 Thank you. Thank you, Nan. Thank you for the invitation to be here. And yes, the invitation is to talk about what is emerging. And I want to start with a very blunt declaration that I love the term emerging. And I am an emerging artist. Hashtag said no one ever. It's true. I certainly would never use this word to the word emerging to describe myself. And I certainly try to avoid it when when describing others. Because an artist is an artist. But if an artist feels that emerging is actually a useful way for others to describe his or hers or ex's work, then why not? We should consider it. And the word it definitely suggests experimentation. And it adds excitement. And it adds freshness. And just saying the word, you can feel that it's already quite vibrant and quite playful. It implies some sort of movement and newness as opposed to moulds and oldness. Yeah, emerging sounds much more like a process rather than a binary distinction between one thing and another. And yes, it does give this sort of sense of movement in some sort of direction. Let's say in the direction of something good, in the direction of light. We are emerging. We are doing it now. And it's a process that has begun. And it's slow. It's usually a very slow process. But it's a steady process. And it's quite strong. And yet, although it's clearly on the move, emerging is also something new. But being emergent, being emerging means to be specific, which is of course the opposite of being vague. And being emerging can mean basically two very specific things. A subject with a specific age or and a specific background. Okay? Well, it can mean that unless she or he or ex had work already shown at let's say at Kunson Festival is out, then you're not emerging anymore. Or unless that wasn't exactly the subject's first major show, then you're not emerging anymore. Or unless the budget is over 50K, then definitely you're not emerging anymore. So this is age. But as for the background, an emerging artist can be either someone you never heard of, or an artist you may have heard of. Or maybe an artist that just came out of a theater school or dance school. Maybe not because theater it's too vague and the background really needs to be quite specific. Because emerging is good. But it's important to think emerging from where. And that's the background. Because the subject must be emerging from somewhere, from something. And that thing, it's the thing which we should be thinking about as much as we should be thinking about the emerging subject's age. And this place, this background should be like a place that should give the artist some sort of mitigating factor. Like the audience will forgive you. Because this is your first show. So the audience is very nice to you. And because hopefully you're all hard and no polished. Because you came from and now here you should insert a prejudice at your own choice. I'll choose a Comedia dell'arte school for instance. So you would say the audience forgives you because you came from a Comedia dell'arte school. But if we mix the specificity of age with the specificity of the background, we start getting a bit more vague, for example. Being emerging can also mean being an old artist who had never had a solo show. Or an old artist that has been working for many years. But in theatres and festivals that you never heard of. So this can also be emerging. Or maybe even like a very established artist, or a very established old artist from, and now here you can insert a place of your sympathy at your own choice. Let's say a very established old artist from Iran. But that you can't help seeing as some sort of novelty here in Europe. So being emerging is also quite contradictory somehow. Being emerging can also be about being a dead artist, why not? Because dead is quite specific. So let's imagine a dead artist coming from a geography that is really not very sexy, or maybe just too white, or just somewhere that you usually tend to forget. Let's say from Ireland. Sorry if there's any Irish here. So a boring, pale, Irish artist just died and gained some sort of momentum. And thus became emerging because gaining momentum is quite specific. And gaining momentum, this idea of movement, it's the synonym of emerging. Right? But of course, even with the dead boring Irish artist some programmer will say, oh, I've known him for years, and my life is not really counted in years, it's counted in seasons. And so this brings me to my next point, which is not about age or background anymore, but about the season. And this movement of detecting an emerging artist, it's like paying attention to this season and no water. And that is again really specific. So it's this precise season. And by doing that, season after season, we become like crazy collectors, just going after the next new market, darling. And here we all are, gazing into the future, looking at our crystal ball, trying to figure out where is theater and dance production heading to. It's a bit like I foresee that the big thing for this season are artists that hate Timothy Morton, for instance. Because hating Timothy Morton now seems to be a big thing this season, because it's cutting edge. Because producing the emergence like programmers often do, it's also about putting together a list that represents what is cutting edge this season. And then somehow emerging art, it's not about the art anymore, and it's not about the age. And it's not about the background. It's indeed about the season. And it's not even about the artist anymore. It's about the institution. And it's not even about being emergent anymore, but it's about producing the emergence. And suddenly this idea of being emerging, it becomes like a synonym of being relevant. And if that is the case, then suddenly I desperately want to be emerging. Even if I'm around for long enough, because I need, we all need to be relevant. I need to be, I need to be co-produced. So even if I'm not considered emergent anymore, I suddenly act emergent. Because that's also a possibility. To act emergent. And then being emergent, it's not an adjective anymore, but it becomes my method of work. And then I start fulfilling criteria instead of creating art. And suddenly being emerging is exactly like being established. It's the same. Because people are aware of you. They're aware of your work. You have relationships. You have offers coming in. On a very practical level, this is actually your primary source of income. Or at least something you see as a job, not just something you do. And you see, there's a shift between this is what I want to be doing and this is what I am doing. And this landscape of emerging artists, that fabulous idea of movements and a newness, it results in a very stable landscape. And my two cents on this issue is that no matter how hard we look into our crystal ball, emerging art does not exactly predict the future of theater or dance or anything. But it rather proves the transitory character of the present and thus opens way for the new. And to think about this idea of the transitory character of the present, it's really to acknowledge that there are very well established and stable power systems that are also known as our theaters and our testings. And they were the result of struggles, of political, of demographic changes. But they are now somewhat representing very preponderant modes of expression. And something that was previously very disrupted, disruptive, sorry, and very alienating, just gave a way to, in a way, to a lot of neoliberal nonsense. Free Lysin said a couple of years ago something at the Australian Theatre Forum that I would like to quote. She said, we have built theaters and art centers and we created festivals to produce and present artworks and to welcome audiences in the best possible conditions. But during the years, most of these structures and organizations have become rusted and sclerosized. They became dinosaurs, she said. So originally meant to support the artists. These institutions, they got organized very well, sometimes often too well. And they kind of lost this flexibility to respond to the specific needs of specific works. And the artists somehow now have to follow the policy, to follow the rules of the house, instead of the other way around. But she goes on, she says, we urgently, I'm highlighting this myself, we urgently have to reconsider the role of theaters and festivals as instruments to facilitate and valorize artists again. And we need more flexible structures, production houses that can work and deal, but for real, and now I'm highlighting it myself again, with emergence, she says. Because I have the feeling that if we don't listen to her, this list that I'm saying now, it's what we're hosting here, inside walls, exactly like this. We are hosting the linearity of time. It's pretty much past, present, and future. While what is emerging actually outside are multiple realities and multiple contexts living in the same planet and at the same time, and also with multiple definitions of time. We have an endless love for a very simplistic narrative arch with a finality, when a complexity of reasons are actually impelling and compelling to other types of creativity. We have power systems that are organized in a very oligarchic way, while other realities are emancipating and they're trying to find a space for their own expressions. We have a very stabilized discourse that in a very condescending way is trying to embrace difference when difference doesn't really need any sort of charity or being patronized by normality or mainstream. We are promoting the idea of a globalized and uniformed artistic discourse based on mobility. This is something very important when actually some works are only possible in certain contexts within certain languages and etc. The idea of tastes as a matter of aesthetics rather than ethics that should be operating a redefinition of values. I would ask how many trans people are among us or actually working in places like this. We have the sheer inability to deal with anachronism. We have tons of issues with terminology regarding subsidies because much of which implies that the artists are somehow lucky to be receiving the generous support of paternalistic venues and institutes. We have the artistic place as a sacred place with authorship, with copyright control, while we are living actually in a hyper modernist era where the objects that are consumed are usually about the person itself. And finally, we have the idea that being inclusive is having genderless toilets and wheelchair seats when inclusive also means allocating space for drug addicts and sex addicts and non-humans and safe space for neurodiversity etc. And the ones among you, I'm certain there are many, that think that nothing of this applies to the theater or the festival or the company direct. I truly congratulate you, but I tell you that we can still do better. We can always do better. And the thing is that if we're thinking about emergence, we just have to keep on thinking. Okay? What we do, the question is what do we do? What do we do on a regular basis in order that the emergence that has probably been around since the big bang becomes a phenomenon of its own singularity? And if you're not doing anything, if you're not doing anything of this, if you're if you're one of those theaters that thinks that they can't afford the risk, if you're one of those theaters that thinks that emerging, emerging art is bound to be less accomplished or less valuable, I have to deliver some sort of bad news for you, because the paradigm really has shifted for good. Because emerging artists, they are now truly emerging. Finally, they're truly emerging. And it's not just for the pleasure or concern of cultural institutions, because we live in an era of fluidity and proliferation, and they actually emerge despite the existence of theaters and cultural institutions. We are watching the emergence of a proliferation of problematics. We're watching different politics of identification that are emerging. There's truly equalitarian contexts that are emerging. Value is being attributed to things that didn't exist before. Solidarity is emerging. Non-entropocentric values are emerging. So I myself, I would do that. And I hope that you would do it too and take free license advice, which is also probably a threat, and open up. She says, don't put yourself in the position of someone who wants to please everybody. The audience, the subscribers, the sponsors, the press, the colleagues, this is a big mistake. Take the risk, I would add, because it's your only option after all. And you won't even be making a huge favor to yourself or to your community, because let's face it, this openness, it's how the world, the whole world is functioning nowadays, while, for instance, experiencing the internet. And that's really our industrial revolution. And theaters, I think they need to be exactly like YouTube, you know, they're wild, safe spaces. But of course, in our very small and Lily put in scale. But to turn a theater into a safe space cannot be just a slogan. We cannot do emergency washing. Because when you when you do it, it's actually quite visible. And it's it's very ugly. And, and you avoid all the ongoing accusations of exploitation and tokenization that many institutions are now facing with regard to artists that independently of being emerging or not, they are less savvy and they're much more vulnerable. So for me, welcoming the emerging is really about letting go. It's not even about welcoming. It's not even about hosting. It's about losing. It's about losing privilege. It's about sharing conditions. It's about destroying invisible dictatorships. If you own a garden, for instance, there are things that you plant. And there are things that you carefully pick according to your tastes, and that you trim if they get a bit out of hand. But owning this sort of garden is also about opening breaches to some unknown forms of art that are not yet in your guest list. And that is really real risk. And theaters are now working under a two complicated nets. They, they don't seem to make an effort to include diversity and emergency. And usually the only emergency that is usually taken good care of it's the emergency exit. I am part of a federation of artists that is called Teatro Praga. We have been a company for more than 20 years. So it's kind of the sort of stage that a lot of companies just fade into nothing. And I think that what, what has, what has enabled us to continue, it's a mixture of having, of course, lots of ideas and the support of our partners. But it's true that after 20 years, many theaters are still doubtful on how to deal with us. They still see us as a threat to their calm and comfortably predictable work environment. And they still consider us off. And that means that we've been successfully riding this sort of emergency emerging wave for years. And with not many complaints, because there are still opportunities, you know, it's like, it's a nice, sorry, my phone is ringing. It's a, it's a nice comfy title. And because we fear that the day we're no longer considered emerging, we will be left out like very suddenly. And recently in an interview to a Portuguese newspaper, I said the only thing that people cannot call me anymore is an emerging director. I was perhaps very tired on that day, I don't know. But it was actually used as the headline for, for, for the interview. And I wasn't specifically thinking about myself. I wasn't talking about myself. But about the fact that if I am labeled an emerging director, and I'm 42, so I'm, I'm, I don't consider myself either young or coming for an unknown background anymore. So if I'm still being labeled as an emerging director, there will be very little space or attention for other people. And Portugal is so small that we always have to be quite alert that everyone is getting a bit of a share of what is available. I thought I was being generous, but in fact, I was being extremely stupid and extremely naive, because it had little or actually no effect, because here I am invited by IATM to speak about emerging artists. So it didn't work. So perhaps, and because it clearly didn't work, it's time to kind of reclaim the term, you know, like to reclaim it for ourselves. It's maybe now devoid of any sort of content. So we need to, to grab it. So it's a good proverb. So because more companies are, and artists are using the term emerging for longer periods of time. And, and actually they make a bit what it is. It's a vague concept about specificity. And also a claim for experimentation. So a few years, because I'm already talking for too long, Praga, which is my collective, we decided to open a space that we felt Lisbon needed. And of course, with the help again of many partners and a lot of support from a lot of institutions, from political institutions to toilet seat makers. Teatro Praga, we decided to create this space because our scope of activity has always surpassed the borders of theater. We, we never pictured ourselves as mere creators of performances, but above all, as a constellation of people who are looking at the world and inventing things. So the space is called Rouda J'Gaivotte Saïs, which is actually the address of the space because we couldn't come up with a better name. And follows a project that has started 20 years ago, and that has dodged definitions through continuous changing, changes, sorry. And today we are at that space, but the space is not us. The space is not Teatro Praga. It's a building that we establish as a space for performances and residences and readings. It's also a former school, but that is now open to the neighborhood and to the city. So this space, Rouda J'Gaivotte Saïs, it's a very small space where we hope that artists can sort of devise freedom and spend time looking at themselves and that the world without feeling subjected to this idea of normalization or being emergent or not. And it's a space where we try to show what is considered emerging and also what is considered established work alongside each other without openly distinguishing between them. And I have a small video that we did just to show you the space for the ones that don't know it. Don't know it. I don't know if you can put the video on. Please don't listen to the music because it's very fashion TV sort of style. So try to extract yourselves from the sounds and just look at the space. We already forgot that there was music in this video. So I didn't use this video so that you think this is the perfect example of everything that I just said. On the contrary, it's not. It has many fails. But it's most of all tentativeness. If I had to describe it in one word, that's the word that I would choose. The space has many flaws. The budget is absolutely ridiculous. We struggle every day. And we also don't feel that we are doing any sort of charitable work. But we do feel that we're somehow giving something back, giving space or maybe rather losing space. In the same that many other artists did with us. We also think it's it's it's it's a pretty space because the divisions are pretty multipurpose. The construction is pretty collaborative. The organization is pretty horizontal. The identity is pretty fluid. The performances are pretty emerging. And even though everything looks pretty, it's also pretty hard to manage. And again, it's this sort of tentativeness. And we're the thing is that we're always rethinking this structure. And rethinking structures, I think it's actually the key on this keynote. It's about rethinking or go on thinking should not only be about peripheral gestures like like this, it shouldn't be about small venues in Lisbon or elsewhere. Rethinking structures and systems should actually apply to all structures to your festivals, your companies, your museums, your art cinema, your national theaters. And if we do that, if we do that, if we think about it, we don't have to worry too much about emergence, because we will be emergent. We will all be emergent. If we start thinking and stop sanitizing, we will be emergent. If we guarantee that this movement, this beautiful movement about newness doesn't stop. Thank you so much for your time and your attention. I'm not sure if we have time, but if you have questions, I'm more than willing to answer you or just to go on in some sort of dialogue if you're interested in that. Or we can just go and have lunch. Thank you.