PUBLISHED: January 13th, 2011
PANeK Open Space discussion
Wednesday 12th January, 10am – 1pm, Free; Gulbenkian Theatre, Canterbury. Why do we need / want performing arts in Kent now? Facilitated by Michael Spencer and Fiona Watt
35 people attended the event.
In Open Space style the questions / provocations raised were:
- Artists like to play hide and seek
- Can regional theatre regain mass appeal?
- How do we build and develop partnerships?
- How do we attract / enable promoters, producers etc?
- How do we create and support platforms for artists to show finished and unfinished work?
- How do we encourage people to attend live performance?
- How do we maximise the relationship between venues and non-venue organisations?
- In order to make the arts accessible, we must dumb them down
- Making large Scale Community Theatre without Music Theatre
- What is participation?
Some of the comments and thoughts …
Confidence in your own work is difficult to achieve and leaves you forever a child as a performer…
It takes at least 3 years to (re)build an audience
University of Kent to programme a series of performances and workshops by Kent based performers (In the summer while the building is largely unused)? (PANeK and UKC now working on this)
KCC arts development to create space to bring young people to scratch/contemporary performance work (KCC now working on this)
Artists to keep pushing to find spaces and venues to present work in (pubs and theatres, outdoor and unusual spaces…) (Accidental Collective’s Pot Luck up and running)
Virtual events spread across venues linked via internet to share work without having to travel for 2 hours… a la National Theatre of Scotland “Home”?
Venues to keep offering scratch/ showcases and residencies / associates in a co-ordinated way
Can venues begin to develop a strategy for Kent audience development in a wider way?/ Is it possible to have a “Made in Kent” branding for new work?
Less emphasis by venues on “first” and / or “only”
What connections are possible between arts practitioners and ‘communities’?
Perhaps the accusation of dumbing down is really a label to try to keep the arts exclusive rather than a valid criticism?
An online Job notice board please (NB use PANeK!)
Full notes from all the sessions and a list of attendees are available from cathy@panek.org.uk