One Day in Europe
A Magic Net milestone; all partners participate in this ambitious co production.
At the last MC meeting in Zaandam, the Netherlands, after a discussion concerning numerous approaches, the participants decided on a mutual starting point: “One day in Europe. 11/21/2006” provides the structure for a theatrical collage of the subject, which is planned as an artistic observation of Europe from a political, social critical or a general human perspective.
The partners introduced “remarkable incidences” of the day 11/21/2006, which were inspiring and got the debate started: Election, education plight and the famous domino-day in the Netherlands, tragedy of the mine workers
in Poland’s upper Silesia and the bizarre zero tolerance-policy of the Polish conservatives which attempts to “clean up” the schools; the story about the young mother from central England and the death of her little daughter; the unbelievable life of a centenary “Mister 20th century”, and “Flag day” in Estonia; the north African boat people, boats overcrowded with African refugee arriving at the Spanish coast; the approval of horrendous amounts of financial capital for sealing-off the small German town of Heiligendamm for the g8 summit and a kidnapping in a school; the misfortune of wealthy Norwegians, etc. etc.
This small collection was so expressive and abundant in approach and content that it was easy to enter into a discussion regarding the content, artistic means and aesthetic questions. Does such a production require a joint title?
How about “Fears of Europe”? Would a thematic linkage, which was visible in the selection of topics, already be sufficient? How essential is a formal structure to standardize the single issues? What might the participation of an
author to such a project entail? How can it be guaranteed that the production does not become a string of
small European movable pieces, but actually become the result of the mutual artistic work? How can it also become possible within the large-scale production to maintain everything the partners consider enriching and rewarding, such as the mutual rehearsals of actors from different countries? How to make it possible to experience later totally different performances in front of very diverse audiences on a tour through several countries?
In actual fact, the controversial but highly productive discussions led to a second mutual understanding: the English author Richard Hurford was asked to develop some performance suggestions from material the theatres have forwarded (character outlines, resp. snapshots) concerning “One day in Europe - Fears and dreams”. Not a complete work but some associative material which takes the partner’s diversity into account and can be used as a basic starting point for rehearsal work.
The partners will work in three small groups to simplify the first rehearsal phase, and meet at the different opening nights in different cities. Only in the last two weeks before the joint opening will all actors rehearse together,
and then the individual parts of the production will be expanded and further developed. For the following 14 days the actors will be available to go on a European tour to the specific partner theatres directly after the opening.
Don’t miss the opening night; June 5th 2008 in Bratislava during the Annual Meeting.
International tour 2008:
Opening night Bratislava, Slovakia [1] Thu, Jun 5
Performances [2 – 4] Fri, Jun 6 – Sun, Jun 8, Mon, Jun 9
Performances in Jelenia Gora, Poland [5+6] Wed, Jun 11 + Thu, Jun 12
Performances in Schwerin, Germany [7] Sat, Jun 14
Performances in Frankfurt (O), Gerany [8] Mon, Jun 16
Performances in Zaandam, the Netherlands [9+10] Wed, Jun 18 + Thu, Jun 19
Performances in Molde, Norway [11+12] Jun 22-23
The partners introduced “remarkable incidences” of the day 11/21/2006, which were inspiring and got the debate started: Election, education plight and the famous domino-day in the Netherlands, tragedy of the mine workers
in Poland’s upper Silesia and the bizarre zero tolerance-policy of the Polish conservatives which attempts to “clean up” the schools; the story about the young mother from central England and the death of her little daughter; the unbelievable life of a centenary “Mister 20th century”, and “Flag day” in Estonia; the north African boat people, boats overcrowded with African refugee arriving at the Spanish coast; the approval of horrendous amounts of financial capital for sealing-off the small German town of Heiligendamm for the g8 summit and a kidnapping in a school; the misfortune of wealthy Norwegians, etc. etc.
This small collection was so expressive and abundant in approach and content that it was easy to enter into a discussion regarding the content, artistic means and aesthetic questions. Does such a production require a joint title?
How about “Fears of Europe”? Would a thematic linkage, which was visible in the selection of topics, already be sufficient? How essential is a formal structure to standardize the single issues? What might the participation of an
author to such a project entail? How can it be guaranteed that the production does not become a string of
small European movable pieces, but actually become the result of the mutual artistic work? How can it also become possible within the large-scale production to maintain everything the partners consider enriching and rewarding, such as the mutual rehearsals of actors from different countries? How to make it possible to experience later totally different performances in front of very diverse audiences on a tour through several countries?
In actual fact, the controversial but highly productive discussions led to a second mutual understanding: the English author Richard Hurford was asked to develop some performance suggestions from material the theatres have forwarded (character outlines, resp. snapshots) concerning “One day in Europe - Fears and dreams”. Not a complete work but some associative material which takes the partner’s diversity into account and can be used as a basic starting point for rehearsal work.
The partners will work in three small groups to simplify the first rehearsal phase, and meet at the different opening nights in different cities. Only in the last two weeks before the joint opening will all actors rehearse together,
and then the individual parts of the production will be expanded and further developed. For the following 14 days the actors will be available to go on a European tour to the specific partner theatres directly after the opening.
Don’t miss the opening night; June 5th 2008 in Bratislava during the Annual Meeting.
International tour 2008:
Opening night Bratislava, Slovakia [1] Thu, Jun 5
Performances [2 – 4] Fri, Jun 6 – Sun, Jun 8, Mon, Jun 9
Performances in Jelenia Gora, Poland [5+6] Wed, Jun 11 + Thu, Jun 12
Performances in Schwerin, Germany [7] Sat, Jun 14
Performances in Frankfurt (O), Gerany [8] Mon, Jun 16
Performances in Zaandam, the Netherlands [9+10] Wed, Jun 18 + Thu, Jun 19
Performances in Molde, Norway [11+12] Jun 22-23
Magic-Net is supported by the European Commission under the programme Culture 2000
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