Discuss the Tiohtiá:ke/Montréal-based Festival TransAmériques (FTA)","authors":"Karen Fricker, Melissa Poll","doi":"10.1080/10486801.2022.2119963","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10486801.2022.2119963","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In this interview, Karen Fricker and Melissa Poll speak with Martine Dennewald and Jessie Mill, the new co-directors of the Tiohtiá:ke/Montréal-based Festival TransAmériques (FTA), North America’s largest performing arts festival. Dennewald and Mill discuss how COVID-19 and the global racial reckoning have impacted the FTA, particularly through the festival’s approach to artist–producer partnerships and ways of working.","PeriodicalId":43835,"journal":{"name":"CONTEMPORARY THEATRE REVIEW","volume":"32 1","pages":"330 - 335"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41966742","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Questions of Presence and Absence: Lessons from the Pandemic","authors":"J. Varley","doi":"10.1080/10486801.2022.2118727","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10486801.2022.2118727","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Julia Varley is a long-term artist from the Odin Teatret in Denmark as well as being one of the key actress/directors and founder members of the Magdalena Project. Julia curates numerous international festivals and workshops including Transit (in Denmark) and the International School of Theatre Anthropology (ISTA). She is also a founding member of the Barba Varley Foundation, in support of global artists of Third Theatre. Here, she reflects on the impact of the pandemic on working practice.","PeriodicalId":43835,"journal":{"name":"CONTEMPORARY THEATRE REVIEW","volume":"32 1","pages":"235 - 239"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45264451","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Helen de Witt, Maria M. Delgado, Aduke King, Sarah Lutton, Leigh Singer
{"title":"Sixteen Things We Learned about Programming for Film Festivals under COVID","authors":"Helen de Witt, Maria M. Delgado, Aduke King, Sarah Lutton, Leigh Singer","doi":"10.1080/10486801.2022.2119225","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10486801.2022.2119225","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Five programme advisors from the British Film Institute (BFI) London Film Festival offer reflections on film programming during and post COVID. In addition to a discussion on hybrid festivals, the programme advisors also comment on audiences, Q&As, the engagement with filmmakers, and what it means to programme for both virtual and live festival formats.","PeriodicalId":43835,"journal":{"name":"CONTEMPORARY THEATRE REVIEW","volume":"32 1","pages":"305 - 309"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47779406","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"‘Isra-Drama: Exposure as Dialogue’","authors":"Shimrit Ron","doi":"10.1080/10486801.2022.2117805","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10486801.2022.2117805","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In this critical reflection, festival director Shimrit Ron discusses the origins of Isra-Drama, the impact of COVID on the showcase, and the new artistic initiatives that responded to the conditions of performance online for an international audience.","PeriodicalId":43835,"journal":{"name":"CONTEMPORARY THEATRE REVIEW","volume":"32 1","pages":"259 - 265"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41398415","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Festivals in the Pandemic","authors":"Sarah Thomasson","doi":"10.1080/10486801.2022.2120278","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10486801.2022.2120278","url":null,"abstract":"2022 marks the 75th anniversary of the two foundational post-war destination festivals of Edinburgh and Avignon. It is also 75 years since eight Scottish theatre companies turned up uninvited to Edinburgh’s festival to protest a lack of local representation in the programme, thus initiating the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Since that time, international arts festivals have become a global phenomenon championed for their socio-economic impacts and promoted within city branding and tourism campaigns. Festivalisation strategies by local authorities have led to the proliferation of these events worldwide, but have also been resisted for their role in securitising, privatising, and blocking access to public space. Festivals must respond to the needs and priorities of their local communities while also fostering discussions within the live performance community at an international level. These events represent a diversity of locations, size, duration, and histories; are informed by their own values, rationales, and mandates; and reflect different models, organisational structures, and funding arrangements, but all place-based festivals seek to bring performers and audiences together in a shared space and many seek to do so for short intense periods. With this very raison d’être threatened by the global health pandemic, festival bodies have had to reconsider and re-evaluate their core purpose. The context has changed since the onset of the pandemic – not just as a result of COVID-19 and necessary health measures – but due to a renewed focus on diversity and inclusion, accessibility, and environmental sustainability. It has been almost 20 years since Contemporary Theatre Review’s last special issue on Festivals in 2003, edited by David Bradby and Maria M. Delgado. They began their editorial with the observation that, at the time, ‘The social, cultural and economic role that festivals have played in contemporary culture remains largely unexplored territory’. Since then, this gap has largely been redressed by a burgeoning sub-discipline of festival studies that has emerged. Much of this work has been informed by a cultural materialist lens first set out by Ric Knowles’s article on the ‘Edinburgh Festival and Fringe’ for Canadian Theatre Review but later expanded on within Reading the Material Theatre. Jen Harvie, too, has interrogated the cultural work of the Edinburgh festivals, particularly following developments on the Fringe, from commercialisation and Disneyification to the rise of the artepreneur. There have been studies of regional festival circuits, such as Christina McMahon’s focus on the 1. Bernadette Quinn, ‘Arts Festivals, Urban Tourism and Cultural Policy’, Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events 2, no. 3 (2010): 264–79, https://doi. org/10.1080/ 19407963.2010. 512207. 2. Andrew Smith, Events in the City: Using Public Spaces as Event Venues (London: Routledge, 2015).","PeriodicalId":43835,"journal":{"name":"CONTEMPORARY THEATRE REVIEW","volume":"32 1","pages":"227 - 234"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46380531","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Staging International Theatre Festivals in Mid-Pandemic Russia: An Interview with Roman Dolzhanskiy","authors":"J. Rowson","doi":"10.1080/10486801.2022.2118266","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10486801.2022.2118266","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Roman Dolzhanskiy speaks to James Rowson about the challenges of organising international theatre festivals in Russia during the COVID-19 pandemic and discusses how the New European Theatre (NET) Festival and Territory Festival have navigated the complex and frequently changing public safety restrictions in Russia.","PeriodicalId":43835,"journal":{"name":"CONTEMPORARY THEATRE REVIEW","volume":"32 1","pages":"281 - 287"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45347295","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Philippine Catholic Festivals during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Performing Live in the ‘New’ Normal","authors":"A. Tiatco","doi":"10.1080/10486801.2022.2118732","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10486801.2022.2118732","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract On 16 March 2020, then Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte imposed the Enhanced Community Quarantine putting the main island of Luzon – where Manila, the National Capital Region, is located – on a total lockdown to protect the spread of COVID-19. The lockdown restricted mobility, social gatherings were prohibited, and everyone was mandated to stay inside their homes. Moreover, there was a temporary closure of what were considered as non-essential establishments, including religious institutions. Being a predominantly Roman Catholic nation, religious rituals and festivals were heavily affected by the lockdown. Many of its ritualistic and festive performances involve human contact, which serves as the faithful’s direct and intimate relationship to the heavens. This essay interrogates how cultural festivals in the Philippines, mostly organised by the Church, adapted to the global health crisis. It reflects how the adaptations challenged and recontextualised the understanding of the live vis-à-vis the context of the digital or the virtual. Finally, a preliminary speculation on the future of the religious festivals in the Philippines is provided as a concluding reflection.","PeriodicalId":43835,"journal":{"name":"CONTEMPORARY THEATRE REVIEW","volume":"32 1","pages":"296 - 304"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41740498","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"MIF Festival 2021 and COVID-19","authors":"Maggie Gale","doi":"10.1080/10486801.2022.2118728","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10486801.2022.2118728","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract John McGrath is Artistic Director and Chief Executive of Manchester International Festival (MIF) and The Factory, Manchester, UK. The festival is biennial and commissions new work by artists from all over the globe, presenting the work over an 18 day period in July. Here, John talks in an interview with Maggie B. Gale about the impact of the pandemic on the planning season for the festival, as well as on the festival itself, which took place in July 2021.","PeriodicalId":43835,"journal":{"name":"CONTEMPORARY THEATRE REVIEW","volume":"32 1","pages":"253 - 258"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45864287","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}