THE FESTIVAL QUARTERLY

Aleš Šteger Ayoko Mensah Alicja Gescinska Tomáš Sedláček Melanie Burge Simon Mundy 3 Aleš Šteger How to live after the end of reflection THE FESTIVAL QUARTERLY

6 Ayoko Mensah Eye-to-Eye...... with those that inform, influence or inspire festival makers Afropolitan festivals: a challenge and making: the artist, the economist, the philosopher, the urban planner, the academic, the politician. The European Festivals Association’s (EFA) ‘The Festival Quarterly’ Eye-to-Eye assembles a variety of voices that speak Alicja Gescinska 9 about our society, the state of the arts and reasons why the On Music, Morality and Krzysztof Penderecki arts exist, concepts, and moments in contemporary life. It includes articles we commission and material we ask editors to provide. Eye-to-Eye offers a mosaic of reflections, opinion pieces, personal statements, seemingly unrelated yet 13 Tomáš Sedláček fitting with each other. It reflects EFA’s journey to broadenour Advantages of disadvantages, or don’t let conversations and dig into the habitat of festivals, taking us the quarantine slip through your fingers well beyond the process of festival making. Today we are sharing with you the very first issue: The Festival Quarterly’s Summer 2020 edition. We intend to publish 16 Melanie Burge Eye-to-Eye articles, film abstracts and material every 3 months. The pandemic’s immediate impact on We will develop this project with the experience of each performing arts in Australia edition: Eye-to-Eye will be an evolving project, taking into consideration the suggestions we will receive from festivals and our stakeholders community. Be part of it. 19 Simon Mundy Mediterranean Blues Kathrin Deventer EFA Secretary General 3

Aleš Šteger How to live after the end of reflection Mirror reflections in an apartment window theatre

When I find myself at my little desk That must have been in the late Aleš Šteger is a poet and prose looking through the window, I am sixties, early seventies I thought, writer, based in Ljubljana, Slovenia. directly facing the gigantic glass and answered without guessing, His work has been widely translated façade of a hotel, near the old town “he came, you must mean Pres- and acclaimed around the world, of Ljubljana. The street is narrow ident Tito.” “No,” said the former covering various fields of artistic and the hotel blocks any view. It is owner, “I mean Gagarin, the first man expression including visual arts, a huge glass wall, a gold-rimmed in Space.” I have never checked music and film. Aleš Šteger is square theatre box. Normally, I if this story is true and if Gagarin programme director of Beletrina witness here how lights are turned really stayed in the hotel across the on and off and how little stage street, nor if he was responsible Publishing house in Ljubljana and curtains are moved aside and the for paving the surrounding streets, founder of the Versopolis European life of strangers gives wanted or but the idea that, in communist network of international poetry involuntary guest performances. times, a short visit by only one festivals. person could change the whole When my wife and I visited the neighbourhood is both fascinating apartment ten years ago, the house- and repulsive. keeper looked with melancholy at the street from that same window. For the first few years after we Seventy years ago she was born had moved into the apartment, the in this very room. In pensive mood hotel was often empty, run down she looked outside and said, “after as it was. After 2008, Slovenia they built this giant thing, everything fell into a long recession, which around it was neglected. There was was clearly evident in the rarity of no side-walk and the street was hotel guests. But then came – no unpaved. But then he came and again not Tito, neither Gagarin nor overnight everything was pepped a contemporary dictator, sheik or up and taken care of.” president elected for life. It wasn’t a single person but a mass of 4

Aleš Šteger unnamed Asian tourists, dragged to this place by the tour operator for watching TV, I find myself once more watching the increasingly clear one night. To this place. To the always popular insider tip on their way reflection of my own room in the silent glass façade of the hotel. from Venice to Dubrovnik. Maybe I had to wait ten years for this moment where no distraction or Meanwhile the sleepy parking lot in front of the hotel was now overloaded excuse holds me from watching myself, us, the natives caught in our with tour buses. We had to close and curtain our window because of the apartments, waiting for life to continue after the end of reflection. It is noise, exhaust gases, the eager looking and picture-making faces seeing not easy to withstand our own view of ourselves and our own misery. us as we are, wanting to capture a few souvenirs in the form of glimpses It is much more difficult than we initially imagined. It is not easy not to into the real, true and very private spectacle of the native species, living look away, not to flee to a computer screen or glass of whisky or wine. in the opposite window theatre, who are also becoming increasingly rare in Ljubljana. I watch and see, and I see how and what I am watching, and I feel awe, fear and gratitude; that during a pandemic, there can be a It was again a time when everything had to be made more beautiful and feeling of gratitude for everything, really everything that happens and more pleasing to the gawping industry. The road between us and the may happen to one – which might sound odd given the many victims hotel had been torn open, and was dug for Roman tombs. A few stones and hardships. At the same time however, this contradictory feeling of and fibulae were found after which new larger sewer drain pipes were gratitude (the brother of fear?) in these conditions is the only basis on placed and everything was poured back in as quickly as possible. At the which I, sitting behind my small desk, am able to look into civilisation same time, the inside of the hotel had been renovated and a café with in the midst of deserted streets and the beautifully polished ruins of terrace was built right across the street. As a result, also with closed tomorrow and how something like a very vague idea can be a meditation windows, one could enjoy the songs of Chinese, Irish or Italian drunks. on the coming day. The café boomed for several years. Afterwards it became suddenly way more calm. Text published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, March 2020. I had an espresso in the hotel café. The lonely receptionist with whom I chitchatted said: we can deal with Chinese people staying away, but when Italian guests leave us, we are lost. For the last two weeks the hotel has been officially dead. I cannot help watching the corpse again and again every day.

It didn’t take long to realise that the death of the hotel made the glass façade come to life. Instead of being a bored voyeur of an unknown visitor pulling the curtains aside, daydreaming through the window, putting on make-up, fighting, taking off or putting on clothes, or simply FESTIVAL LIFE

Soprano Mari Eriksmoen on stage in the 2019 Opening Performance: Waiting by Calixto Bieito & Karl Ove Knausgård. The 2019 Bergen International Festival opened with the world premiere of a symphonic Passion to the music of Edvard Grieg. Norwegian novelist Karl Ove Knausgård created a modern Solveig in a poetic novella, and this formed a backdrop for the performance. Waiting is an international co-production and went on to tour the Nordic countries and Europe. © Thor Brødreskift 6

Ayoko Mensah Afropolitan festivals: a challenge

Not many European art centres live in Europe, 500,000 of whom are Ayoko Mensah is a cultural expert of international stature organise in Belgium. Many of these Afropeans and artistic programmer. Since 2016, annual multidisciplinary events either have dual citizenship, or have she has been working for the Centre dedicated to the African and become citizens of their adoptive for Fine Arts (BOZAR) in Brussels. Afro-descendant art scene. In the country while fostering strong ties She is the curator of the Afropolitan past ten years or so, an increasing with their native country. number of events focused on Festival at BOZAR. Of Togolese African artists have taken place This duality is one of the character- heritage, born in France in 1968, in Europe but these are mostly istics of Afropolitanism, a concept Mensah graduated in cultural limited to a specific artist, art defined by political theorist Achille management and journalism in form, or country, or are then larger, Mbembe: “Today, many Africans live © Caroline Lessire France. She has worked as an expert but one-off, events. Sustained, outside Africa. Others have decided for several international organisations cross-disciplinary platforms in of their own accord to live on the (including UNESCO, the European major cultural institutions are still continent but not necessarily in their Commission and the Africa Caribbean the exception. countries of birth. More so, many of them have had the opportunity Pacific Group). Mensah has also The African and Afro-European1 art to experience several worlds and, written more than a hundred articles scenes are increasingly ‘in vogue’, in fact, have not stopped coming and co-authored several books. particularly in Europe, due to their and going, developing an invaluable level of excellence, their flourishing wealth of perception and sensitivity creativity, and a sense of urgency in the course of these movements. that is generally compelling to the These are usually people who can Western world. In the past fifty express themselves in more than years, African and Afro-descendant one language. They are developing, diaspora communities have grown sometimes without their knowing it, in the former major European a transnational culture which I call colonial powers. It is currently ‘Afropolitan’ culture.” 2 estimated that 8 million Afropeans

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afro-European 2. In “Afropolitanism, the way Africans make, manage and irrigate the world”. Achille Mbembe interview. Illmatik issue n°1. 2015. www.illmatik.com 7

Ayoko Mensah

For too long, the artistic expression of African diasporas in Europe have The popular term stands for a methodology approach in which designers suffered from invisibility. Until recently, they were restricted to com- have equal status when organising or producing an event, which munity-type venues and did not attract interest from major European respects the specific character and interests of each partner. As most cultural institutions. Yet these expressions have always existed; dif- African and Afro-descendant organisations and groups are struggling, ferent ways of portraying the ‘Afropolitan experience’, whether it be this methodology is meant to help them establish more egalitarian exile, racism and discrimination, or invisibility; but also, solidarity, the relationships with the arts centre. Opting for a co-creation process, struggle for emancipation, or the weight of individual responsibili- however, is not sufficient. It takes time and requires learning, and evolves ty. Complex Afropolitan identity, marked by colonial and postcolonial through listening, mutual respect, and the fine art of compromise. history, is and has always been at the heart of our artistic expression. The process requires all stakeholders, particularly the institution, to practice self-assessment and to be truly capable of transformation. The political dimension has a particular reverberation when the perfor- mances that convey it are held in a prestigious European cultural institu- Certainly it is not straightforward. The institution’s own culture and tion. It prompts us to question the place that the institution reserves for practices sometimes differ greatly from those of Afro-descendant Afropolitan expression and its capacity to drive artistic and social change. organisations and artists. Stability versus insecurity, rigidity versus responsiveness, rules versus improvisation; making two different Nowadays, event and audience diversification are key challenges realities coincide is not always easy. It is striking to realise, however, for cultural institutions. It is a fact that the cultural landscape is not how a long-term project is paramount to strengthening and gradually exempt from the power struggles and race domination that African decolonising all partners. Now the concept of Afropolitan events and Afro-descendant diasporas experience in Western societies. It is, is spreading and deepening as it grows. Therefore it is in the best nevertheless, a space where such struggles can be expressed and interests of Afropolitan festivals and biennials to establish an international reassessed. Cultural institutions remain places which influence and network to promote collaboration and exchange and to develop and grant artistic legitimacy. They need, however, to mirror their multicultural strengthen artistic and social recognition. environment and to demonstrate that they are attuned to avant-garde artistic expressions, whether monochromatic or ethnically diverse. By 2050, Africa will account for more than a quarter of the global population. Achille Mbembe and other African intellectuals believe that Co-creation and decolonisation this change will coincide with an ‘Africanisation of the world’. Afropolitan The festival is an artistic and social platform for reciprocal legitimacy. festivals and biennials will have undoubtedly contributed to this and to On the one hand, African and Afro-descendant artists may consider decolonising societies and public imagination. it as a form of artistic and social recognition; on the other, it is a means for the cultural institution to portray an open artistic and social Read the full article on the website of BOZAR https://www.bozar.be/en/magazine/168351-afropolitan-festival approach and its desire to promote inclusiveness.

In the very early stages of the Afropolitan festival’s preparation, Afro-descendant artists and cultural organisers advocated for a comprehensive co-creation process. FESTIVAL LIFE

Usedom Music Festival, Baltic Sea Philharmonic © Peter Adamik 9

Alicja Gescinska On Music, Morality and Krzysztof Penderecki A Farewell to a Maestro

At the end of March, the Lutoslawski, Gorecki, Killar, and Alicja Gescinska is an award-winning great Polish composer Krzysztof of course Penderecki himself Polish-Belgian philosopher and novelist. Penderecki passed away. His were the most important expo- She has held academic positions at importance in music history, as nents. According to Penderecki, various institutions, including Ghent well as in Polish culture, can hardly the communist authorities, University, Princeton University and be overemphasised. For decades, in spite of all their moral and he was a household name, even in governmental failings (Penderecki Amherst families with no particular interest was critical of the communist College. Apart from her academic in classical music. Penderecki regime), took a certain pride in work, Gescinska is also one of the contributed greatly to the rise of the musical and artistic tradition leading public intellectuals in Belgium Polish culture in the difficult post- of the country, and helped to and the Netherlands. Currently, she is war years of communist repres- create conditions that were the course director of the Philosophy sion. Penderecki possessed the conducive to the development of programme at Buckingham University. true distinctive feature of a great the arts. artist: the courage and creative- When I met him in the Autumn of ness to reinvent himself. While he 2016 we talked about the meaning first made a career as a pioneer of his work, about the meaning in avant-garde music, he turned of music, about what role music away from it when it became too plays in our individual and social fashionable, and later turned to lives. This conversation formed sacred and choral music. the starting point of At Home in I once had the opportunity to ask Music, my book on how music Penderecki why Poland had such a can contribute to the social and remarkably richly creative musical moral development of man. I tradition. It is a tradition that believe that music, perhaps more persisted during the years of than other artistic endeavours, communist rule, and of which has the power to increase empathy 10

Alicja Gescinska in and among us. Music leads to a désarmement des coeurs and Polish Requiem (1984) earned him fame and glory all over the (disarming of hearts), as the French philosopher Vladimir Jankélévitch world. He also wrote the film music for quite a few blockbusters. A few put it. Music makes us less hostile towards each other, and years ago he composed a compelling soundtrack for Andrzej Wajda’s makes co-existence more harmonious. Penderecki, however, was war drama Katyn. And both Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese have more sceptical about the moral meaning of music. The following frequently made use of the Polish maestro’s work. excerpt is the beginning of the first chapter of At Home in Music. When Flagey, the Brussels culture house devoted to music and the moving image, asked me to interview him on the occasion of the Penderecki’s nie Belgian première of his fourth string quartet, I quickly made up my For the first time in years I wake up in Warsaw, in the tiniest apartment mind. The timing was perhaps not perfect, but the opportunity too I’ve ever slept in. There are two windows, one that offers a view on a splendid to ignore. My newborn baby was not going to keep me home, part of the Chopin museum, another that offers, on bright days, a view and bringing that fresh bundle of human being with me soon proved to of the top of the Palace of Culture. be a very wise decision. The Polish composer has the reputation of being Hardly any spot can be more central in the city than this one. As soon a strict, sometimes short-spoken man, whose love of music is inversely as I open my eyes, a smile appears on my face. My youngest son, who proportional to his love of giving interviews. His hanging eyelids and the is three weeks old, lies beside me, and I know my soul will smile the downwards bent of the corners of his mouth seem to have engraved whole day. The almost expressionless peacefulness of his face is of a existential sadness and rigorous seriousness on his face. But as soon beauty beyond words. Together we are going for a stroll through history; as he sees my baby, he brightens up. The basis now has been laid, through the streets of my past, in the country of his ancestors. We are I hope, for a real conversation. going to see places that one day will be a part of his past also. But most Minutes go by, I listen carefully, and my son sleeps the whole time. Then, importantly, we are going to meet a bit of living history. I have reached the point when I want to ask the question I find most A little while later I walk through the historic streets of my native town, important: does music make us and our world better? The question carrying my baby in a wrap close to my breast. Nowy swiat, Krakowskie about the moral significance of music has been intriguing me for years, Przedmiescie. I can hardly see five feet before me, as Warsaw hides already since my days as a university student when I discovered the itself in a persistent layer of thick smog. As we are walking to the work of Vladimir Jankélévitch, the French philosopher who wrote some Sofitel Victoria hotel where I have an appointment, we pass the statue of fascinating books on Ravel, Fauré, Liszt and the meaning of music Copernicus, the gates of the University of Warsaw, and the legendary in general. Is there a link between music and morality? Do beautiful book shop Prus. Pilsudski square, on which the hotel looks out, can sounds contain a civilising force? Is there goodness in beauty? Through hardly be seen. The tomb of the unknown soldier, the two military the ages, philosophers have replied to these questions very differently. guards who are relieved each hour, the flame that eternally dances in It is quite likely that, from the moment man began making music, he the wind; they all seem to have vanished from the square that is theirs. also began to think about its meaning and desirability. As such, the In the hotel I meet Krzysztof Penderecki, one of the few people who can philosophy of music is possibly one of the oldest branches of the tree justly be described as a living legend. of philosophy. Music is such an important part of our human condition Penderecki is one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century. that whoever wants to understand the meaning of man, must also His Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima (1960), St Luke Passion (1966) understand the meaning of music. The philosophy of music could quite 11

Alicja Gescinska well offer a deeper insight into human nature than do political philosophy, to commemorate the bloody repression of the worker protests in logic, epistemology or other philosophical subdisciplines. Gdansk in 1970, in which more than forty people were killed and more I suspect it has to do with my insatiable desire to understand man and than a thousand were wounded. The Agnus Dei (1981) was composed the world that I am drawn to music. The German philosopher Arthur for the funeral of Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski (the cardinal was a moral Schopenhauer once said music is the highest of all arts. Music is much authority and an important critic of the communist regime. In the first more penetrating and stronger than any other art form. The latter speak half of the fifties, as the tensions between Church and the Communist of shadows, music of the essence of things. Schopenhauer was a Party peaked, Wyszynski was detained – or rather: imprisoned – for profound pessimist, who believed life to be little more than a pendulum several years in a remote monastery). And the Libera me (1984) is between boredom and pain. But despite his somberness, Schopenhauer dedicated to the thousands of Poles who were killed by the Soviet Army had a beautiful, positive view of the power of music. In music the inner in Katyn in 1940. That the communist authorities weren’t keen on such core of being – the ‘will’ – is revealed to the contemplating mind. An dedications and commissioned works is an understatement. answer to the meaning of our life must not only be sought in the Penderecki’s recent work also seems imbued with social and political wisdom of books, but also, and above all, in music. meaning. A case in point is the remarkable Thousand Voices for Peace, Whether there really is a ‘will of the world’ is doubtful and belongs to the that was performed in the Cathedral of Koekelberg to commemorate realm of metaphysical speculation. But even had Schopenhauer been the outbreak of the First World War. Thousand voices for peace, that wrong about the world, I think he was right about music, which carries seems to suggest the belief in the power of music to improve the world; us beyond the shadows and tells us something about the meaning of a belief in le désarmement des coeurs, the disarmament of our hearts, man and the essence of our existence. And because human beings are, to quote the nice phrase with which Vladimir Jankélévitch once tried to above all, moral beings, music must also in some way relate to morality; capture the essence of the moral power of music. a relation of which I intuitively feel that it is a positive one. Penderecki has lost his faith in this disarmament. He calls it naïve to But the answer I get from Penderecki to my question about the moral think music can really improve man and the world, and he admits that meaning of music contradicts this intuition. The Polish maestro speaks many years ago he held a different view. Now he calls it an illusion from out a short, powerful nie (no). No, there is no uplifting moral power in which he has freed himself. Music cannot change things; it can merely music. The answer surprises me. I reply that his own work evidences a soothe the pain things cause. In other words, music is just a patch on certain engagement that makes one suspect he pursues more with his the wound that all the evil in the world constantly rips open in mankind. works than mere beauty. Penderecki was a pioneer of the avant-garde, which wasn’t exactly an artistic current without any political or social Now whether we believe music possesses a specific moral significance meaning. Moreover, in the years of communism Penderecki decided or not, whether we believe music is truly a great pacifier or just a small to make sacred music, which wasn’t a non-political decision either. patch on existential wounds, we can agree with Nietzsche that without The communists wanted to wipe away religion from the surface of the music life would be a mistake. And without Penderecki’s music, earth, and hence they were constantly waging a power struggle with existence would be emptier. the Church. Penderecki’s Polish Requiem too seems to be permeat- ed with political and historical meaning. The Lacrimosa (1980) was Text published in Thuis in Muziek: een oefening in menselijkheid (At Home in Music: an exercise in humanity), De Bezige Bij, 2018. commissioned by Lech Walesa, the leader of the Solidarity movement, The Spanish translation is La música como hogar: Una fuerza humanizadora, Siruela, 2020. FESTIVAL LIFE

Concert Magic System, Afropolitan Festival 2018 © Gilles Geek - Afropolitan Festival, BOZAR 13

Tomáš Sedláček Advantages of disadvantages, or don’t let the quarantine slip through your fingers

Forget about writing an article, it’s in my own, tourist-free city and Tomas Sedlacek (1977) became known the apocalypse, a friend said to me perhaps even walking the Royal through his book Economics of Good yesterday. It’s Thursday afternoon Route. Maybe I’ll even go as far as and Evil (OUP 2009) that was translated and I can already feel that the city Wenceslas Square. I want to see into 21 languages and won many pres- has quietened down; I can already a closed-down, evening Prague tigious prizes. He is a former adviser to feel that the rush, which Komenský without the omnipresent buzzing claimed was only for beasts pubs and the rumbling of theatres, Czech revolutionary President Vaclav (meaning cattle), has come to a stop. the lure of popcorn from cinemas. Havel. He has been listed among the top The world will shrink into a sort 100 most influential global thinkers It’s actually quite unimaginable of necessary minimum. Oh, and (Top 100 Thought Leaders, GDI). He was – with the flick of a magic wand, I’ll take a stroll on Charles’ Bridge a member of the Programme Council the entire society switches to a with relish. for New Economic Thinking of the World slightly post-apocalyptic mode © Ester Havlová Economic Forum, Davos, and advised EC and everyone turns on some The suspension President Barroso on a New Narrative sort of austerity mode. Im- Let’s look at it from the positive for Europe. He is a sought-after speaker, measurable economic impacts side. The world will have a Sabbath. are being summarised in al- Cities will calm down. debater and frequent international most every article, and no won- People will pause and return a little commentator. He works for the largest der – something like this has not bit into their own bag of skin, into Czech bank as a chief macroeconomic happened during our lifetimes, if their own human dimensions. strategist. He lectures at Charles such a global halt has in fact ever Soon we will likely start missing University, Prague, and sits on the occurred at all. the tourists, once we discover how boards of many non-profit organisations. empty the city is without them. And so we shall take advantage The issue with threats and can- of a situation we can’t do much cellations of airline routes from about anyway. Personally, I am China will resolve itself. After a planning on visiting an empty Old few weeks of self-ofstracising, Town Square; on being a tourist we might even start appreciating 14

Tomáš Sedláček globalisation; its advantages have become so automatic to us that months of your life. Large cities will become neighboring villages. The we’ve almost forgotten about them. global village will become a village (with an internet connection).

And most importantly: we will have time for our children. We will have Massive derailment into peace time for our loved ones, just like it used to be. I expect that time will People should always be glad when something derails us from our slow down and it will drag and flow as slow as honey. Once again, we automatic routine, and this is truly a massive derailment, a derailment will invite people over for a visit and cook dinners for one another. Do into peace. Suddenly, we will have to fill this emptiness with our own you realise how quickly we’ve become used to going to restaurants and selves – this emptiness which happens when the muse and the noise letting others cook for us? The economy will take a break and, in some of people quiet down, when life loses that ‘upgrade’ of sports, arts, areas, polluted air will have a chance to become clean again. People society, travel, etc. to which we’ve become so accustomed. Maybe we will retreat from being spread out far and wide across the whole world, will learn to be with ourselves more, to be ourselves. Maybe we will learn going back into their natural space. Bohemia’s functional semi-alcoholics to reflect better, and if not, at least we will have time to sort through all will see what it’s like to be without pubs, without their habitual the pictures we’ve accumulated over all these years. evening freshly poured beers. Perhaps the birth rate will increase. There will be time to read all those books. To finish all those projects we’ve And then the joy when everything starts moving again. Once again, been putting off. There will be more time for reflection, for that hour we will know the meaning of our thanks to the mostly unnecessary evening darkness, when all electric turned off. Suspended. work we do, and we will go back to drowning out that inner voice which speaks most in the quiet evening hours, when the end of the day draws The government and businesses will finally take big strides towards near. home offices and telework. The older among us will remind what our towns looked like before the borders opened, during communism. Written for the Czech Economic Daily (Hospodářské noviny) We will gain awareness of how fragile our developed society is. New varieties of limited or no-contact greetings will be established. Scientific collaboration will improve. You will be able to take up new hobbies; don’t let the quarantine slip through your fingers. There won’t be any issues with noise disturbances at night. We will likely find out that life without evening cultural events has its own charms as well. There will be time, plenty of time. And we will be at home. A lot. In short, we are undoubtedly in for an experience of a lifetime.

Many people will save money. Critics of consumerism will live their Spring of grace, those who hate large crowds will celebrate. For those who complain of the too-fast tempo of modern life – these are the FESTIVAL LIFE

Gautier Capucon © Yerevan Perspectives Festival 16

Melanie Burge The pandemic’s immediate impact on performing arts in Australia 13 May 2020

A time of writing, Australia is cau- The Australian arts scene has Melanie Burge is an alumni of tiously optimistic about its efforts been comprehensively, and some The Festival Academy (Gothenburg to address COVID-19 as a national say deliberately, undermined by 2018). She has twelve years’ health emergency, but the impact of successive conservative federal the pandemic restrictions has made governments in the last seven experience in programming, the parlous condition of our arts years. Since 2013, hundreds of producing and operational roles sector impossible to ignore, and millions of dollars have been in arts festivals and events around even more difficult to overcome. slashed from the budgets of the Australian and New Zealand, If there were any silver linings for Australia Council for the Arts, including Melbourne International Australian artists and arts workers, public broadcasters ABC and SBS, Arts Festival, Brisbane Festival, perhaps it is the possibility of new Screen Australia, and providers Adelaide Fringe, Christchurch Arts opportunities for local artists to of vocational creative arts cours- Festival and Ten Days on the connect with local audiences. es. Theatre critic Alison Croggon Island. She lives in Melbourne. describes the Australian govern- For those who work in arts, culture ment’s relationship with its artists and entertainment in Australia, the as “a conscious policy of hostility situation we find ourselves in bears against the arts” (Witness, 23 April some metaphorical resemblance 2020). to the apocalyptic bushfires which raged across the country this past A further significant inequity for summer. Bushfires are always artists in Australia is that while damaging, but the ravaged habi- funding is comparatively secure for tats were already severely compro- the largest performing arts institu- mised by years of higher drought. tions (those organisations with a Similarly, the pandemic-caused public profile which allows them devastation to arts and culture more ably to secure philanthropic in Australia is compounded and and corporate sponsorship), amplified by years of underfunding for the independent small artistic and lack of federal support. companies, the ones who embrace 17

Melanie Burge more artistic risk, push boundaries, train and employ more artists and whenever that might be – what work will even be available to present? arts workers, engage with far greater numbers of audiences, and audi- Which artistic practice will have survived for the creating and presenting ences in further-flung communities, the available federal governmental of work? resources are only dwindling, as Ben Eltham describes in The Guardian (6 April 2020). Funding for these small companies and independent What opportunities could possibly exist in this atmosphere of artists is tenuous, project-based rather than for a multi-year period, and uncertainty and despair? The only one I can think of is that, with not at all conducive to employing artists with confidence for any length international travel likely to be impossible for some time, Australian of time. These companies and individuals are arguably the ones best presenters will be much more inclined to programme the work of positioned to nurture, train and employ the next generation of Australi- artists from their geographical community, and to foster activity which an artists, and they are the most vulnerable. supports the connection of artists and audiences in authentic and intimate ways. If nobody can reliably or economically fly into, out of When the pandemic necessitated national lockdown, inevitably or around Australia, presenters will have little practical choice but to hundreds of thousands of people were made unemployed. The support and promote hyper-local artistic activity. Australia is a large Australian federal government moved quickly to introduce financial continent, with its capital cities thousands of kilometres apart from measures to assist citizens, including a supplemented unemployment each other, sparse regional arts venues with limited infrastructure, benefit, and a financial incentive for businesses to retain and pay staff. and inadequate rail networks connecting the country. For these Yet thousands of artists and arts workers are ineligible for this support reasons, up until recently it has been better value for money and due to the precarious nature of their pre-pandemic employment audience development for Australian artists to tour internationally structures, which are overwhelmingly contract to contract, gig to gig than tour within their own country. We understand some of the (with no additional entitlements such as superannuation, paid leave, major arts festivals such as Sydney Festival are planning programmes etc). The federal minister for the arts, Paul Fletcher, is on record for of wholly Australian and predominantly local work. I would love to having voted against legislation changes which would have made see flagship presentation venues expressing support and more artists and arts workers eligible for the new unemployment commitment to similar initiatives. benefit( The Age, 11 May 2020).

Certain hard-hit Australian industries such as aviation have benefited from targeted governmental support. Arts and culture is “by far the industry hardest hit by COVID-19’s economic destruction”, according to Esther Anatolitis, the executive director of NAVA (The Guardian, 8 April 2020), but calls for urgent assistance have been resoundingly ignored.

With the lack of effective support for Australia’s arts industry, it is difficult and painful to imagine how artistic practice will survive the pandemic. When theatres and venues are permitted to re-open – FESTIVAL LIFE

Les Festivals de Wallonie, Rockerill © CPROD 19

Simon Mundy Mediterranean Blues Blue Med Sometimes the view is not enough, The islands, the bobbing caps of early swimmers, The ships lumbering past the headland Simon Mundy is a writer presently With its crest of concrete, its dance-hall living in Scotland. Mainly a poet, Gangsters, old libidos sunned on a shattered lido he has also written novels, plays, Though the fishing boats with phallic prows biographies and a lot of arts journalism. Come home late out of the mist trailing a flock He is Vice-President of the Writers for Of disappointed gulls screaming for warm guts, Peace Committee of PEN International Though the volley-ball girls and has advised on cultural policy all Have torsos tight enough for trampolines Sometimes the view is not enough © Anna Scholiers over the world for UNESCO and the Council of Europe. He was cofounder Sometimes the view is not enough of the European Forum for the Arts For the men drowning off the breakwater, Brisk yachts tacking snootily with idle crews, and Heritage (now Culture Action For the garrison in a pointless fort, tourists Europe). Posting look-out at the turret tops When the under twenty-five’s stretch Untouched on the sand, comatose and soft Wearing only a scowl of discouragement, And the ice has only melted in the warm gin And the flowers wilt in virgin-hard beds Sometimes the view is not enough Sometimes the view is not enough For the beauty driving the bus in the heat Of the morning, the toddler and her mother Over-dressed and catholically pregnant As the dust rises from the pavement And away from the deceptive sea Between the mountains, black slopes Muddled in the sunset and the vines In their autumn coats of auburn, Curling yellow, when you are as handy as the moon Sometimes the view is not enough. 20

Simon Mundy

I wrote that poem in Marseille in 1998, I think. It’s a love poem, of course, Borders have closed, opened and closed once more depending on the but it also tries to give a verbal sense of the life of the port and the sea whims of autocrats and political fashion. Tourism has blossomed (and it serves – the view a painter or film maker might want to show. then withered thanks to pestilence, terrorism or other politics) but that was mostly about northern Europeans going south. The peoples of Mediterranean: between the lands. The shores of the Mediterranean the Med themselves rarely seem to explore next door’s hotels and Sea have long been thought of as a cradle. In this protected space, large beaches for pleasure and they are mostly rude about each other’s food enough for extraordinary variety, small enough for easy travel, humans and wine, the envy of us northerners. have mingled and exchanged, invented and discarded gods, learned to farm, fish and cook superbly. Wine and olives, architecture and I worry for the coasts and islands of this magical sea. The failure of spices, music and migrants have moved along and across, changing governance all along the southern side has left its people angry, poor character and quality as they went. The people have fought a lot, of and disaffected. War lords treat Africans from beyond the desert course, because it is in their nature to want to have an argument and just as Arab traders always did: commodities to be exploited. settle it with a demonstration of power. At present there is only one These modern slavers do not sell the victims much (except among dominant god more or less revered around the sea but that god is still themselves). They strip them of possessions then threaten Europe surrounded by enough different rituals to be fought about. But the with boats of the destitute. With those fleeing the turmoil and genocide inhabitants have also in the good times been smart enough to share of Syria, the spiritual descendents of the Ottomans use similar tactics bright ideas, to look and admire, to discuss and refine. against neighbours they used to rule over.

These are not good times. The cradle of civilisation is showing signs of From Turkey to Egypt, both in the grip of despots, the Levant is fractured wet rot and mould. The shores no longer seem places of relief and dis- and increasingly impoverished. Nowhere along that whole eastern side covery after a weary voyage but coasts of danger and detritus, insuf- is there an effective kindly government. There is a depressing choice ferable heat, revolting pollution and constant anger. Until very recently I between the weak and the vicious. I don’t need to spell out which is always dreamed of finding the resources to renounce northern Europe where. Those that have to put up with them know well enough. A list and settle myself on one of those shores. Now I am not so certain. just leads to childish finger pointing by those who should be governing better, who have no credible right to the offices they occupy by force, Is it possible that there is now less interaction around and across the corruption or disreputable election. Mediterranean than at any time since the Stone Age? I am in my mid sixties and in my lifetime empires have disintegrated, nations have On the positive side, from Rhodes to Gibraltar there seems to be a lull been invented, amalgamated and separated again. Trade has found in the surge of far right wing support that has often gripped most of other routes. There is no need for caravans of exotic goods to plod the northern shore (with its history of fascism, entrenched and corrupt from Asia to the Black Sea and Levantine coats, and then to be shipped business often allied with nationalist religion). When I first visited to Venice and Valencia and on to inland Europe. They come by the Rhodes, as a student in 1973, there was no obvious airport. I arrived container load around Africa to Rotterdam or through the Suez canal after two nights on an island-hopping ferry from Piraeus where (if it is in one of its more secure phases). Colonels were replacing constitutional monarchy with official military 21

Simon Mundy dictatorship. They looked across to Spain, which had had it for nearly There will be few small tramp ships and non-local fishing boats, let forty years. Within two they were all gone, first from Portugal, then alone regular ferries bringing friends for the weekend. These islands Greece and Spain. These things are cyclical, though, and divisions in have always been pivotal: prised as outposts of empire or in their more the liberal left and moderate socialist camp usually mean that the more independent years the freeports of pirates. Their cultures all reflect ruthless conservative interests cannot be kept at bay for long. We still their neighbours’ urge to colonise while developing a fierce sense of see the pattern. As one country starts to see sense (Spain and Italy) not being creatures of the mainland. another falls for an iconoclast (Slovenia). But a lull in repression – or at least a majority of countries with tolerably benign centrist govern- I am an islander. I have always found in islands that precious mingling ments – at least provides relief and the possibility of slow progress. of self-containment with the realisation that they depend on food and materials brought to them across the water that is both their protector The disconnect between the nations with Mediterranean shore lines is and their limiter. Islanders think very differently from continentals. Their now extreme and intensifying. For the first time in thousands of years lands don’t have borders or arbitrary boundaries that can be opened or it is impossible to circumnavigate the sea, calling at all its magnificent closed by the vagaries of marching armies. They can shut off from harbours, legally and safely. These days the old Venetian traders would the outside world but their seclusion is always tempered by the sense have almost certainly had their cargoes confiscated or been locked that outsiders are welcome, like migratory birds, as long as they bring up for breaking somebody’s embargo or visa restrictions. Imagine colour and move on at the end of the season. Settlers can become the route now. The ship’s crew would pass without too much hassle islanders but they have to embrace the days when the sea is angry as down the Adriatic, round the Pelopponese and into the Aegean. Turkey well as those when it is pretty. would be suspicious but probably let them through; but from Mersin to Latakia (Syria), on to Beirut (Lebanon), Haifa (Israel), Rafaa (Gaza), Could islands be important again, I wonder, in joining the shores of Alexandria (Egypt), Tripoli (Libya), Tunis, Algiers, Melilla (Spain) the Mediterranean without importing the obsessions of those vying for Tetouan (Morocco), Ceuta (Spain), Gibraltar (UK), Valencia (Spain) and supremacy on the continents? Could they have the role Crete had on home? At best a bureaucratic nightmare involving a lot of ‘smoothing when it became the bridge between Egypt and Mycenae, Sicily took the way’ with cash – at worst the list of those wanting to sink or successively between Greek and Carthaginian, Norman and Arab, requisition the ship would be too long to risk. Spanish and Italian?

That leaves the great islands of the sea in a strange position. Cyprus, Artists and performers cannot promise to change minds or political Malta, Crete, Sardinia and Sicily are used to being the calling points tides. They can propose, though, and through their presentations for those traversing from one coast to another. Air travel links them inspect and spotlight social shortcomings. They can represent contact easily to northern Europe but boat traffic from nearby harbours is winning out against separation, fondness over alienation. Look at this, no longer substantial. Take a look at the ports of origin of those they can say, imagine and think again. dropping by and they will be either yachting playgrounds or tourist cruising pick-up points. 22

Simon Mundy

I am going to take two verses of the old folk song O Waly Waly Those words seem so apt for the contemporary Mediterranean; out of context as a prelude to such a proposal. especially its migrants and refugees but also, more symbolically, its floundering faiths and politics. The water is wide, I cannot get o’er, And neither have I wings to fly. Perhaps a boat is the answer, or the start of an answer. A ship I want, Give me a boat that will carry two, to sail that sea, stopping often, opening it’s stern doors and lowering And both shall row, my love and I. its ramp onto the beach – where the people of that place will sit and watch as they are brought work that has been seen on the last A ship there is, and she sails the seas, stop and will be on the next one too. They will be shown film of how She’s laden deep, as deep can be, the other audiences have reacted as the show plays out before them. But not so deep as the love I’m in; Performers from the various ports of call will join the ship’s company I know not if I sink or swim. and, like shellfish on the hull, add new layers of persuasion asthe voyage progresses.

We will call at both cities called Tripoli and Valetta in between. We will join local festivals. We will invade Gaza with music, Carthage with Dido’s return, unite the Veneto, Istria, Dalmatia and Acarnania, Nafplion with Ephesus, Catania with Tangier. We will be expensive but so much cheaper than guards, naval patrols and the purveyors of fear. If an animal in the wild breaks a major bone, they die — they starve, or something else eats them. For an early human to have survived a broken femur, someone else would have had to care for them long enough for the bone to set. They would have been provided with shelter, food, and water over an extended period. Someone would have had to have shown them kindness, compassion, altruism. Kindness, alongside science, remains the cornerstone of medicine: To cure some- times, to relieve often, to comfort always. Sir Jonathan Mills, Director of the Edinburgh International Culture Summit, refers to Margareth Mead to highlight that evidence of compassion was the first sign of true civilisation.

FESTIVAL LIFE

Audience at the Rector’s Palace © Dubrovnik Summer Festival Archive The European Festivals Association community Colophon Publication date: July 2020 The European Festivals Association (EFA) is a trusted alliance of festival makers representing: Direction of the E-Magazine: Kathrin Deventer • 80 EFA members; strong and long standing festivals coming from different countries Editing coordination: Audrey Brisack Photographs cover: Tanz im August - HAU Hebbel am Ufer, 2017 in Europe and beyond, © Dajana Lothert • More than 2.250 festivals in 45 countries registered on the FestivalFinder.eu website, Texts: Melanie Burge, Alicja Gescinska, Ayoko Mensah, among which 823 festivals received the EFFE Label 2019-2020 - these numbers are Simon Mundy, Tomáš Sedláček, Aleš Šteger Editing and proofreading: Simon Mundy growing daily, Graphic design: Quasi and Ingrid Van der Haegen (Studio Grid) • 700 alumni of The Festival Academy who have followed one or several training Translation of the article of Aleš Šteger: Ellen Van den Bossche programmes, Publisher: European Festivals Association • 40 cities contributing and participating in the Festival Cities Initiative. With the continuous support of: Kathrin Deventer, Audrey Brisack, Gert Naessens, Inge Ceustermans, Yannick Roman

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