Ended Projects

TRYOUT – A Performing Arts Laboratory

Tryout was a pilot project aiming at establishing an international platform for crossover artistic research, development of new work and creative exchange in performing arts field. The project was supported by Nordic Culture Point. The pilot edition of the Laboratory was organized by Q-teatteri in co-operation with Baltic Circle Festival in the autumn 2010 in Helsinki.

Point of departure:

In contemporary society arts are often seduced by results oriented way of thinking, forgetting the value of the creative process in itself. Experimenting and sharing of ideas have the same value in arts as they do in science – as a way of driving the process of research and creation further. This is why TRYOUT was launched.

Aim was to offer artists and companies support in all stages of project development:
1)   The initial project of artistic research and concept development
2)   The “half-way” stage, when the future project can be presented in a form of a “work in progress”
3)   Production, when TRYOUT supported, fully or partly, production and presentation of a finished project

Laboratory took place from 18 October to 22 November 2010. The results of the laboratory were presented in the context of Baltic Circle Festival in Helsinki.

1. MODULE: RESEARCH, INSPIRATION, DISCUSSION

Text Laboratory

The aim of the laboratory was to stage a discussion forum for artists from different countries, a place and situation where they could meet and discuss their ongoing or upcoming projects, to present a wide range of artistic approaches to research-based performance, and challenge the participants’ own way of making theatre.

14 people from 5 countries participated in Text Laboratory. The discussions were moderated by Eva Buchwald from the Finnish National Theatre. The group was joined by experts who contributed to the discussions (playwrights Juha Jokela and Juha Itkonen, theatre researcher Pirkko Koski and theatre curator of Russian New Drama Festival, Christine Matvienko).

Collaborators in Russian New Drama Festival decided to continue the workshop in March 2011 in Moscow, and they invited some of the participants from Helsinki to continue the discussion there.

Interventions in a hostile environment
Workshop led by Anders Carlsson and Rasmus Slätis

The workshop was held on the boat between Sweden and Finland, and was attended by 12 participants (mainly from Finland, some from Sweden). The workshop results were presented in a video format in Universum theatre at Baltic Circle Festival.

The workshop challenged participants to create and experience “interventions”, and to break out of the “fashionable interventionism” of contemporary art. The workshop succeeded in provoking heated debates among the participants about limits between art and intervention, as well as intervention and direct audience manipulation.

2. MODULE: WORK-IN-PROGRESS

Baltic Circle Festival 2010 presented two performances in “work in progress” stage:

GNAB COLLECTIVE: IN MAKING DONKI QUEENDOM – PHYSICAL READING

OTHER SPACES: THE GOLEM PROJECT PART III: THE WORDS OF CREATION

3. MODULE: PRESENTATION AND PRODUCTION

TRYOUT supported presentation and production of five works:

INSTITUTET & NYA RAMPEN (SWE/FIN): CONTE D’AMOUR

AMUND SJØLIE SVEEN (NOR): THE NORWEGIAN WAY – AN INTRODUCTION TO THE OIL FOR ART PROGRAM

HANS ROSENSTRÖM (FIN/SWE): THREE APART

LEIF HOLMSTRAND (SWE): WEARING THE TERRITORIAL (DOWN)

VON KRAHLI TEATER / MAIKE LOND & RIINA MAIDRE (EST): POSTUGANDA

You can explore the previous ended projects by using these links: