 switch to English and say good morning again. We will start this discussion, which will be like two hours long. And the idea for this discussion is to have a common topic for all the artists and all the audience here. It's a topic proposed by the festival itself. It's art and social responsibility. I will say more details about this topic. But first, the design of this discussion is to have a first part discussion with artists. And we will try to have a dialogue between themselves. This is my responsibility. The whole discussion is probably my responsibility, which is a little heavy weight. And the second part is the idea to have a discussion with the audience with you here in the room. And we will maybe ask people to give some interventions and reflections to the first part of the discussion. So let me introduce the speakers or the participants of this morning. I go from left. Gianna Carbonelli from Romania, who has the performance in the program Artist Talk. And what we are doing now is an Artist Talk. And we might give some background for this preparatory talk for this performance. Next to Gianna is Maya Petrovic and her co-producer and artists on the stage of Olga Dmitrievich. They are from Serbia with the show Freedom, the Most Expensive Capitalist Word, which for a long time I read World as a misreading of the title. And Alba Cinec, who is a director from basically Hungary, and he works a lot outside. And he directed Exit, which we saw last night. So the topic of this discussion is Art and Social Responsibility, which maybe it's a word I would change to Social Awareness or Social Consciousness. Since responsibility, it's a very heavy loaded word. And sometimes it is put from outside of artists. And it's a lot of expectation from artists to be socially responsible. And the first one of question I would like to put is how do you see your position as artist? How what is expected from you? What is the social responsibility in your work expressed? What is the expectation from inside and from outside toward your work? And maybe also how you define this position as an artist? How you use the social responsibility or responsibility not only in your work but in any other public space you use or we use this as a public space that we might make good use of this public space in connection with social responsibility? So the first question to wrap it again is how you define this word related to your work and how you define your position as an artist is the position which is too much loaded with such expectation or how do you get it? We would like to start. Do you want closer to the micro goal? There are plenty of micro goals. So I don't feel any, in this context in Romania, I don't feel any expectation from outside. I mean, if you look at the strategies of the theaters, you won't see so many expectations for social awareness. On the contrary, so in the last six years, let's say the state theaters became more and more commercial as strategy, as propositions. Actually, in a way, a part of the independent scene took this responsibility of the state theater. So in this sense, I have no pressure from outside. There is no pressure on the contrary. I'm not very pleased also when even when a theater accepts a project that is, let's say, more connected with reality, with social political topics, they produce it, but they don't schedule it twice, three times per year, while other shows are performed at least three times per month from the same theater. So in this sense, I don't think there is a connection between artists, social awareness, social political awareness, and theaters in Romania. But I guess for me, because I sometimes like to be provoked by this conflict, probably that worked for me in the sense that it made me even more aware of this responsibility, let's say, this lack of pressure. I think becoming very commercial or more and more commercial is a very general phenomena. I could add Hungarian theater is becoming very commercial. And also the state theater avoiding more and more producing shows with social political responsibility and awareness. So what I see is that the independent theater has to play the role of being a part of it. Here in Romania, independent and private, and it's a long discussion. But let's say a small part of this independence had to take this mission. On the other hand, I'm also producing and working with state theaters. I'm not, I mean, I am independent. It's more complicated than this. For instance, I can do a project, but I have no space. So I'm going to a state theater and co-produce. You know, it's not so precise. But again, this lack of pressure, for me, it worked like, I think it helped me to be more aware that there is no space where you can actually express, I don't know, things connected with this reality we are living in. And this made me reflect about this and do it in performances that I created independently or in production with theaters. The problem is working independently. I don't know if it's connected with our topic, what I'm saying now. But OK, you do a project, but then it's not performed. You are aware, and with you are aware, I don't know, 300 people who see the show. Yes, I think this is very much connected to the topic if there is a project produced by a state theater and it's not performed because it's not enough commercial and it doesn't sell very good. It sells, no, it's not about the problem of selling or not. It's not a problem of selling tickets. I don't know what's the problem, but the tickets are not the problem. Would you reflect on this question of expectations? Well, I actually just wanted to reflect first on the idea of social awareness in theaters today. Actually, I think that today we live in a society that has too much social awareness in a paradoxical way. When we talk about the freedom of expression, I think that today it's in mainstream theater. And now I'm talking mainly about Serbian theater, of course, as I know this society the best, that we have a problem of this institutionalizing of political theater, as political theater becoming something that is mainstream. And so this kind of social awareness that happens in mainstream theaters in Serbia and this kind of turning political theater into something that is actually very unpolitical in a way, is, I think, a big problem today in our contemporary society. I think it's not only happening in Serbia. I think it's happening all over the world. And I think it's reflecting the current neoliberal situation that we are living in, as we have the freedom of talking about whatever we want. But then these topics that we really want to reflect as really changing today's society and really questioning some crucial things that are wrong in the society, it happens rarely in mainstream theater. And of course, if it happens anywhere else, it has a little visibility. And I think that that is a very important topic today when we talk about social awareness. Yeah, I also wanted to continue a little bit on what you said in a way that it feels like social awareness or political engaged theater also became a kind of commodity in a way. And it does not mean that some particular plays or shows are not sincere in their political intentions, but somehow in the whole context of European theater system and both with the institutions and both with the independent scene, I'm not talking about particular projects. I'm more talking about the structure that enables that we talk about whatever we want. And to make co-productions and to communicate between each other and to talk about, I don't know, whichever topic from corruption to, I don't know, fallacies in European Union to refugees, to wars, to reflect on immigrant position and so on and so on. But in the sense, all of us are playing the game of playing our game of the artist in a way, OK, now we're going to be politically engaged artists. We're going to say something really serious about our space and about our society that we live in. But at the same time, the question of how much disturbance, how much agency for any kind of disturbance we have, I would say it's a very important question. I would say that there is very little agency in our hands in that whole thing. But that still does not mean that we are not supposed to do it. And in a way that, OK, let's wait for, let's be ready to join the great social movements when they arise, when they progress with social movements. And let's, at the same time, do our jobs the best we can. Personally, my professional life is very important to divide the work and the voluntary activities. So for me, it's two different things. So when I'm working in a theater like here, so for me, it's a very special responsibility of me because I have to serve the interest of the theater, interest of the audience. So because it's a repertoire in theater, and if I make a project, a product, so it's many, many interests around it. Of course, I can be free, but it's a special relation to the audience, to the actors. So it's much closer to the entertainment, I think. So for me, it's so important. It's as deep entertainment as possible, but it's entertainment. So the people will buy tickets. So somehow I have to find a good relation when we can use this time for something important in the social meaning. Of course, it's a forum that what we can use for talk about our circumstances. But when I really want to make something in the meaning of politics, so for me, it's how to say, when I have to build a real concrete relation to the movements, to the street, to the demonstration, to use the Facebook, and it's absolutely voluntary work. So when there's two different things, because one and I somehow, I have to leave, so obviously I don't want to lie in this situation, so it's my job. So somehow I have to use this chance for a good sense for, but so I stopped the total independent activities in the arts, so now how I live, so I have to adapt to the different situations. And I use this situation for learning. So to learn about the different societies, the different, lots of experiences from the different parts of Europe. So it's a very good time. But when I want to use this experience, it's in a political sense, so another way, yeah. Do you also have, I was talking about dividing the roles of an artist as an activist, let's say, as a civil activist. And something you might not know, everybody here that has a series of videos on his Facebook page, which gives him sometimes a much higher visibility than the shows, and more shares and likes. And he's talking about dividing these roles. Do you experience something like that as well? Dividing roles when you talk to a different public or to reach more people, because all that said that sometimes the work has little visibility or would not reach too many people. We all talked about visibility in a way. Yeah, well, dividing the roles or not dividing the roles, I didn't really think about it. But I think what I completely relate in what Arpat said is something that they read is recognizing the role of artists, recognizing that the things that we do in theater are jobs and work. And it's something that, you know, we go, we do the job, we produce something, we are paid for that, and we live out of that. It's some kind of a profession. And at the same time, the topic of activism is also extremely important for me, for example. And I mean, I don't know, I'm involved in some small activist scenes here and there in Belgrade. But what I could notice from the whole period of transition and post-socialist transformations that happened is that also any kind of activism that maybe emerged as grassroots or so and so became professionalized in a way. And that slowly through the years, it created a huge problem, actually, between, it created a problem in communication of between activists and people that they're addressing. And in that way, and there we come to the maybe paradoxical moment that, at least in Serbia nowadays, I have more influence, I mean, or Maya or whoever, we can have more influence as artists if we talk about some particular topics than if we would be doing some field work because the whole infrastructure, like social infrastructure for doing the field work with any kind of social group or on any kind of matter actually got lost or professionalized or it was pacified or however. And then in that sense, between addressing small crowd of 30 people on the street and addressing crowd of 300 people in the theater and that may be performing the show 10 times and then having the outreach through Facebook and then having something else, that's actually where somehow these two positions might merge but not as the positions of no, now I'm the artist who is also gonna be the actor and I see that as intertwined completely but that we all come with some sense of political and ideological values and then we sometimes have the power to transform it into the public sphere. Yeah and also I would like to add, I agree when Olga says that these things sometimes merge but in a way I think that it's for me but I also think for you it's impossible not to think the way we do theater from the ways we see the society. I think that it emerges all the time. So in a way, I think that the maybe real activism in theater today is to question yourself all the time what is your position and from which position are you saying this and not thinking that you are right and not giving your position. I think the main maybe problem of political theater today is that it wants to give some questions and it wants to exclude itself from this kind of society. It's very important that you are not patronizing the audience and not telling it, okay now we're telling you what is the way that the world is supposed to look like and these bad people somewhere else are ruining our world and we're here to make it better. We have to always put ourselves also in the position of the people that are making the society the way it is and we are part of it. So if we're talking about, I don't know if we're making an anti-capitalist show we have to know that we're actually living in capitalism and we're actually using these commodities in everyday basis and we're very much capitalists ourselves in lots of situations. So we have to always address ourselves and I think that this is the real activism in theater saying okay, the society is wrong, we want to fix it but we're actually also making it wrong and we have to fix ourselves through the theater also. So. You said something that I also find extremely important when you talk about political theater and that we keep on forgetting how bourgeois this institution is and that in the moment when we are making a super strong political show about we travel topic in the universe we need to remember how much we can fall into the trap of creating the alliance between ourselves as the artist and the audience that is present in this bourgeois institution and then we can say look at this, we know the truth, we know how the society really is and not those people somewhere outside of the building who do not go to the theater, who are not educated, who are so we must be aware of that trap and we can easily fall into it. I think Johnny has performance, artist talk is I think six scenes, question the position of the artist and I think it's very important what Maya said that activism comes also from question this position who we are, what part of you we speak of and I don't know if you would like to reflect on what has just said and said about this division of artistic role, semi-role, activist role or how they merge, which are those territories where they merge? I try to give an example for me it is easier to be can come together, my own experience somehow like you said we are part of the problem so I remember that we did a project, we were a group of artists, directors and we did a project that started with the research in Rojah Montana, Rojah Montana is a gold mine, probably the biggest in Europe and let's say six yugs we did show six or seven years ago when it was not yet a topic. The problem was that Canadian company wanted to start exploiting that part of that gold mine and there are activists and people from the village who were protesting and who were resisting for a long time this exploitation and we went there and we spoke with the people who were still in the village and we spoke with activists and we spoke with the people from the gold corporation from this Canadian company and when we did the show it was very interesting that the activists who came to see it and of course the guys from the gold corporation but that was not a surprise actually they kind of some of them they kind of hated the show and in that moment I realized that yes in my private personal life I can fight for some things but when I'm doing a show I should I don't know things are not so easy and what was really striking in these two parts two sides the gold corporation and activists for me they never thought about the people they always spoke about in the Romanian interest money but they never really spoke about the people living in that area like what really happened to them to have 24 hours per day TV media there in the village to be like in a big brother show they never thought how these people decided to live there or how some of them decided to live that village and sell their houses for a fortune but for them maybe those money were important to the education to their children so for us that was the perspective the people's perspective the people with whom we spoke when I'm involved in these kind of stories things become more complicated than black and white because in this I think you should have a position a very clear position connected to a subject like it was the subject with Russia Montana for me there was no discussion it was black and white as a person but when you do the performance things become more and that's a good thing not to be I don't know trapped in an ideology or to try at least not to you're talking about clear position but sometimes in your show in artist talk you are talking about many positions there is no kind of deep position I was speaking about a subject let's say for Russia Montana for me it was not a big discussion if it's good or it's bad it was bad and it would destroy a lot of things no that was clear there is no so much discussion about this but as a citizen a normal citizen just to say something you said not being trapped in ideology but if you went there and you spoke with people and then you got another perspective and then you stop being black and white for you actually you are still in some kind of ideology you just look into the account what people said I don't understand if I understood you correctly in that case of having corporation taking over the mind and destroying the area of pollution and so on I guess that was the case I'm not only that's what I'm saying the discussion is very long but if I understood you said that you for you everything was black and white in that case and then you went to speak with people who lived in the place and then you made a show about it if I understood you correctly yes yes and if your position at the beginning was black and white in the sense okay this is bad and this is good and if in the show you realize that you have to make it a little bit more in the shades of gray no it was not in the shades of gray it was not in the shades of black and white activists who are saying these people who are selling their houses they are traitors of the nation as are and if you try to see from their perspective if you and you look into the account perspective of people that's what they but you're still on some kind of ideological position which is maybe a little bit more how would I say it's not about the fight between big corporation which is powerful enough and not about the perspective of the activists who it's, the case is familiar it happened several times in Europe especially about the situations like mines or so I also know about the fund in Sweden then again if you take into the account the stories of people who were not consulted before you're still in some kind of fight you're still holding some ideological position you're actually making a political decision to include stories of the people who were not included before in the public discourse so in that sense I would still bring the politics I would never exclude the politics from the I think just taking the people's stories they are not taking the people's we didn't do documentary and that's a long discussion because you don't bring when you bring on the stage this you don't bring the story of those people or you don't give a voice okay but you are bringing on stage your meeting your personal meeting with this reality which is something else than black and white again it's your very special and it's not only one person experience a bigger team of artists and we had a lot of that was interesting thing about we were three directors and each of us had a very strong position at some point and we had kind of polemics I mean during the show and you could see that I'd but it's your politics no three different politics might be if there was a feedback well everything is politics I'm sorry but yes of course when you touch this subject even if you want to do a musical it will be political but why should we be afraid to be political what's the no I'm standing because you said that you in a way want to to avoid the ideological position to extract yourself from the ideology and then I just said but no actually what you described it sounded completely like actually taking another ideological stance or maybe reflecting on it during the process or something like that that's the only thing that it's not that no what I'm saying what I'm saying to avoid the ideology maybe I was not very clear but we see that we start to become quite polarized now you know there is no real discussion between the left and the right and so even if on the political level basically they do the same thing in terms of measures in Romania at least I didn't see a big difference between both sides so in this sense maybe you know what I mean not to be tracked in the this right discourse or the left discourse I think theater kind of yeah doesn't have to to be tracked in this you know to this is very much left what is presented in this left I have left one my next question is related to this discussion where you would like to understand each other it's a great effort I think is the many points of you the shows your shows offer for instance in exit you said last night that you leave the question to the audience what happens after and what should happen what is outside it's a question which the audience should answer in Olga and Maya's show which is a very I think it's a kind of over-identification with an ideological point of view or highlighted identification and it's a kind of subversive I would call it subversive part of you you are subverting expectations of the audience and in Jaina's performance you have many different points of view positions of artists not only of artists but of journalists as well put together and my question is that these shows so there is no one ideological standpoint or one point of view from which position these works are created my question is so there is a very large offer to the audience how they should relate to these shows how should they choose a point of view or combine or reflect upon different points of views my question is what is the expectations of the artists from the audience what do you expect from the audience maybe in your complete shows in these shows which are presented in this festival because I think these shows are much more open to what and how the audience should relate upon well actually I think that well now I'm going to talk you'll probably agree with me but if you don't I think that in the case of our show it is actually one position and it's our position it's the position of Olga and me of course the two of us have different positions but still it's Olga's and Maya's perspective of the world and when we were doing the show just let me add one thing which the audience here might not know that you the two of you are on the stage and in this in the case of the other shows the artists are not on the stage yeah but still even if the two of us were on stage we could have had lots of different ways of doing the topic we actually when we started doing the show about North Korea even before going to North Korea we actually had our own perspectives as we were doing research on the field of how the western eyes seized the other the enemy the black the mysterious black hole of the far east as North Korea is perceived today so we had this kind of a discourse which we actually this was the only perspective we could have as we live in the west as we only have we can only watch western media of course we cannot watch Chinese or Russian media as we don't know the language so this was our perspective watching the media coverage of this story then of course the perspective of going there and then of course the perspective when we came back and in a way reflected our own positions through it and of course being not just European but eastern European and being from big citizens of ex-Yugoslavia and having a completely different position than other people that would I don't know come from western European countries America or other communist regimes so we had a lot of positions here but at the end we were told telling only one story and we were really trying to reflect our own story and our own perspectives through the story of North Korea so maybe you want to add something there is very little to add but yes you're right we have of course that our stance is different but when we started making the show the show was a product of many of our conversations and it really the show that we are completely in the ideological sense we are standing behind it fully and in our case that's one position the show shows practically some sort of debate and how we reflect upon this one position but we went for this particular one and question it all the time and then again confirmed it in a way so yeah maybe I would rephrase the question to Alba who has done the shows which are politically even more engaged than this one and I would like to ask you to think about what is your expectation from the audience you had also shown when you were on the stage and other shows which were like more activist shows or clearly politically activist strategies what is what you expect from the audience firstly they come to the theater to see so it's different yeah so in the case of this performance what we played here so for me my expectation is to go through the story and try to follow the story of the characters and audience can try to understand the cause of the decisions of the characters like in a normal traditional theater so because of this different expectation in the different situations the performance what you talk about when I was on the stage it was a performance that was very personal and the cause of the performance was some attack what I felt from the of the theater professional authorities or some political representatives and because of this it was very it came from my personal eagerness yeah eagerness so for me in that moment my expectation was the people the audience will stand next to me so to understand me and support me not the material sense but ideologically for example so different shows different expectation but mostly of course the expectation is that the people try to understand our point of views somehow to intellectually understand so what is the cause of your work what why you want to talk to us and of course there are some other layers aesthetical layers for example so to understand the codes of the shows so it's the maximum but I don't expect from the audience after the show to go to the street and change the political system so it's not when I'm working in the theater it's not my expectation my expectation is to understand try to understand and talk about it and use it for intellectual conversations so but not I don't believe personally in the case of my shows so they can't move more the people so it is the limit of this kind of activity so if I want to do something more so I have to leave the theater so I have to go out of the theater to go to the people it is what we try in the different projects and try to go to the people and just use this theater for something so but in that case for me theater is not so important aesthetical question is not so important anymore for me only one thing what is important the students or the people who we work with can step further in their personal life and we can step further in political sense but in this kind of theater we are in the room so I think there is some rooms of this theater so if I try to tell a story there are many dramatic consequences and other traditional questions so because of this it's not the same for example I can't make an interactive show if the actors are not want to do it and it is what I told you earlier so I have to serve the interests of the the companies, the theaters, the institutes so I can't say like ok I want to break out from the theater but if they don't want to follow me it's impossible so it is why I for me it's so important how the artists me can find his own position his or her own position so it's and I think of course when I'm talking about entertainments so I think I have to deal with not just my expectation what I can expect from the people but I have to think what the people can accept from me so it's a common game and of course in the institution where I am working in different countries I don't know anything about the audience so because of this I have to be very cautious with these questions what kind of expectation I can have so firstly I have to step so something like this in your show, Janina you have different artistic positions which on wheel during the artistic artist talks and they are very different they are like left and right conservative and liberal points of view maybe but also the last artist is a silent artist somebody who can speak and that you offer like many points of view to the audience what is your expectation what kind of viewer you have in mind actually for us the rehearsals were a test because we had to be all the time in that position that doesn't say black or white and not to do a parody of leftist perspective right perspective but because when you see an artist he's a person and it's very complicated I don't know how much we managed to do that or how much we failed but what I wanted from our meeting with the audience was to to understand together because some things are not clear for me as well or for the team I was working with I mean for instance I cannot understand the way the public discourse is polarized there is no communication anymore there is no dialogue there is somebody saying this and somebody saying just the opposite and they continue doing that without trying to really understand what's on stage there so in this case I had in the last let's say three or four years some very strange surprises of artists who expressed their personal position fair enough but you cannot say I just expressed my personal position and I don't care it's my personal freedom it's not that you are a public figure and the artistic discourse the plays, performances I don't know artistic interventions are part of a public discourse if we agree to that we really have to be I don't know more not careful in the sense that would destroy our creativity but I don't know more aware that we are part of a network of relationships and negotiations and so on that's what I was trying to do with this performance to have this meeting and try to examine our own honesty and we had different perspectives while rehearsing not radically different for me it was interesting to work on it first and we never do art pieces talk afterwards so this is an exception but no this is before I would just like to add one more thing practically both Janine and Armin were talking about what we expect from the audience and it was communication more or less and it was about establishing of the cognitive communication in the sense of political, rational and so on but I would say that at least for us and I would say that it's also for both of us that doing this job emotional communication is also extremely important and the emotional aspect of transmitting our political messages is something that at least I know that we wanted to have and I know that I always want to have because somehow the whole emotional part of politics is something that is so often put aside and so often is spoken about it in the sense like in some derogatory sense that emotions do not have their part in the politics and actually it's completely the opposite like the politics is always about emotions besides all the other things I just wanted to add I also wanted to add about the expectations of audience and working in institutions as you have to follow some rules I think that also in a way I would not say that when you go into theater institutions you are supposed to follow the rules of the expectation of the audience is the system and everything else because I think this then leads to some kind of a status quo and in a way I treat I think also Olga theater has some kind of also society so it's the same okay of course that we go into the public sphere and do other things not just theater but also I think in theater we should challenge these rules not like making experiments just for the sake of being different or something like that but just challenging all the rules in the theater as a theater system is in a way a microcosmos of the society so we always have very similar rules in it as you have in a wider society so challenging these rules in a way is also challenging the rules of the society and thinking that things can change in the theater and that you can actually reflect something in the theater even in this really local society very small space means that you can maybe in a way spread it to more global level and I really think that I'm much closer in the last many years thinking that the world the system will change from smaller smaller local societies it will go from from the bottom not from up so in this way I think that changing things in these small spaces is also very important as it is of course doing it in a wider scale and for me it's I don't know it's really a personal thing as I'm not on social media at all for me this is much more important to do it in a good sense in a sense that I really think that in this small audience of how many people 30 people that you can say something and maybe communicate in an emotional sense also then to spread activism through social media because I think that this of course is in a way important but still a lot of messages just because it's so many activism and so many messages that I think people often get lost in it in a way and this freedom of expression gets in a way I don't know how to say it but it goes sometimes a lot other way around so I just want to try this I think this is the moment to address the word communication so we should start to communicate with each other and I would like to ask some people if they're willing to reflect upon what has been said or open up new topics related to this one maybe can I have just one question please use the mic because we are so I have just one question because I am really embarrassed because I don't know what does it mean in political theater or I don't know if you are the four of you or the five of you have the same definition because I I'm really don't I'm not sure I do understand I don't remember if I use this word this morning but I'm ready to use it yes I am so I use the word activist Johnina would you it's a long discussion and I'm sure each of us has very different definitions for instance I even think that what our the director of our national theater in Bucharest is doing political theater in East India it's the biggest political theater what I am trying to do is to test the limits of my understanding of this reality through means of theater I have no ambition to I don't know to save the world like you said to go on street to make people go on streets and change I don't think theater can do that but I think on a long term we can open discussions and for me society is political people are indeed in a political world and theater it's part of this of this world that's pretty much what I think you also said which might surprise some people to do musical might be or is a political theater it depends what kind of musical you do but no it's in a way what I'm thinking about the national theater in Bucharest not to speak about the reality it's a political decision to do commercial theater it's a political decision because you don't want to have problems let's say or you just want to keep nice environment where people can relax whatever whatever and disconnect totally from reality political but it's really long discussion it's true I said this word and I'm sorry because I myself I don't like to be put in this social political whatever but yeah sometimes we are lazy I I didn't drink a lot of coffee I really want to agree with Janina when she said that this position of choosing what you want to do is a political position like if you want to choose not to challenge the system just to be inside it it's also a political decision and I think that that makes complete sense but in a way I think that political theater today is maybe a word as freedom as lots of other words that completely lost its meaning by being so like you know political theater you think that means that it really challenges politics but it doesn't mean that actually in most senses it doesn't challenge anything but it's called political why because it's talking about society it's talking about current topics it's reflecting on things that are actually happening today in the world but that does not for me mean it's political and yes in a way we all use the phrase political theater and I think that whatever we each one of us thinks that is political theater and I could agree many things with you of course but the way how we use the phrase in discussions like this we assume that it's the political that it's a theater that deals with you know important topics in the society and then we say okay so I don't know we made a show about this and that or we talked about workers rights or we talked about the goldmine or we talked about I don't know corruption the government whatever the topic is so it's political topic and we do not go further and yes you're right sometimes we are lazy yes of course I completely agree so all of the theaters are political theaters somehow if we want if we not so it is so on one hand so this is what I think it's when the people together somewhere they feel each other emotionally rationally so it's when we start to talk about what happened on the stage what happened with the people next to us so somehow in the mind it's a political situation so we go to theater it's a political situation it is something about our culture our political system if we use theater for this or that so on one hand on the other hand of course there are political political effect of the different shows of different theaters but if we for example if we talk about if I know exactly Alexander Hamilton it was this title of this American musical it's a musical but it was a very important effect on the American society to talk about immigration or so so what we can do so important it was so important to the president of the United States called his people to call this artist in the White House to sing the song about this kind of questions but it's just a musical so if you see this it's just just a musical but a professional musical so I like to make this kind of professional musical but on the other hand of course when you see some drama pedagogies who are working in a school with the people with the students it's so political it's so important to talk about important questions so I think it's maybe the question is the effectivity so it's what we can reach how many people we can reach and what we can do with these people because of this I think it's very important to talk about the responsibility of the institutional leaders the leaders of the festivals the leaders of the theaters because they can build the context for the performances and for the artist so how many people we can reach how many people we can evolve to what kind of topics we can give the mass so it's so important question every moment every decision in the theater I think it's a political political decision if the director of the theater says I don't want to deal with the politics so I completely agree it's politics as well I think it's much this kind of social awareness for me among the artists is so important so how they can realize what they do it's a political activity of course I have more experience in Hungary but it's one of the biggest problem I think among the artists so they absolutely not realize their political roles so it is for example I read about a very famous article or an interview with a very famous Hungarian actor who said yes I have a plan to join to the demonstrations so I feel it's it's important I don't know so in 2017 it's a very very low level thinking and he's a really important person among the artists and he gives many many interviews he reached the people lots of people and it is the message of these people this kind of I don't know what this is it's I think when we talk about the responsibility of the artists and institutional leaders so it's so important to firstly to understand our roles and after to do something it's a responsible question yes and just one thing I wanted to refer to Augusto Boal so it's so interesting this very wide political so from Alexander Hamilton to Augusto Boal in Brazil so I think it's more interesting to talk about the different type of theater the goals so what is the goal with the different type of political theater so what we want to reach because Augusto Boal which was very high so it's very high expectations not just to talk about the problems but to change the laws to change the system and at the end he joined the city of municipal so it was so important to be closer closer to politics and at the end he had to reach the politics he became a politician so at the end it's a very wide perspective I think I got it microphone more interventions please Christina maybe the conversation of course coming back to the title of this discussion artists and social responsibility I think in history there are times when social responsibility is much more important than others and I think I believe that we are living in times that demand in a way from the artists to be social responsible so I think the discussion is now the change of the balance between the aesthetics and the ethics I think the ethics is much more important in times like this than in other historical times and it's a cyclical movement I think so going away from political or social responsibility or political theater I think it's obvious that it's not a real option anymore I mean we are so and your show last night was talking about that in a very interesting way and it's important that it is in a theater because you reach an audience that it might not be reached anywhere else you cannot do this kind of work in the street you do other kinds of work this is why I think a musical like Hamilton is very important too because it uses an instrument which is not political in any other ways to address a political question and talking about the only founding father that is not white and talking about white and non-white in American society as Philip knows better than many of us it's very important at this point in time so I think it's a responsibility for the artist not to be to to live in his or her society and use any powerful instrument of this including the spectacle in the sense that the board used the term the society of the spectacle you have to use the spectacle to address political questions and to raise the responsibility of people in the audience I mean it's the responsibility of the artist I think it's questioning all the time questioning the society, questioning the system any system questioning ideology and questioning himself or herself I think that's and of course he or her can do it in any form and this is the question of creativity but there is no way around social responsibility anymore I think Philip, I asked Otto also Philip I know to make an intervention yes sorry I have just one short question for you Edwin coming from Zagreb Asia I will skip from this political field to this aesthetic field and the question is as I saw the last two of your performances the one you did in Zettinie and the last one yesterday here I have a feeling that you enter in the kind of new field of your aesthetics I'm talking about the visual thing that can be also a political decision of course but that's the question yes firstly it's an important decision not to use the Zettinie costume or something like that so important to the cause of the decision different causes of the decision but first is the focus of the actors somehow the decision how I can involve the actors more into the artistic work how they can feel their responsibility of course maybe it's not evident for them it's a political responsibility but somehow to be in front of the audience without any help is somehow our common education so how we can be more adult and how we can take responsibility for our words what we improvise how we stand in front of the audience and of course the next step is to ask us how we can talk about our work is so important question so it is one thing the other thing is to talk about this emptiness so we can give a new sense of the space we it's like somehow like a message so we not everything but lots of things can depend on our decisions our activities so somehow it's another question not just talk about aesthetics outside but to talk about much more about the relations among the people so focus on the human aspect somehow but I don't want to use the time from the others but it's a longer topic to talk about this question for me all the time the statement is you see there is this empty space this will be a full full space if we understand each other if we can trust each other if we can even have something together so if we can't understand each other if we can't step to each other so at the end there won't be any changing so the set or music or very special effects can't hide our emptiness so somehow it's an important thing in it and of course it's something about the audience as well so for me it's so important this question how we can I don't want to call it like education but how we can imagine how we can use our fantasy our imagination so how we can build our pictures and it's a little bit more more work maybe and of course in that case we can't talk about the performance somehow because we can talk about a lot of other things so the the surface of the performance that maybe it's one it's a little help to step closer to the real topic so there are this kind of answers to these questions and maybe not many but some other things as well but I don't want to use one time it's okay for me so maybe we could go back to this topic maybe one year ago I put a team by Filipino to talk about political theater in the United States because our countries and realities were so different but things are rapidly changing there and I wanted to ask Filipino since he's here and he see a lot of interesting ongoing things in theater in the United States relating to this new social reality or new political reality would you please tell us something about what's going on there it's very dark in America right now it's darker than any time in my professional career and for you to get the news daily is like a rolling tsunami of madness about what's going on but there are some signs some really healthy signs coming from the theater thinkers and the theater workers in my country that are we were all shocked no one believed this was going to happen I don't think Trump believed it was going to happen but we've been coming out of that coma out of that shock little quick snapshots right now what's happening in America playwrights are writing plays about what's going on now the process in America usually takes those plays two or three years to every get on stage every get on stage a very well respected playwright Pulitzer Prize winner Tony award winner wrote a play in six days following the inauguration of Donald Trump it's called building the wall two nights ago it had its first performance in Tehran about four weeks ago my colleague right over here Michael Dove directed the Washington DC performance I'm going to ask Michael about this when I finish because there's more wonderful details I actually have Robinson most recent script and I've been at his request handing it out to people it's about a post-Trump reality a very strong play and I think the evidence Wednesday night in New York Thursday night in New York it's in previous in New York there's one example of a very quick response to this dark reality another thing that happens is American theaters start talking about their seasons what we're going to do in September of 17 through May or June of 18 and already you can see that big theaters and small theaters really are coalescing around resistance are looking at the major American nevator theater arena stage just was given two and a half million dollars by one donor to commission ten plays about presidential abuse and power then a small theater that's probably got a budget that ten million dollars will keep it alive for a hundred years is also announcing a new play about the presidential abuse and power their gatherings that will begin to happen professional gatherings whether it's the ripetory theaters coming together whether it's the independence coming together and what we're talking about what's on your brains is on their brains today and then lastly just talking to individuals I was in San Francisco in December talking to a young 25 year old director who'd come to San Francisco to mount her political play thought she'd be able to get it up in this rich theatrical environment in three or four months it was now a year and a half she was getting closer to getting it up but this was a month after Trump was elected and had this very serious conversation with me about turning her back on San Francisco and going to Oklahoma City to open her play going into the middle of that Trump land we're not just discovering that the theater's a part of resistance there's a strain of theater that has been alive and real some people are in their 60's some people are young people who've been trained by those people in their 50's or 60's I think America could be a very interesting place to watch as you see some very serious theater artists taking on some very dark times and I also think that there is a connection those of you who've worked in America who've had connections with American artists deep connections know that those connections are going to be very important to my American colleagues excuse me in these really dark days that are coming for us because every day it's crazier and crazier Michael would you just talk a little bit about I think there have been six performances within three months of him finishing writing the play Michael Dove is the artistic director of the not a forum theater outside of Washington yes so speaking to that play in particular Building the Wall it was written very quickly and we have as Philip was saying this tradition of we write a play and then we workshop it and we workshop it and we workshop it until there's nothing left and it's so far removed from the spark and the catalyzing idea of why it was written and so Robert who is very well known also writes for Oscar dominated, writes for films as well wrote this play very quickly and I think that his prominence has certainly helped this play surface and get a lot of people interested but I don't know 97% of all the theaters in America use this season tradition right where we choose the slate of work that we're going to do next year and those pieces are a year to a year and a half away from when the choice to produce the show actually occurs and so this play came up and three theaters, three of us initially decided to do it immediately and add it into our season. We actually removed the show from our season and replaced it with this show mostly because I think everyone was sort of questioning what our role has to be after this election. I think that it was really fascinating to hear a lot of this conversation of there's no problem selling tickets to socially conscious theater which is the exact opposite in America to even evoke the phrase political theater is this third rail of making sure that no one will come to your play because audiences see theater so much as escapism and so but that has completely changed in how we live our lives now where Americans are so tuned into the news constantly there's this as Philip was saying it's like every five minutes there's some new crazy news alert and then we're based in Washington DC where everyone is super well connected to what's happening all the time. I live two blocks away from the Capitol and yet we live in a city that 96% of the residents voted for Hillary Clinton and so we have this like huge separation and removal from what the rest of America and this not majority but large chunk of the country who voted differently so yeah so the play a lot of us chose it in a moment of certainly resistance and protest but I think what has become interesting about the play is it's evolved and in its different lives is it's from a story perspective it's a play where you have two characters a historian and a man who's in prison and throughout the story you slowly realize what this man has done and then you slowly realize that it's actually taking place in 2019 and it walks you through each tiny little decision about how our own personal responsibilities these little things that we say this is okay for today can build and accumulate towards an atrocity which essentially is this idea of what he's dealing with is privately owned prisons being used to house Mexican immigrants after a terrorist attack in Times Square and as so many people accumulate those control for being able to feed and medicate all these people so it eventually turns into state sponsored executions and complete of thousands of people killed and so where I think the conversation has evolved with the piece is that it's actually started to to recognize that we no longer live in left right divide with this administration this president is such just an agent of chaos that we really feel this piece isn't about speaking to liberals to affirm their beliefs and speaking to conservatives to change their minds that is actually saying much in the sort of tradition of ancient Greek theater that it's about coming into a place and actually realizing what where our common morality is and how we define that when we live in a time where many of us feel this president does not live outside of that common morality even within a political left-right perspective but tell them that Trump has been impeached by the time the play starts this is a house arrest in Florida in which most nights gets a little cheer from the audience when they hear that Trump has been impeached in the play but it's one line and then moves on yeah it's pretty fascinating thank you one question please one comment yeah there is one situation in Florida it's not so dark it's getting dark but it's not so dark that Americans see it alive I would like to ask Giannina as I know you will lead the Piatanaum theater until now or in the the next few months when you start to lead the theater and I have a very simple question you are very famous about putting important things on your play doing play with about social problems problems and things like this do you think you can do in a state theater some of these things what you think until now or will they leave you to spend money on these problems or I don't know do you have plans about this how will you do this I just want to add maybe this is a very interesting and important question to the other artists those who work in state theaters some of you do have a moment to tell us a little bit about your relationship with state theaters in my case I was appointed as temporary manager I started last week and it's 120 days at the maximum I will have this job so for the moment I will say I'm not sure what will happen if I will apply or not so I don't want to speak about any plan what I'm doing now is to supervise that theater is continuing the plan of the year I think there is this director who is working was invited by the previous director what I'm doing to take care of these things to happen and I would think if I would apply for this job in August or September I don't know but if you ask if they leave me and honestly it's not the position I ever wanted I don't think I don't know an artist should go for this kind of position I'm sorry to be in this position but I think the situation is a disaster with the managers who are already in these jobs in our theaters for instance in Bucharest most of the managers are 65 plus most of them that's not but it really doesn't matter and they could be very good actors and still perform in theaters but as a manager I think you should have I don't know yeah you should travel a lot you should be very well informed it's not the case let's say so deciding these sides who is the theater director so I guess this is a political scene too in Romania also it doesn't represent it I mean it's a political it's a political it's a political decision who is cleaning a theater in Korea I was invited and I don't know these people but they voted for me to be invited there so yes it was a good one at least it was if maybe not in this concrete situation could you imagine continuing in a state theater projects you did before is the state theater able to work on this project basis and why not I mean that's the mission of the theater that's the very mission of the theater to address to two projects that are connected with the city those that theater and other theaters functioning because of the public money it's the money of the community of the town so projects should be addressed taking in consideration this community thinking about it I'm not saying to fulfill their expectations you know because that's not the point but to address and first of all you have to know this community to whom you are speaking and most of the theaters in Romania they have no idea and they don't care so you ask me if they leave me if they don't leave me I leave them there is no other way I mean as an artist for sure I will not work in this theater I will not direct I will not work as an artist so if I invite artists they shouldn't do the same things like me interesting but of course I will have a strategy and I will think my question was if I can who is the money can give you what we want the community of the town gives the money not the both of the parties the community you are saying this but the political sphere doesn't say that says this and if you are not able to do it you should leave this position it's very simple it's not so complicated but I don't think the managers that we have up till now they have any big pressure not to do that I don't think it was so I think it was easier to think too much it's again a thing about being lazy do you want to reflect about this question of working in the state theater what are the frames of I used to work in the state theaters but I much more like to lead the state theater because there is a huge possibility so it's very very interesting to lead the institutions it's interesting for you how we can use the state institute because it's a huge possibility it's a huge possibility in european we have state state cultural institutions so it's very very good position which year was you applied to I tried earlier but today it's just a human reaction so I don't want to work a lot for free I don't want to do my face what I can get so it's it's not a perspective so I'm adult and I think I try to think so I don't need this kind of childish game because it's very predictable because of this it's not a good situation to be a part of this kind of stupid game because it's not a real competition I would like a real competition to be a professional competition but it's not a professional competition because if you see the committee who will decide about your application it's like a joke so you know I don't want to ask this kind of artist to judge my application because I would like to judge them so because it's not we are not in the same of course I think it's not what I say but I see what I see I have to say like this I'm after 20 years professional career and I think what I see in Hungary in this question it's impossible and the other problem is the people who can do this who have professional experiences and enough knowledge to did this kind of institutions they leave the countries and more and it's a huge problem real talents and from my generation it's pretty sad so because of this it is why I choose this way because when I can leave my country it's much more free discussion somehow and I feel it's a totally different character what I can feel so it's adult conversations to meet with some potential leaders who are thinking a lot about about the audience about the social context of the theater so it's so interesting conversation so in this kind of conversation what I can't meet in Hungary so I think but it is what we can say about our professional context everywhere just the fact that we have state institutions I think it's very good and very important and of course it's a question how the budget about the relation to the municipal state and so on so it's about the laws so but the fact it exists it's very good I'm afraid of the changing of this more and more neoliberal effect can make a big change in this thing and after we will lose this kind of chance to we are very far to rebuild this kind of construction so we just go to the festivals to see the shows of each other and we are on this level but it's very difficult to step a little bit higher situation to talk about the audience, the perspective the structures, the future so it is what I don't see the chance to talk about all we can talk like this 30-40 people can talk about it who understand each other very well and who have no real power so very interesting conversations but somehow predict that you might become an artistic director outside Hungary earlier than in Hungary so I predict that can happen maybe you have already something in mind to apply to as an artistic director somewhere outside Hungary yes there was the dean who invited me to work together to apply we did it, it was not successful but it was very funny to think of it because they talked to me like a normal human it was very nice just to be a part of this kind of group to think of something seriously so you know when we didn't have to use when we don't have to use this common thing but we all the time we have to use in Hungary you know when we what is the you so what will be the reaction of the committee and so it was a very fresh feeling with these people we don't know, you know it's a competition we will do the best we will see what they will react after we will talk about it it was a very fresh to feel something for the normal life it was a good effect but in Hungary you know all the time if you talk to the professional people so there is a leader of one Hungarian theater here so we see what we see when you write the first word of your application so you know what will be the reactions Maya, I don't know if you want to stay theaters what are those frames how we can use those frames well actually we haven't been in a position to be in a managing position of theaters and I think we will not maybe one day we will not but not in these next couple of years few months actually we've been working a lot in institutional theater most of our work playwrights primarily this is I think what you think for both of us maybe the last couple of years we started working in this kind of field where we expose each other as performers and directors but I think that both of us in our plays also try to in a way challenge these rules of institutional theaters in the ways of form and also topics that we deal in and I can say I also had a chance two years ago to direct in the National Theater which was very odd that they let me direct as I was not a professional director but as Janina was saying if you have manager of the theater of the theater that wants to risk some things it can happen also in institutions and it was a great experience for me to do that may not well be in mainstream theater scene but we mostly prefer working on non-mainstream scenes if we can call it that way independent scenes as we have a chance to work in maybe a free environment from all these rules that you have to follow working in this institution I'm very surprised because ten years ago we were invited in Belgrade by the National Theater and you were working there which for me and Pekka Stefa we came together it was unbelievable to have such a young playwright employed in the National Theater running programs there so it's very interesting that for you the way was the opposite you started to work in these institutions you understood the structure and the way in functions little by little you went away from you got fired I remember that but it was some kind of a guerrilla thing then but today it's actually very weird that at the National Theater we have a really interesting thing going on but at this moment it only depends on one person that wanted to make this kind of I don't bring through to make the theater scene at the National different than it was before but of course as it is here and everywhere else it depends on the politics he can also be replaced anytime soon so I think it's still some kind of a guerrilla thing in Serbia and these are just these small actions that are happening it's very important I agree with you I work now I don't work I'm not employed at the National but I work I do some things and do some very interesting things similar to the things I did then and I completely agree with you that it's very important to have institutions that also try to change it from the inside just let me add one thing with the envy when we learned in Hungary like it was it happened one month ago or something like that that you are appointed at the Piaf Planets Theater I didn't read carefully the news and I didn't see that it's a temporary thing everyone said in our editorial board that nothing like that won't happen in Hungary appointed even for temporary management as an artistic director or manager of a rapporteur, a portrait of the theater so this is the Hungarian part of it to Romania yeah yeah we were also very envious because for ten years I remember speaking with you in Budapest and comparing the independent scene and the way it was financed the Romanian independent it's all gone but for us it was always the same so at least we are trained we had nothing since 89 but at least we had the chance and you had these very famous directors like Alpat Cilin here who could have a time where things were possible I mean the independent scene I'm not sure if you'll agree with me but if you'll get to know the independent scene from 2002 up till now you will understand I think from 2010 it was a time of prosperity and we were very envious here because for us independent meant most of the time precarity of course it was a lot of struggle for the Hungarian directors but in another context a bit for me this discussion is very interesting because even though if we are in Europe and we share the same problems still sometimes we have different contexts similarities but then some things that are a bit different and interesting that's why it's interesting to learn how others solved something not necessarily because sorry to turn to you but when you were the selector of the national festival for three years for the national festival we were looking at that from a young woman selecting for a national festival what? that again could never happen you saw exceptions meet here in this room which is amazing we are like a small con we have no agency anymore we don't have a real agency in the public field where the public budgets are working and yeah we cannot build we cannot make a difference with exceptions of course exceptions are important and we can fight to see more of them but it's not enough you just made it sound like it's a dream land tell us we are talking also about independence independence might maybe get into the institutions it's important somehow we all agree that state funded culture state funded theater is essential we must not give up from the institutions but there is another thing like independence is struggling everywhere but it's still dependent on the state support very often when we talk about theater we talk about mainstream theater and independent scene like institutions and those who are outside of institutions but what we have for example in the theater where we produced the festival in the theater produced a show and it's the typical example of co-productions that are emerging more and more what you can with them nowadays is that also the state is putting the money away from the institutions not really pouring it but giving it through the competitions annual competitions to the independent scene not giving it enough and then expecting the independent scene to collaborate or to produce something or to do whatever with so little amount of money that it's actually completely impossible to do anything with that unless you work for free more or less and then you have completely weird situation where you have state funded institutions the state is not giving the money for them or the municipalities or local governments are not giving so much money for them they still expect the production to go on one of the reasons by the way why national theater is managing in Serbia to be very progressive at the moment is that they actually have money because they are national theater which other theaters do not and then we all accept to play the game of being on the independent scene and applying for the competitions and getting some small pieces of something from the state and they are not being able to do anything with that and at the same time that's very very nasty move that creates the false division between those who are working in the state institutions and those who are working on the independent scene and it's a completely false it's a false struggle it's a false conflict since the problem is the same and the problem is the new cultural model that is being introduced so much in the connection with very often in the case of with the government that is very in the case of Serbia as well that is just taking positions and putting their people and trying to somehow through the report area also send their kind of politics and we are actually we cannot say that we are part of the independent scene because we work in the state theaters but we also cannot say that we are part of the state theaters because we also work on the independent scene and our common problem and now I really speak to Marj actually my point is that we all have the problem of withdrawing the money and winning the institutions and going to the market and presenting you all alternative ways of financing and something so natural and so beautiful while at the same time it actually creates divide between artists scoring the same problem and now have the same enemy we have the same enemy that's the last one I just want to reflect on that of what you said that I remember that period when the very strong cuts from the independent scene were seen in the Hungarians theater and artists started to collaborate and then they became just part of most of them became part of the state system so it's an added ruin basically the independent scene because they couldn't continue their work and to sustain their companies it's a very bad direction I think not a collaboration in itself but how is this step-by-step ruining of the independent scene happened in Hungarians so it's 12 o'clock if there is one last question we can put that on the table yes it's not a question of consultation when we are talking about freedom we always finish on talking about money so money is very connected with the freedom what worries me very much I'm working in an institutional theater right now and I'm also trying to be free will choosing the topics of performances and sometimes it's easy sometimes it's not easy for politicians who are managing and deciding about financing actually manipulate theaters and then they cut money if they don't agree about your repertoire which is completely because we are financed by public money in the United States is completely different what worries me this very moment because Europe now is changing culture policy and they actually decided to call culture a creative industry and we have feel that pressure now we need to have audience we need selling tickets I don't know how many performances statistics money and sometimes I feel like working in a corporation not in the theater and maybe other question that I will ask privately our colleagues from United States private donators who are giving money to finance performances talking against of course that present you have now how much they manipulate through financing artists in certain topics I just want to talk generally how money is very connected with freedom thank you I think we started with this generally started with theater becoming like a national and this is something we see everywhere I think the pressure of ticket sales and and large audience is very big coming from everywhere also coming from organizations as well I don't have the right words to conclude this discussion but I would like to thank you all the artists present here and the very active audience and I'm very pleased that we tried to understand each other which is not so easy always and we don't share the same vocabulary and it's important to try to find the the common meanings behind the words so I wish everybody a very good festival which is just open the planned shows which will probably make this discussion even more larger and richer thank you so much