GETTING STARTED

CHAPTER THREE: GETTING STARTED

• Try and describe Key questions in a paragraph the purpose ------Potential funding partners

Key Questions It might be useful start to spend some time Elaborate on the purpose above by answering the following questions. You should setting 3 or 4 key aims, e.g. be able to summarise in a page: what your rural touring agency plans to do, including its aims • To bring professional touring performances and objectives, priorities and key targets. You of dance, theatre, music to rural venues might not have all the answers at this stage but • To create a sustainable local network of it helps to look at the broad issues involved. promoters and venues • To provide a series of workshops Please note both Shoshin Theatre & Control and participatory activities linked to Studio Association have offered initial replies to performances the following questions. Their responses can be made available on request.

Identify the key milestones to achieve your aims above, e.g. • Is it something you’d like • To stage xxx performances in xxx venues by to see happen in your area? xxx • Is it part of your job? • To host xxx training sessions for local • Is it to meet demand? If so, can you promoters by xxx demonstrate that demand / support? • To organise xxx workshops linked to • Does it contribute to local strategy or performances by xxx priorities? If so, whose? • Is it to broaden access to the arts? • Is it to help the artists and companies to get work? • Is it to provide a service to a local rural community? • Is it to build on existing activity in a more • Is it clearly defined? organised way? • Is it easy to explain the area you are • Other reasons? 24 GETTING STARTED

covering and who is eligible to take part in the network? • Does it follow a distinct regional boundary?

• Do you know how your network will be run / managed? • What is the structure of the organisation, e.g. independent arts organisation, charity, • Have you carried out a local informal group? audit of performances and activities? • Have you thought about the legal • What type of performances take place? constitution or legal framework of the • Who organises them? organisation? • What are the venues / spaces? • Have you thought about what you as a • What times of year do they happen? network will and won’t do? • Are there established links between venues • Have you that about what local volunteer / organisations? promoters will be expected to do? • Do you know of volunteer promoters who would like to be part of this network? • What sort of venues / spaces could be used? • Are there existing audiences for this type of performance?

• Do you know how you are going to publicise and market it? • Are you going to run training sessions? • Are you going to offer workshops • Who are the organisations who might be and educational activities linked to involved in your network? performances? • Who are the potential funders? • Have you thought about equal • Local Authorities? opportunities, health & safety, disability • National / Regional Arts Funders? discrimination policies? • Local funders? Others?

• What do you already have? • Do you have a fixed deadline to work towards? • Have you identified any other possible • Have you broken this down into key stages? sources of funding? • Are you aware of the timeline to complete • How much money do you need? each stage? • Is the timescale realistic?

25 GETTING STARTED

RIOTE Project. Photo Credit: Rumann Gábor

Potential Funding Partners sponsors could be interested as well in the development of adult education in the Hungarian countryside. Who might be your funding partners in & Romania? Pro Progressione Pro Progressione based in Budapest is an We asked our partners from Control Studio agency for cultural management. As an umbrella Association in Hungary and Shoshin Theatre organisation, they support artists and partners in Romania to consider who might be the local in national and international involvement. Below funding partners in these countries. Fanni Hajdú describes one of their current international projects. HUNGARY “Play! MOBILE, an international cooperation initiated by four partners from Hungary, From Control Studio Association Romania, Serbia and France aims to To support a rural touring network in Hungary encourage cultural participation in the in the future, Control would need to count on micro regions of Europe. We believe that the National Hungarian Found (NKA) through participatory-art should be accessible to the project area called ‘distribution’. We would everyone regardless of gender, economic also require the support of local and/or regional status, age or geographical position. This authorities. currently running Creative Europe project of Pro Progressione, wishes to offer an Currently Control with Spec.Street (Utcaszak alternative, making contemporary art Színházi Alkotóközösség) are applying for a available anywhere to anyone. Creative Europe funded project but private

26 GETTING STARTED

Our project is planning to turn towns into Made in Gypsistan festival) and schools. stages and exhibition spaces or squares and Our programmes were funded by various streets of fiction, where anything can happen bodies (UN, OSI, TÁMOP, EACEA, EMMI, NKA, by the tools of art. The game as structure NORWEGIAN FUND, ERASMUS +, VISEGRÁD will determine the position of the viewer FUND, MOL, EFOP, MAGNET BANK). The as an active, undetermined one, allowing major danger in this multi-resource funding is them to perceive art in a non-direct way. that the programme often must be tailored to Therefore, the international team of artists, the actual funding expectation. together with locals from visited towns, will create a site-specific interdisciplinary and We are working in close collaborations with participatory game, which will be adopted various public and private institutions in to the partnering countries’ different small Borsod as the National Theatre of , settlements, thus bringing contemporary art having admittance to the headquarter of closer to its audience. We believe that this the Roman- and Greek-Catholic Church, approach will not only bring people closer to working-relation with the chief officers of contemporary art in the remote areas, but will Klebersberg Institution Maintenance Centre in also generate discussion between cultural . operators on the issue off access to culture. We have worked recently with the following Apart from the main partner organisations, secondary and vocational schools in our network also consists of local partners Miskolc Dr Ambedkar, Debreczeny Márton, from each town the project will visit. These Baross Gábor, Gubody and the Abacus organisations are working with the local seated in Szikszó and Szendrő, with the communities, in most cases realising primary schools Homrogd, Felsővadász, cultural, educational and community Alsóvadász, Lak, , Kázsmárk, Aszaló, activities, but with almost no capacity in Méra, Forró. Fostering work-relationship terms of infrastructure, tools to reach new with local and minority self-governments of audiences and networking opportunities. By the listed villages: Szakácsi, Abaújszolnok, involving these associations, we are building Léh, Rásonysápberencs, , Tomor, their capacity in the implementation of an Kázsmárk, Felsővadász. “ international project and giving them ideas Balázs Simon, UtcaSZAK of how to reach out outside the walls of institutions, reach new audiences and be part of a wider network of cultural institutions worldwide, thus fostering their further Control Studio Association continued capacity building.” A future rural touring network in Hungary Fanni Hajdú, Pro Progressione is a great possibility to give space also to independent theatre companies. The National Cultural Found in Hungary (NKA) supports also Spec.Street outdoor theatre festivals in rural environment. Spec.Street (Utcaszak Színházi Alkotóközösség) Street theatre as a form of art has a great was established in 2007. The central idea of potential to develop new audiences in socially Spec.Street is the educative force of theatre in marginalized arias. This point of view is well geographically segregated communities. explained by Horacio Czertok, in his book, the Theatre of exile, Routledge, New York, 2016: “The main venues for our performances were the community centres, outdoor “People in the street take no interest venues (as with Heroes of Hungary and the whatsoever in theatre and are convinced that

27 GETTING STARTED

it’s nothing to do with them. In our cities and A relevant site: https://nemzetiszinhaz.hu/ towns, what we know as theatre is reserved hirek/2018/10/folytatodik-a-pajtaszinhazi-szemle for a steadfast minority, most of whom, besides, see it as something cultural rather The aim is to build theatre making communities than artistic, as a social event rather than a that continue to make work after their mentorship personal need. and direct involvement in the project is over. So far Barn-Theatre has been successful with 90% When we ask the same people the same of the involved communities still existing. question after the performance, the answers are marked by a substantial and surprising Information provided by Géza Pinter change of attitude. […] This immediate and enthusiastic response by a non-audience- made-into-audience to the call of theatre ROMANIA in open spaces, in any city street, should be enough. […] Our cities and towns need theatre From Shoshin Theatre in their streets, as a barrier against the tide In Romania, the Administration of the National of barbarism. But the people who have taken Cultural Fund (AFCN) or the Department for possession of it hoard it jealously, keeping it Interethnic Relations (DRI) can be an outlet for hostage within the walls of acting museums.” funding, as well as local or county councils. In a second circle, such activities could be supported One other already existing rural theatre network by administrations such as the National Program in Hungary is the Barn-Theatre Programme for Rural Development (PNDR). (Pajtaszínház Programme). Some big companies have foundations attached This programme is a good model, financed by to them, who sometimes give money for culture. the National Public Art Institution (MNI) and But this kind of cultural entrepreneurship should partly managed by the National Theatre of and cannot depend solely on application-based Budapest. It involves 81 villages, 40% have under funds, and the laborious process of linking five- 1,000 inhabitants but all of them have no more six sources together. than 4,000 people. It also cannot depend on ticket sales, as it is clear The idea of the programme is to create regional that the income generated will never reach the networks which are connected on national level of expenses. Therefore, in order to foster level. Every region/province choose 1-2 villages a dependable medium in which this branch can to work with a professional mentor from grow, attract companies as well as villages and September to January, who they will meet with therefore create a thriving rural art scene. a dozen times. In the long run Romania needs a structure similar The villages are changed every year, and any to the NRTF in the UK. This structure would village/community can apply with a minimum need to be recreated and funding allocated at of ten signed participants. The local community government level, which could potentially be than will receive a theatre mentor/director to supplemented by application-based funding or create a performance, based on a previously local funding. written script or one they write themselves. Information provided by Csongor Köllő In January these villages come together in the National Theatre of Budapest for a meeting, to present what they have created.

28 GETTING STARTED

29 RIOTE Project. Photo Credit: Rumann Gábor