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meeting group (MG) - definition

Content session during IETM meetings initiated by a member who wishes to assess other IETM members' interest in a certain topic. Animated by a moderator who encourages the debate.

Photo: Discussion at IETM Plenary Meeting Istanbul, 2006.  

Download MG1 - Make Space for the New Generation Report here. 

Download MG5 - The Politics of Creating here.

Manufacturing Dissent

Thursday, 31st May, 13.30 - 14.30

Piano nobile – Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier – Place des Arts

With: Mark Russell (Under the Radar) 
         Marie-Hélène Falcon (Festival TransAmériques) 
         Nikki Milican (National Review of Live Art)

The remarks and confidences of three thinkers. An informal and rather undisciplined conversation on the living arts today and why we need them. An unfiltered, uncompromising look.

Meeting Group 1 - Make Space for the New Generation

Thursday, 31st May, 14.30 - 17.00

Studio 303*

Moderator: Dirk Korell (Moov’n Aktion)

Who are the next generation of artists? How are they different? What are their needs? Have we forgotten to carve out a space for the next generation within our current infrastructures and funding programs? Most countries have “maxed out" existing subsidies and venue space to help maintain existing models; are we maintaining models that are no longer adequate for today’s generation of artists? How and where does the next generation create, produce, and connect their work to audiences?

* Two activities of the Meeting will be hosted by Studio 303. Founded in 1989, Studio 303 exists to promote the evolution of live art, prioritizing emerging practices in contemporary dance and interdisciplinary arts. It attracts artists seeking new models for artistic creation and provides a full range of support to them, as well as presenting work, often in non-conventional contexts. Taking the body as their main subject and expressive form, artists from multiple backgrounds develop a shared field of interdisciplinary exchange and collaboration.

Download the Meeting Group Report here. 

Film and discussion - In front of and behind the camera's eye: First Nations culture today

Friday, 1st June, 15.00 – 17.00

UQAM – SH 3420

Animator: Manon Barbeau (film director, Wapikoni Mobile)
With: Gaétan Gingras (dancer, choreographer) 
         Marie Clements (urban ink productions)
         Patrick Boivin (video maker) 

To provide young people with a place where they can dream, a place for meeting others, for expression, for learning, for exchanging ideas, and for gaining confidence in themselves, filmmaker Manon Barbeau has dedicated her time and energy over a number of years to the Wapikoni mobile and Cinéma Paradiso projects. These two travelling studios offer an ever-increasing number of young people the chance to express themselves by making films and recording music, alone or in a group.
Ms. Barbeau and one of the young filmmakers will be on hand to present several short films made in the Wapikoni mobile studio, a lead-in for a discussion about the contemporary First Nations artists who, without turning their backs on their culture of origin, reinvent the means of expression by which they transmit their messages to us.

MG2 - The circus: art form or entertainment?

Friday, 1st June, 15.00 – 17.00

La TOHU – Cité des arts du cirque de Montréal*

Animator: Jan Rok Achard (consultant)

The circus arts, among the most universal of the living arts, have been undergoing phenomenal growth throughout the world for at least fifteen years. They manifest a huge variety of form and content and are not confined within any artistic and cultural boundaries.
In spite of this, they are neglected by networks of arts presenters, and the few opportunities that exist are in an embryonic form. Innumerable obstacles still prevent the circus arts from circulating as they should. Is this a matter of prejudice and resistance, or of ignorance?
Do the circus arts constitute simple entertainment or a fully-developed art form? The debate is on!

* This location is not on the plan: to get there, meet at 2:15 PM at UQAM’s Pavillon Sherbrooke (200, Sherbrooke St. West) to take the shuttle bus.

MG3 - IETM in Asia: What’s next?

Friday, 1st June, 15.00 – 17.00

UQAM – SH 3220

Moderator: Virve Sutinen (Kiasma Theatre)

IETM has now been engaging with Asia for 4 years, since we invited Chinese colleagues to IETM Birmingham 2003 and Singaporeans to IETM Budapest in 2004. We subsequently co-organised a Satellite Meeting in Singapore in 2005 and in China in 2006. Following the China meeting, 80% of participants asked us to continue making bridges with China, but also with Korea, Japan and India.

Korea will be next: already Myriam DeClopper, Maria Magdalena Schwaegermann and Mary Ann DeVlieg participated in the Korean Performing Arts Forum in February 2007 in Gwangju and the Korean Arts Managements Service will co-organise a Satellite with IETM in October this year.

The Tokyo Performing Arts Market has confirmed that, together with the Japan Foundation, they will collaborate with IETM to co-organise a Satellite in Spring of 2008.

It’s time to hear from IETM members: what themes shall we pursue with our Asian colleagues? What issues? What developments? Which information needs to be exchanged, what skills need to be developed?

Click here to see report.

MG4 - Too Much Technology? Technophobia Versus Technophilia

Friday, 1st June, 15.00 – 17.00

UQAM – SH 3140

Animator: Richard Sobey (IOU)
With: Kyd Campbell (Frontierlab.org, independent artist and curator)

         Helen Varley Jamieson (artiste/artist)

          
This talk will discuss differing and new relationships between artists/performers and their working methods and the tools they use. A focus will be placed on two extremes of the relationship between technology and society: technophobia and technophilia. Traditional creators are increasingly widening their practices and taking on new roles as artist-engineer, artist-technician, or artist-scientist, and some have begun to work with artificial intelligence. Is there still a distinction between artists and the tools they use? How are these new relationships and the approaches of both technophile and technophobe affecting traditional media, new forms, and contemporary audiences?

Photo: Groups discussing at IETM Plenary Meeting Utrecht, 2005. 

MG5 - The Politics of Creating

Saturday, 2nd June, 10.00 – 12.00

UQAM – SH 3140

Moderator: Niels Ewerbeck (Theaterhaus Gessnerallee)
With: Daniel Meilleur (Les Deux Mondes)

         Roger Sinha (Sinha Danse)


How has the role of the artist in today’s society evolved? Are artists working within socially imposed “boxes” (racial/ethnic origins, gender, countries and disciplinary compartments)? Or do they choose to wear these labels for a reason?

Some artists decide to transcend pigeon-holes, whilst others cannot or choose not to separate their identity from their artistic expression. Some artists take political positions. You could say they ‘take sides’. But don’t we all?

Do audiences wish to see politically challenging work or are they displeased by it? Is there such as thing as shock-value or should ‘political’ statements in art remain on the symbolic level?

Are we keeping up with changing tastes, the demographics and the tensions of our own cities? Do we know our audiences? Do we create for audiences or for ourselves?

Dowload the Meeting Group Report here. 

MG6 - Latin America Meeting Group

Saturday, 2nd June, 10.00 – 12.00 

UQAM – SH 3420

Moderators: Nayse Lopez (Panorama Festival Rio de Janeiro / I dança)

                    Natacha Melo (Red Sudamericana de Danza)

In March 2007, one of the producers of the Magadalena Festival organized a round table discussion aiming to investigate possible solutions to the obstacles to visibility and international touring for Latin American performing arts productions, especially those by women directors. While we know that there are wonderful artists and dynamic productions in Latin America, except for a few notable exceptions, we see few of them in Europe.

Could we conceive of a Europe-Latin America project which addresses obstacles to the mobility of Latin American productions?

Doubtless our Spanish colleagues would not only help but be instrumental in designing and helping to execute such a programme. What would it look like?

Are any IETM members interested in thinking together about this?

MG7 - The new generation speaks/texts/Facebooks (but might not answer the phone)

Saturday, 2nd June, 14.00 - 15.30

Studio 303

Moderator: Sarah Stanley (director, dramaturge, teacher)

Concordia University students kick off a discussion about tomorrow and the day after. What will their work look like? Where will it happen? How will they support their work and themselves? Do they see a path, or are they ready to forge their own? Studio 303, a place that has helped shape a generation of young performance-based artists, will host this discussion, a discussion that will undoubtedly be posted on Facebook and MySpace and will likely generate a text message or twelve being sent or received throughout it. What will tomorrow look like when today has already changed so dramatically? Can we focus our collective attention deficiency and discover a way to harness the explosion, to overcome it, or to simply live with a new and heightened sense of distraction? And if we as artists can do this, will audiences be able to join us at the table? Will there be a table?!

Download Montreal 2007 Programme