 Okay, I think we can start our talk right now. So, good evening, my name is Raluca Sasmarinescu. I'm PhD assistant professor at Babesboje University Theater and Film Faculty Theater Department Romanian Theater Department. And I will be together with my colleague Andrea Tompa, your host for this evening. Andrea Tompa, my colleague is also a professor at the same university, same faculty, but in the Hungarian department. And I would briefly like to welcome you to our discussion who is part of a project hosted by Pain Breath Factory, a project called Outside the Box. And in order to know everybody before the discussion starts I will briefly have a presentation of the artist that we have invited for tonight. So, together with us we have Mattia Ferlin who is a Croatian theater director ensemble dance piece choreographer and performer of his own one man shows. And he's graduated from the school for new dance development in Amsterdam. And he lived and worked in Berlin and Toronto. And also Lisa Ferbelen who studied theatrical performance, but also Tieta studies and maturgy at the University of Amsterdam. And together with four other colleagues, she founded the theater collective bog based in Amsterdam. And we have Oliver Zahn, who is a German theater maker working in various capacities both on stage and behind the stage. And we have Thomas as a circle around the idea of memory history and immaterial knowledge. So, welcome to our invited artists we are very happy that you are together with us because we are proposing a very, we think, important topic. I will try to start by explaining how we here include the faculty of theater and television. See this relationship between performing arts and higher education system. And I will try to describe the system that the Romanian department uses in teaching our students we have three different areas of study acting directing and theater studies. These classes from the acting and directing part have like a professor that is is designated from the first year to the third year to to be the main professor of of the class and to teach the acting part for the actors the direction part for the directors of this part is differently organized because there we have different professors that are teaching also main courses but all and elective courses. The problem, the biggest problem that I find in our system is actually a two headed problem. Is the collaboration between these three directions of studies that is only four hours per week between the directing and acting classes and the theater studied class studies classes do not have access to to this kind of collaboration. Me myself I only have one class where I encourage this kind of collaboration between the playwrights, or the dramaturg with the directors but it's only a two hour class per week and it's only in one semester for three years. So the main problem that I see in this system is that actually persons who are supposed to work together when they finish their when they graduate in the time of their education they're actually working separately. And one of the of the other problems is that there is as far as I can feel it. There is less or no correlation to the needs of the performing art system that the students are facing once they finish their their school because we do not prepare the students for all types of systems that they are going to challenge when they finish their education. What is happening in the Romanian department includes not all the theater faculties from Romania work like this, but I can only speak from my experience and from the things that I can observe I would like to invite Andrea to have a short presentation of the Hungarian department of the same faculty because one of the things that we were discussing before this this meeting minutes before this meeting was one problem that both of us have, which consists in the poor collaboration between these two departments that are living in the same building in the same classes. And students that are meeting on the on the hallways every day but they do not work together. Hello everybody. I will try to make a short presentation of my department. So we call it the Hungarian theater department and it's not a performing arts department so the name of of this department already shows that how traditional and how narrow is our understanding of performing arts so it's a traditional understanding of theater and drama. We have a Hungarian language training for only to kind of professionals for actors on one hand and drama tourism theater, a scholar see as the theater studies on the other hand. So currently this, it's only two species specialization and I will go back to this division which I find a huge problem and my colleague Raluca already mentioned this problem of divisions. To give a little bit of idea what context is in this Hungarian department. It's, it's a minority university department. In Romania we have a small community of 1.2 million people approximately, which has kind of dozen theaters, including puppet theaters and a few independent groups, but also there is an other higher education training institution in another city in in Marus van Schaarheim. One of the big question is in our training that what kind of market we train our students. And also from this derives a dilemma that what is our task is to prepare our students for this traditional expectations of the existing theaters. Or to train them with an ability to find their own voice and their creative powers. And this is a dilemma I would like to discuss with our guests later on. The Hungarian minority situation would could have could mean a possibly fruitful fusion of different cultures because a minority situation stays at a crossroad of both the Hungarian and the Romanian theater influences. The Hungarian big tradition in theater being the realistic theater and Stanislavski and the Romanian tradition to put it in a very simplistic way would be a more theatrical expressionist one. But in the last decades both theater cultures fight with their own traditions to find their new voice to renew their own tradition, and this kind of fight is mirrored also in the Hungarian minority situation. Now, it's also a question how we see in our education system theater as an form of art, which is probably closer to understanding of the Romanian and the Moscow our theater tradition, or a form of entertainment, which also is close to the Hungarian theater tradition, or a more contemporary form of communication. Education represents a traditional and conservative conservative thinking about disciplines, which we can call in our discussion of boxes because there is a very strong division between theory and practice theoretical and creative training. This is probably one of the most vulnerable, vulnerable parts of our training this kind of division between theory and practice. Although some professors of course are activists for less rigid fusion of departments and disciplines. Personally being someone who has only joined courses for actors and dramaturgs. But if we look at our alumni is we always find dramaturg, dramaturgs who go on stage as performers, that's very rarely find actors who become researcher or playwrights. The conservatives is also mirrored in the fact that there is this very little crossover between the cultures and languages, and conservatism is also means a kind of being closed in your own culture in your own tradition, and not very much looking outside from this language language and cultural situation. So in, in a very short this is how I could describe our department and our educational system. We should invite our guests to take part of this conversation, starting this relationship between theoretical and practical part and how what what role should the higher education have should have in this link that I think that in performing arts is it's a must. In the traditional way of educating it's something that we from time to time seem to forget that there is a very strong connection between the theoretical part and the practice part. Of course, I would be very curious to hear from our guests from their own experience on around this subject. I can start. Hi everyone. Well, I kind of like, I think this. The question that you are saying is, is pretty important. And of course, all the answers I'm going to give are based on my own experiences as, as a student at in two various institutions one in Frankfurt, back in 99 and 2000. I had a high school of music on the coast, and back at SND or the school from the development Amsterdam, but also as a honorary teacher outside. I'm a collaborator of the Academy of dramatic arts dance department in Croatia in Zagreb, and the Academy for Arts and Culture, nonverbal theater dance, nonverbal theater department in Osjec in Croatia as well. Now, like, I think the question is very much, I kind of related to the fact that I'm, I'm always actually asking myself, I asked myself this during my studies, and basically I'm also asking now, while am I studying. What am I teaching. There's this question that that Andrea said before, the thing about actually what type of theater, are we sort of interested in, what do we feel that the future of theater is in a sense of ideas. And maybe for us were more coming from the Eastern part of Europe where I feel the theater has the strong tradition of certain type of classical theater appearing that the academia and universities and somehow like following that. That somehow that that stream. I had luck that I, when I was 16 it felt logical for me to leave Croatia and go and find my, my knowledge my studies abroad due to the fact that I was not even a. I, we didn't have dance department back back then. So I kind of went to the, to the university. But okay, like we can skip this question of what type of theater do we want. Coming back to the fact of I studied choreography school, I mean I, I, I finished my school for the development was a school. The goal is that somehow like we're seeking for artists, like you said before young voices who were into creating their own work. I had a luck to enter the school when I was really really young at the age of 18. And, but somehow like what they taught at a course for choreographers should be. I have so much interest to, to, to actually to do my own things, but the all the knowledge that I've got from us in the yaw, when I sort of transmitted into me into my work as performer was actually very much rich program for me to, to follow a program, but actually being interested to become a performer afterwards, comparing to some other friends who did strictly performative, performative courses, or performative studies for dancers or actors. And they did not have this wide angle of, of, of different languages theories as I did there. So, when it comes to the theory in this way, we had really super engaged teachers and very much very, very, very present, and the benefit of the system there for me it was the fact that we had a high amount of exchanging of professors. So now this traditional is also here, like typical time where you belong to one teacher, who is your main teacher, and then you kind of like shift with others. It's more, I feel that the setup of SNDO was made so that it was basically like around I don't know 60 workshops a year. And then I found me going through these different processes within four years of studying there. Created a really wide range of the ability to to interpolate it in my own work later, and also the fact that the freedom to shift between programs like taking classes at a film academy. And I felt I was a versatile artist like I came from graphic design I was interested in dance I did a lot of theater as an actor. And I felt I kind of found out that choreography for me was a place where actually kind of includes all those. All those interests of mine, depending on which medium and the since the school was some kind of like in a very sort of like liberal way the way was treating the program. As a creator of the creator of your own interest. I felt that was really, really, really helpful. And a lot of things. You know, a lot of writing a lot of. I mean, I actually argue about this thing back in, you know, I had a had really issues with with writing and with about my work I had really hard time when I was younger. I had a hard time to didn't have a knowledge to actually help me like I was not even interested in. And before and the school somehow didn't force me into that they perceive me they value me as an artist who doesn't need to to write about his work in the way that maybe others did. I felt back then I maybe felt like, oh, I need some pressure from them or something but actually from from seeing it today. I was just also not ready to do that I was pretty young but from seeing it today I felt like the deep respect. I got from the university in a sense of like what my interests are and what my need is to develop in which direction I want to go when you can sense the this by the by the academia around you. Then this is really kind of a helpful thing. So, I went like all over with my sentence. But yeah, I'm just to make a conclusion like I, my, my university, I left Frankfurt, because of the fact that I felt I was in a two disciplined environment when it comes to studying. I felt that studying was about like me evolving and me somehow like developing not necessarily like that way the knowledge was treating that the knowledge was treated and the way I was giving it was like to to to practical. And I was not actually biting, I kind of felt that I need an environment that's going to allow me to like be immediately part of like of my interest and that I'm actually able of reach something that I don't know. The system in Amsterdam for me the school was really like, if I would be born again I would again go there to the school, because I think was really a really specific and really beautiful experience of how how in what way you actually you sort of like treat an artist growing into a world into himself that where his interests are and how you lead him with how much attention sensitivity or not was with a lot of attention. Yes. We could go on with this question of how you see in your practice and how you see in higher education this kind of division between theory and practice and how maybe which are the ways to overcome this division if there must be overcome. If that's that's a question or I'm just putting on the table. I would switch over to Lisa because from her CV as I saw she around she she she works also around Amsterdam and I think that maybe she will will find some give us some answers also around this question. But what you said about my CV was not entirely true. Sorry. There must be some miscommunication but I didn't study dramaturgy in the university theater studies. I did in Maastricht performing arts, and I did a master in the Hague of music theater. And the other one that you wrote down was from my dramaturg but yeah I still have things to say about this. Yeah, like, at first I think it's very good that you think about it and try to like, merge it from within while being in there. I had I'm also very very happy with how they did it in Maastricht which is like they have like the acting department they have the directing department and they have the performance theater department. And when I came there it was very new. And like everybody around would ask me like, what do you do. It was like in that time still a bit like impossible to really explain you would be like yeah I'm an actor but I'm also a director I make my own I write the things that I do and in the beginning it was like really like her but so are you on TV or not or like what is it. But it's it's cool to see that like in only the 10 years that I graduated like I have the feeling that this question no longer really arises that much with the people who study there now. There is a big change already in in how the, the fields developed in the last 10 years here. And I think that's, that's probably happening in a lot of places. And there were already examples when I was studying of people doing what I studied but it was just a minority and now I have the feeling it's like. And now it is kind of a big question there are a lot of people who do this so this I'm very happy about and it was very practical. And I think maybe like, and what Tia also felt a bit like to me that was good because I was not really ready for the theoretical stuff and this is more something I used to do later on my own. Because I loved being for four years like pushed around and like only making making and there was no break it was just like going for it full head. And then you learn a lot from that but it was really not theoretical there was no time for that it was. But the nice thing was that when I graduated I really had this moment of like between why and what is me what is necessary why would I make art what if I get like this opportunity to be an artist and why and so there was no time in that for four years to think about that long because it was just like in two weeks another performance in three weeks another performance. But I think for an education that was a for me it worked that it was this practical. But I'm curious that you said like that it's traditional in Romania and in Hungary to have like one teacher that seems like a, like a bad idea to me to have one teacher. Okay, I will try to a little bit explain this system. It's working. Yes it has it's as we before this conversation we had a short brief conversation with entree it has its values and non values it has its pluses and minuses this system. For my point of view that the bad part of the system is that the having one professor who is working actively on a practical approach with the actors and training them only in the way that he believes it's working. I think that it's a system that it's not so good for our students because it's not related to what kind of market we are preparing our students for, because we are in this way we are preparing our students for only one. One way of seeing theater or one way of seeing acting or in the Romanian department you also have the directing class. So it's only one way of directing, which is based for the directing part, I will have some examples here, which is based on the traditional models of a very specific hierarchy where the director is the main character. In the act of creation he's taking all the decide the decisions he's having the main responsibility he's the one who's deciding what you're going to play when how and in what kind of aesthetics or what kind of key. This model is the model that our professors who are having each of them are responsible for one year is the model that they are teaching in. And so here's the other question or the other problem that also Andrea pointed out the relationship between the higher education system and the market that you are preparing your students for. Because you're not preparing your students for a market that it's looking only for one kind of an actor or who are looking for clones I'm sorry I have to be this harsh and use this this word that I think perfectly describes this system where a professor is creating clones of himself. And, of course, in Romania we have these two kinds of looking at the theater the traditional way we have specific numbers of theater financed by the local authorities or by the national by the government. And we have these independent what we could call independent companies but because we have a very poor law for the sponsorship. For example, or we do not have dedicated programs in financing this kind of programs or the independent theaters that are working on the model of theater making and not on the traditional model. We only have one big financing opportunity which is the National Cultural Fund, and all the these companies are looking for the finances from the National Foundation for the cultural National Foundation and it's quite limited as a market. But these two ways of perceiving theater, but the school only looks at the traditional way and teaches the students to work in the traditional way, where the director is coming and it's having a proposal of attacks. That is going to be to be debated worked and transform into a performance. And there are also the good parts because this is a way where you can create a very good ensemble and when they finish school their theaters that are offering contracts for a big part of our assemble for example we have experience where a whole class went to a theater, they got their contracts there and so they stayed together and tried to to to bring a new vibe to that theater local small theater for example. We have like nationwide, for example, is one of the schools that is getting the most prices. When our students finish their school and they go to state theater, what we call state theater, theater, which are the theater founded by the local authorities or the national authorities. The most important prizes around nationwide go to students that finish our school. So I think they are ups and downs to the system. But I think where Andrea is right is in the part that we are called theater department. We are not called performing arts department. For example, we have a master program that it's called performing arts and film, but this program is more theoretical it's in Romanian, not in Hungarian, and it's more theoretical. It has only one practical two practical classes on installation and performing performance class and creative writing class but that's it. And this model of dividing the work between acting and directing. And of course theater studies on the other part. It's a model that it's also, you can find also in the master's degrees programs from the Romanian department. I'm talking right now because in the Hungarian department as far as I know and they will correct me if I'm wrong. There is a master in contemporary theater. And I know that there there are some chances for the students to work together in some classes, but it's strange that in 2020 we thought we talk about some activist professors, some classes that offer the chance for the artist to work together. And yet it looks like it's a system that it's working. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because we do not have our students. Our students do not come forward with this problem. So somehow somehow the system is working. Well, I know maybe that's a nice small story for this that how this performance. Theater education in Maastricht was developed was because there was one girl who did audition for the school and the teacher thought like you're not an actor you're not a director. But you're very good. What are you and then she herself said like well, maybe I'm something else. Can I start my own something in between and like have some classes with the directors have some classes with the with the actors and then they said yes and then the first year she was on her own in this new Yes, but somebody said yes. Yes, exactly. That's what you, of course, needs but it's yeah. Yeah, no, true. Yeah, yeah, somebody have to say yes. We are talking here about the system where we have between us professors fights real fights on concepts that are coming from performing guards and are creating like, you know, a war between a concept that's coming from performing guards and concept that are coming from classical theater. And we have different approaches, and we find ourselves fighting. And when I say fight I mean real word fight on, for example, what drama to me in a traditional way. For example, it's assimilated to the literary secretary, but Romania theater lost this, this practical approach of working on a text with a drama to work near and it transformed it. Of course, also it's also a problem of a political problem and a historical problem because of the Communist Party that shut it down the theater study departments. But talking about higher education, for example, we have a lot of theater school in Romania, the other schools. We have a theater studies department in Bucharest in Sibiu in Turgumuresh in Yash, but they focused mainly on management and cultural management marketing, and this part of the theater studies and not so much on developing, for example, skills for writing or teaching their students that they are also need a practical approach on their work and they have to work together with their colleagues from the acting classes and directing classes. There is another for me completely and not understandable situation where the Hungarian department does not have a directing class program because we don't have somebody to train directors. That's very simple reason we cannot build up a department for training directors when there is a certain terrible lack of directors in Hungarian directors. But I would like to ask Oliver, because he has a performer who has this huge, who is doing a huge theoretical work in his creative work. It does not really look like somebody who is sharing himself between the practical and the theoretical and I would like to hear his experience of becoming who he is now. Yeah, well, so I studied directing for theater and opera very, very classically at a very classical school and I had piano lessons and Italian lessons to be able to read the text of operas and singing lessons and that kind of thing. And then I also had a burnout in my third year and took your off from school because that was not really what worked for me. And that is actually when I kind of came into my own and started working in a way that was interesting to me. So, I mean, I would definitely say that I was in a course that was too practical for what I was looking for or rather that the practical elements of the course were not kind of supported by theoretical reflection, I would say. But I was also pretty alone with that in my course. So we did have theoretical classes as well as practical lessons. Most of the others who were in my course wanted to have more practical stuff. I was kind of, I didn't have enough theoretical, not enough theoretical support to work on what I was actually looking for. So it depends. I mean, now I'm doing very essayistic work that is still not academic in any way. But I also feel that I'm, yeah, like my the road that I kind of took to get where I was was kind of weird but also in a way necessary like there are schools in Germany that that work differently, right, that are not classical directing schools that do not push this idea of the genius director kind of creating everything by themselves. And at the same time when I started and I started when I was 19. So, when I was really young as well. I did, I wouldn't have known that that was what I was going to do and so I would say to the credit of the course that I did take. I was allowed to kind of go against what the school wanted like that was not impossible. It was just very exhausting. And at the same time the support that I got through working at a school that trains classical directors was also a lot just the resources and in terms of spaces in terms of budget and in terms of just workshops and everything is was just so much more higher than what I would have gotten in a different course, like a course that is more geared towards performance, for example. Yeah, so it's a it's a true to me it's a very, very difficult. It's a very, it's a very complex, difficult subject also to it was kind of the same situation as you were talking about to go on and there. We also had several different departments for directing acting. There was a stage design department a dramaturgy department and there was some sort of collaboration between those departments but it wasn't really everyone kind of pushed their own agenda. And every one of these departments also had like one head that kind of shaped what that was and for example in my case I just had a gigantic conflict with the person who was in charge of my department and like the luck that I had was that this person went into retirement while I was on leave because my burnout and someone else came in and that was when it started to become a bit more accommodating, I would say. And even then there's like another aspect to it that I would also like to bring in which is the way that a school is structured like depend like just in for example the the school that I was working at was kind of modeled after a state theater in terms of its building in terms of the administration of the school in terms of the way that pieces were produced there and so on. And so, even though there was a even though it was possible to do something that did not fit into this very classical mold, the just the school as an institution and as a building kind of tries to prevent that from happening so like the just the amount of energy I had to pour into kind of like making sure that I was not being forced into that mold was like almost as much energy as I was able to put into the into creating the actual work so and that kind of feeds back to the to this idea of like which market in air quotes a school should prepare a that their students for because I think that like in this case it's probably very convenient to do it in that way. If you want to work in a state theater and if you are thinking that the system that is in place is right. But it's really hard if you a do not want to work in that field because for example I work as a freelance artist and I apply for grants and I tore my work internationally and that is just the skill set that is associated with that is something that I did not learn in my studies at all. And the same thing goes vice versa, like if I talk to people who went to the more in Germany, who went to the more experimental schools, they have the same problem with the state theater system, like when when they are approached by state theaters and when they first work in state theaters. Something that has happened to a lot of people that I know is that they were kind of overwhelmed with the demands that that system puts on them so it's really I think the problem once it becomes too fixed. Yeah, yeah, that kind of meanderd a bit but maybe it was a bit productive. I just want to say one thing which is I find very interesting from where I sit now I mean based in Budapest and like commute and travel to clues where I haven't been since January because of the pandemic. And it's a very sad situation. It's my birth city of birth. So, we always see the Western higher education as something like very strong and much better and now I hear you saying how disappointed you were with your own institution and I find very much of responsibility to give to our students another option than than the like the traditional state theater repertoire, being able to be part of that and what is very important in this present situation that you through your experience with this and with the workshop you offered to our students. You come with your own personal experience and your knowledge and your presence as performers and giving this example that this, there are other ways of thinking about theater and trying to teach them a lot or show them. I don't use the word teach when I, when I, when I'm working with them but to show them other ways of thinking about theater, but to have this kind of very close relationship with a stage performer is very important to have and we are responsible for showing these alternatives to them so they have the choice because one of one of the big misses of the school is that we don't really have enough options to show on or what we prepare them for. There is one question I wanted to ask you if you ever experienced the kind of reforms of a institution from inside, you were telling us, Mattia and Oliver to how disappointed you were with some institutions. You were part of, but have you seen or have you experienced this kind of change, which Lisa described as somebody approaching an institution and saying, I'm a new entity here somebody who does not existed in this, in this institution before, not this or not nor that. So have you experienced such a kind of process of change in a, you know, kind of more rigid conservative type of institution higher education system. Well, I could just say that I believe it's like everyone's, I'm talking about teachers or artists teaching at a higher educational system like you come with a certain responsibility on when when when teaching in those in those constellations and for me. So last year, non verbal master program opened in, in Ossiak and somehow Ossiak it's a western part of Croatia with like really it's an art academy like they have various departments. So for them as there's a master's degree in a non verbal two years, and I was being asked to kind of like be the first teacher to sort of like get give like a master workshop of six weeks throughout the throughout like half a year from other. And we are talking about a very small community like, and also like established in the very traditional type of theater and also the students that arrived are not all of them are most of them are maybe not so familiar with like contemporary theater as I'm related to it in a sense of like kind of considered and there is also like there was no option for them to witness it except YouTube or stuff like this. So, okay, there isn't there is an effort from the from the Academy itself to open another, let's say, non existing department in Croatia, so they do. They have an interest to kind of like also bring people teachers that can offer maybe a different way. I think the most responsibility, you know, I feel like, I mean I come there and I'm asking them to unlearn perhaps everything that they know so far, because that's important for my type of work. I asked them to take risks in a places where they don't and it can be for some students it's really like, it's a resetting like I can tell an example on the fact that I've had a student live even asking like what's your interest in. In the beginning like what's their interest why they even inscribed this thing and it was the first year so you know something called non verbal and I'm sure all five of us here can refer to non verbal theater differently. And, you know, his interest line like the physical aspects of slapstick of what of the comedy and stuff like this, and with a deep respect but me personally I found that as a really narrow way of looking at non verbal theater and for that maybe you don't need two years of studying you might also need only workshop or you can be done with it in two weeks or something. Nevertheless, I did not talk about it but after six weeks I asked them again the same question, all of the students, and at least 70% of the students and change the idea of why they inscribed non verbal theater department, because the workshop itself made a big influence in a way so I feel like for me also when I look at my university and my studies like I started dancing because I took a workshop with Helge Muziel, who opened Tanzfabric in Berlin and he was like, I was 16 and he said like, you know, I'm I felt trust. He said, go there try this. I went I mean there's some like some students some teachers have really like made an impact on on my work. And I feel so I think like within the system in a way I mean if I feel as an artist that that system or that environment requires a shift or a shake I'm going to I mean personally I will shake it without any problem, or I don't have. How do you say funny but what you're talking what you were talking before where actually we have, you have in our region somewhere when you have this teacher who are having their own actors for many years. You know I don't do the same. I do the same as well. I don't have them for many years I had them for six weeks. So if you're kind of exchanging them I don't think they're doing anything wrong I just think there's a system of four years it's way too long to be stick to one. I teach I mean, I also do the same thing I teach, not my vocabulary but I teach my interest like, you know, I teach the theater that I believe in and what I think it's important in it. And it's completely the opposite of course of what another teacher is teaching. But I don't think that's, it's about getting it's about introducing languages different type of languages to students about creating them kind of like open because I think when someone is 21 22 whatever. You know, we don't know really where we are at and what we want it's just about letting those like doors open so I think in our also the system is maybe not so rigid as in Romania but it's still very classical in a way. But I feel like since there are a lot of artists are teaching at the academies, and I feel like, you know, a lot of students like relate to an artist to his work to his type of thinking and they like you know maybe they follow him maybe then don't but I feel the importance it's really needed I think you keep introducing people to, to other artists that you can do other practices, other like other types of work in order to, for them to find. Okay, I will have us just a small information. We had, for example, this kind of event that Andrea was referring to when we switch from the four year system to the three year system because we had to switch to the Bologna system. And the main problem that I see from that change was that everybody from the university tried to to push in into the three years, all the knowledge that they were teaching or all the things that they were doing in four years. It was sort of forcing the time and the students now for example from the acting classes, they work seven days a week from morning till evening with their professor that is leading the class. In a very alert way. Of course, the school offers also workshops for our students we have all kind of artists that we are inviting for all over the world, not only Europe or not only from Romania. So these kind of workshops usually take about two weeks in one semester, and after that the student is coming back to the professor that he has for for those three years and he's working with with the same in the same system and so we have also fights on on the other times, for example, because in some way I don't know how we came to this conclusion that every semester in the Romanian department has to end with a performance that the students from acting classes are giving instead of acting exam. So, and also the students from the directing class each has to direct his own performance. So, we also have this confrontations between rehearsal rooms and for the times that we are offering our students to rehearse together with their professors or together with the directing classes. So I think that's important that we are not talking about the four year system. We are talking about a three year system, which is much more dense and much more. On the other hand, now you can, I mean, you have three year system that you can shift it to a five year system, no. No, we have three year bachelor degrees and the two year master degrees, but the model from the master degrees, it's not necessarily something that continues what a student started at the three years bachelor degree system. No, but when we talk about, I feel I find it personally ridiculous to study acting for five years, even if I think of it as like going into a master, I don't know what else. I mean, of course, depends if you can narrow it during the master thesis, but what happened with us here is when we went to the Bologna system, we actually, we didn't do, we didn't squeeze it to three, we opened it to five. A lot of students because of their stability and because of their comfortability, they remain studying five years within the school system, because it's actually good about from anything you can still work a bit around, but you still have some sort of security. You're still not on the road, you're still there. So, but I still find like within the five year program that can be a really, it's an amazing time to sort of like get to get those kids really like in, out completely and like offer them so many things, but yet we kind of decide to just fulfill some norms. And some like not so much actually, depending. But nevertheless, I, yeah, I mean, I feel like in everything there is like a lot of like we have a lot of issues and a lot of problems, but I mean, it really comes back to the, I think maybe I'm not saying it's important, but this market of what we are producing the, you know, like, I don't know, like we have, we have one to, I think we have four academies in, we have four academies in Croatia. We have around, I don't know, maybe like 40 to 50 actors a year, graduating. And we have like, we have three national theaters, we have like, I don't know, seven, eight city theaters. And I mean, I would like, I don't know why like, I don't know why our actors like don't have German, or why are we not like, you know, like, why are we not like, educating our or preparing our like actors for a German market, because we are just ending up being with artists with so many artists with like graduation and stuff, but there is such a lack of lack of work. So not about, I think that I think even if you come from a different school, you will find your way onto the market, but I think the market needs to exist. And I feel the number of how much education is actually present. And how much like we have done just going to give one last example. There is an, so we have the new dancing Academy in Croatia started like seven years ago or something like these six. And it's a it's a performative department for as a dancer. So, but of course, when they come out and the dancing in Croatia is really struggling for the past 20 years and it's going but it's, you know, there is no, there's no so much work for like eight 12 for pedagards for teachers and eight students every second year to actually find and also the funding and then, oh, no, sorry, then what they start they also start they go immediately into their own projects into their own authorship. But then I was like, why do we decide to then make a choreography school why do we need then actually a performance performing as a like a dancer education, because anyhow, you know, then then we come, you have the young generation needing to apply for money, the budget doesn't raise up in the same way so because there is new people applying so we are going higher. No, and then it's like, becomes tension and it's really not. I feel really like calculating the market, not what the market needs, but like what is the market. I mean, if I have, if I have this size of a house I can fit this many people that's like a logical thinking for me so I don't know why. And if I cannot. I will make another comment. Sorry for interrupting you but this, I think we will go to the second part of our meeting and it's also available for Oliver Lisa for everybody. This question around the market. How does the market looks right now. What are the needs of the market right now because we are from March, we are facing a pandemic that it's increasing. And that should at least shape the our way of teaching or the professor's way of teaching because we have to adapt to new ways of communicating with our students. There are school that went completely online. There are schools that stayed on site like for example our school we have a mixed system. We have classes that are on site and we have classes that are online but we don't know how much we will be able to prolong this on site way of teaching because it's depending on the cases that of COVID that we have every day it's depending on the if we have positive cases in the school or outside the school what's happening in the city and so on and so forth. But what I think it's important is how this pandemic is shaping this relationship between a higher education system that it's clearly debatable if it's ready for an online teaching effective teaching. What kind of artists are we preparing and for what kind of market that it's arising from this kind of unfortunate events, because the market is shaped by this exterior events. And it's also moving exclusively online. So what kind of artists are we preparing right now for this online market and how can we prepare our artists for the online. How performing arts are looking in an online environment. I don't know, I think there are a lot of questions to be answered here. I mean it's a it's a it's a tough question because I absolutely respect every performing artists who says that they are not interested in working with with like web based formats and like I have pieces that I have postponed for a year like from from last April to next April because I think that there's no like equivalent for that at all online and I think it really depends on on the practice of every artist whether they are whether this is like something that's like a viable path for them or not at all in which case obviously there's a big problem to like it's been a while since I graduated but one thing like just from people that I know who are currently studying or who are about to graduate or who have recently graduated or who just gained who just like started to be to have their work invited to festivals and so on last spring. I mean it's obviously very hard because the the one thing that I think a school can do is to make sure that their students work is being seen by as many people as possible right and that is obviously very hard at the moment but I also don't think that there's like there there's no easy answer right because if if your practice is not compatible with with the current the limitations that are currently in place then I think it's just a just a problem that I don't really know the answer to. Yeah I agree but I also think like I mean I don't know how it is for students but I see in my work now that like I don't think I'm not so interested in the online world in that sense and I think it's also a bit dangerous to have this or you could see this in the Netherlands a bit that like the moment this pandemic hit in like two weeks after everyone was online and I was also a bit like wait a minute I mean we don't there is also something wrong with the like how much we are trying to go on and go on and go on with all this out these things coming to us that change our practice like maybe we should not do the practice when it and we can right like maybe we should like maybe we should take the time to be more into the theory of things and maybe more reflective about things like to me this was more or less than in that like I'm not going to try to to I don't think we should push every artist to do their work online because it we we've been like touching each other since since like millions of years ago like why would we suddenly be able to I mean it was almost an insult to film I think that so many people in theater were like suddenly like we can do it on a screen and I was like what well maybe not you know like I need to I need the eyes of the people to to see look in their eyes and like have all this energy stuff that I don't know the names of but I mean that's just so when it doesn't work I would not push it also not with students but it's hard because of course they're eager to learn and and but maybe it should be more theoretical than for some of them I mean for at least for I mean yeah definitely like yeah like I said like if it's not something that you're already interested if like if this is not something that you were already interested in before the pandemic I don't think it's a good idea to force yourself to become interested in it right now but at the same time like I'm I didn't watch any of the stuff that have like almost nothing of the like that knee jerk reaction online stuff that that happened right after the lockdown but at the same time obviously I mean there's also an economic dimension to it right I mean for a lot of people at least in Germany like it was was also a question of being able to get the funding money that they were promised like they had to do something in order to get it and like for example I mean I'm in an okay economic situation in terms of in terms of grants and funding and so I can afford to say I'm not going to do this piece for for a year but at the same time I can also see why that might not be an option for other people or for people who are just graduating maybe it's I think it's very calm it's a very complex question yeah it's absolutely true yeah it's a it's a very nice if you can like postpone things without yeah I mean how was the just out of curiosity how was the the situation with you because for example here in Germany I got money for every live show that was cancelled basically like I didn't get the whole fee that I was owed but I got like most not not with every show that I that was cancelled because I obviously had like a bunch of shows cancelled but for most of the shows in Germany I got like 60% of the fee that I was going to get I got even though it was cancelled which is obviously a pretty okay deal regarding the situation and I'm curious as to hear it's a bit off topic I'm sorry but I'm just very very curious to hear not necessarily I can I can tell you what happened in Hungary Hungary has a large culture of the state funded theaters so they just got their own subsidy without performing but the independence got really zero so all of the independent artists living gone on grants and on box office and and also not only independence but the private theaters they just they didn't get any state support the only thing they got recently was a one one amount one amount of money which is less than 1000 euros and for that 1000 euros each artist has to make some to create something new or to perform something theaters are open currently in Hungary said it was the lockdown in the spring but then in September everything opened and although the pandemic is very good the COVID situations very bad in Hungary but still are still performing there are very few fewer and fewer viewers because of course people are afraid of gatherings and stuff like that but there was was no basically there was no state support or state kind of grants in this situation okay and I can answer answer for Romania. The situation is similar to the Hungarian situation. The state theater got their full support and the artist stayed home they only had to to prove that they are working so they had to rehearse online for example or to do like I don't know poetry recycling and filming themselves why they read poetry in order to prove that they are doing something and they get their full payment this time but the independent sector was in and it is in a very bad situation because we only had a small funding for independent artists from April to June worth around 300 euros per month per artist but only for a part of the independent artist that could prove that had some contract cancelled and this went on for the initial lockdown time but there was and there is no state funding for the private or independent companies that in this time they have to pay rent they have to pay I don't know electricity they have to pay everything and for a short period of time that we weren't in the lockdown because now we have depending on the cities we have theater closed but for a short period of time the independent theater worked with 30% of the audience present which of course it's not enough to at least pay their rents so the situation for the independent sector is really bad for me also. We had actually every sort of like every artist that proved his artist practice for the months of March, April and May or actually April, May and June received like a somehow like a help of like in total like 1500 euros more or less, something to that for that period of time, and we were kind of like here back we kind of got back to performing during during summer immediately so and the things that were cancelled, I must actually say that a lot of like funding structures like Ministry of Culture, different cities, regions, cultural institutions that are supporting were really really flexible with the way you defend your money spending and actually even advice for the people to pay their collaborators, regarding if the project is going to happen or not. So kind of like the independent scene witnessed some sort of like flexibility when it comes to the fact that how are you going to actually you could have gone to the fact that you are not, you don't have to make a project but actually pay the people you kind of need for some cities, not every city decided this but they were really actually generous in this way. And then for, or I also have for example, I got funding but the money was so late that then the project was postponed for next year, like Oliver had for the next year and then they didn't want to take me they didn't want to accept the fact to put the money on the next year so I had to apply again, and then other institutions said like it's fine you can have two years to do a project or it really depends but it was, I must, yeah it was, it was not maybe so I also had the ability to like, I don't know, France produces from France they were actually capable of giving some money for cancellations. Some cities like in Europe also did others some theaters also did others did not was kind of like not really a general thing for for everyone. We have some time for our last round of questions and the. If you're, if you're interested, it was just announced right now that we're going to be entering another lockdown on Monday so all theaters are going to close again. Right. In Germany. In Germany. Yeah. So, which means like that, like all the shows are going to be cancelled again and stuff. Obviously I would be happy in but if in Budapest they will lock the theaters down again. It would be very helpful for the situation. But they don't. They did not announce such a thing yet. So I thought about the last round of questions. I think our discussion is mostly around the synergies of kind of classical higher education models which we presented you at the beginning and those kind of ways of thinking as within the title outside the box. So we are trying to to talk about the synergies of these two traditions or these two kind of thinking, ways of thinking, but my question would be to you as a to you as performers as artists who are creating contemporary theater. What are the, let's say benefits what are the gains of the classical higher education training, if there is any, because we here criticized our higher education and our own ways of thinking or the ways of thinking represented by our institutions but what you in your training gained from a kind of a more traditional training if there is any gain. To me there was certainly a gain we were very trust traditionally in the fact of the using of the voice and using of the body it was like together with the actors it didn't matter that we were performing studies, and it was three times a week. Just standing and saying a text and being trained and how to use your voice and I really benefit from that. And that's a very traditional thing but also like something you can use, like forever and always I don't think that will go away. So yeah, I mean, and I'm also happy about the traditional way of like the study is so dense. And like so, like it's almost like a monastery where you are for four years and I think that's also kind of traditional in a way but I that also I benefit from that a lot from like this. Almost no escape. And they I mean, because it was this extreme they also try to offer you the space of delivering critique on the on the way where what how is it how it is done. And I think that is very important that how you can create like students that there, or that feel safe enough to give critique on this very traditional ways of learning. And I think they did that very well where that where I studied they were very traditional but also if you talk to them and you come with good arguments then they, there was something to talk about. Even though it was a lot of heart fights you know like it was not easy in that sense but there was room for it and I think that's that's important. I can, I can just say that for me, I mean I would consider myself as a very. Although I'm not my work is not like this, but I'm really I'm a fan of tradition and I'm really explored the tradition into your turn my work a lot and I twisted around and I shape it differently and the things I know, I kind of like to twist them for 260 degrees and you know, I'm really much interested in to turn into tradition into the conservative into the like. Yeah, somehow like static, let's call it, but for me it's important that even during studies. I was really much aware to what is tradition and where I am at with my mind and thinking like so I didn't think that tradition was the only thing that existed. That was also actually the tradition that I went to traditional schools that I did. It was really important to. I was I was aware of how like, sort of like close structure there are, but they were also offering like a ways for me to stand out and to see this close structure and deciding like okay am I going with it or not. And I think it's also about. I think the traditional higher education system in some way. It's not necessarily bad, or I mean not really bad I mean it's good if it's shifting but it's not necessarily. It has to be really important that the student actually has the ability to, you know, to perceive it as it is and not to be actually blindfolded and think of this as like the only way out so I go and I see a lot of classical theater like I'm really not a fan of it but I am I'm really happy for my practice in order to be commenting in order to be in it to be like shaking it so in this way, and it was the same with school. You know, I was a rebel. I was a bit of, I made my own way through it, but the school was fine with this. It was supportive to that. And for me, that's like different things I mean I'm very grateful to have had like certain kinds of very classical training like I'm happy that I like singing lessons and that I learned Italian for two years, that even though that's not necessarily what I'm using my practice now, but it's still just things that I'm grateful for. Obviously there's also a kind of elite elitism in those institutions that is problematic but that the people who are in them very much profit from, like, if you do if you go to one of the performance schools or one of the more experimental schools in Germany or in a class of like 50 or 60 or 70 or maybe even 30 if you're like lucky but like I was in a class of three, right so just the amount of time and the amount of resources that one person gets is obviously a lot higher in those classical institutions like I don't think it necessarily should be but it's just right as of now it's just like a fact. The thing is that, like even though I do not like I don't work in opera or classical theater, I have a very clear understanding of why I don't do it. I'm very grateful that I got to know these fields very closely in order to have an informed opinion on why I don't want to work in them. And even though that's maybe a bit kind of a little cynical, it's still something that I'm quite grateful for. Because there is a curiosity that people who didn't go through that gauntlet in a way have with those systems that I just don't have from my studies because I know them very well. So as a conclusion, I would like to point out that the role that the higher education should have in the link with performing arts would be as an eye opener towards the possibilities that an artist has in the moment that it's graduating from that no matter how, what kind of model that the university or the school that is graduating is having this role as eye opener should be the main focus of the higher education. Or at least this is what I take with me away from this conversation that we had today. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you for doing these workshops for the students and we hope to get some feedback from them too. And I hope this somehow continues also between our institutions between. The name for Fabrica Depensule in brush factory. Yeah, the brush factory and the theater, our theater departments. So, thank you again for sharing these ideas and these dilemmas today with us and hope we are gain something from these discussions with our students too. Thank you for inviting us. Thanks a lot guys and let's show our support to our colleagues from the past who are fighting for their freedom every minute as every day and we are there with them and hope they they will be free. Thank you. So thank you everybody.