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  3. /“We need the arts if Dublin is to prosper” – The Irish Times

“We need the arts if Dublin is to prosper” – The Irish Times

Art / July 27, 2022 / Admin / 0

Willie White, artistic director and general manager of the Dublin Theater Festival, has had a strange few years. The pandemic “was the longest period of my adult life”, he admits, “during which I did not leave the country”. Personally he likes to travel, but professionally it’s a core part of White’s job: touring international theater festivals to see works he can invite to come to Ireland for the festival he’s been running ever since. 11 years old.

In 2020, with the coronavirus crisis making international travel impossible, the festival’s reduced schedule of mostly Irish works encountered further complications when all live performances were cancelled, forcing the event online. There were some companies whose work had been designed to deal with the pitfalls of the pandemic – Dead Center’s excellent To Be a Machine, for example – but it was disappointing both for White and his team and for others. many artists involved.

With the uncertainty looming in 2021, the festival has once again taken a local approach to programming, with a focus on Irish artists to mitigate the risk of cancellation. “The more moving parts you have,” White explains in hindsight, “the more likely things are to go wrong.”

Despite his professional orientation in the capital, White speaks passionately about how his own cultural interests have been influenced by exposure to global trends.

The public, however, did not suffer. There were great shows from Festival stalwarts like Fishamble Theater and Anú Productions, invigorating experiences at the Abbey Theater and surprising sales of Fringe favorites ThisIsPopBaby. As Nicholas Grene, one of the judges for the Irish Times Irish Theater Awards, observed earlier this year, “it was great to see so many good Irish works getting this kind of exposure”.

Still, White is delighted to be preparing once again to welcome a wide range of large-scale international works to Dublin for the 2022 iteration of the festival. “The risk hasn’t gone away,” White admits regretfully, “but we have learned to hopefully cope.”

White has called Dublin home since emigrating from Abbeyleix in County Laois to study the arts at UCD in the 1990s. An active member of the college’s DramSoc, he later worked at RTE before moving to being named director of the Project Arts Center, where he worked for nearly a decade. He became a member of Dublin City Council’s Culture, Recreation and Amenity SPC just before taking up his post at the Dublin Theater Festival, and became a board member of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce soon after.

Willie White: “If people can’t afford to live here, can’t play here, that’s a problem.” Photo: Eric Luke/The Irish Times

Despite his professional orientation in the capital, he speaks passionately about how his own cultural interests have been influenced by exposure to global trends, especially in the theater discipline in which he has made his career. When he recalls his own formative years as a spectator, he mentions Portia Coughlan by Marina Carr, the plays by Martin McDonagh, The Steward of Christendom by Sebastian Barry, the work of Tom Murphy.

“All of this gave me a very solid foundation, which has its origins in Irish theatre,” he says. However, it was seeing Italian director Romeo Castellucci’s controversial work at the Dublin Theater Festival in 2000 and 2004 where “my mind was properly blown”.

Willie White: “If people can’t afford to live here, can’t play here, that’s a problem.” Photo: Eric Luke/The Irish Times

Meetings with the productions of Peter Brook at the Bouffe du Nord and, later, at the Dublin Theater Festival. Seeing Street of Crocodiles by Simon McBurney, who visited the Festival in 1994. These are the works that shape White’s curatorial imagination. “Whatever my background in the Irish tradition,” he admits. “I’ve always been very drawn to Europe’s massive theater and performing arts infrastructure, attitude towards risk and accessibility, and I’ve been undeniably shaped and shaped by the work I’ve done. had the privilege of seeing.”

While programming this year’s festival, White felt incredibly lucky to be able to travel again to select international works for the program. “If the pandemic has taught us anything,” he says, “it’s that you just can’t replicate the theatrical experience on a screen.” After six intense months of traveling abroad, he has selected works from France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Brazil to rub shoulders with works from Irish companies such as Teac Damsa, B*spoke, Junk Ensemble and Brokentalkers in the framework of the 2022 Festival.

For White, it is essential that international and Irish artists have the opportunity to meet in a forum like the Dublin Theater Festival, which offers “one of the few opportunities to present international works [in Ireland]. You have Live Collision, the Fringe Festival, the occasional show at the Project Arts Center, and then there’s us. If you want to see large-scale international work, where else do you go? »

Arts Council funding has never been better, but Dublin’s infrastructure has never been worse

Programming Irish work, says White, “there is an appetite there for it, because audiences know the artists and have often seen their work develop, at the Festival or elsewhere, over many years. The downside is that almost everything is a first. That’s part of the excitement, but it’s also the risk. The international work, on the other hand, has generally been critically reviewed and endorsed, of course, by White himself.

“The risk is whether the audience will respond to it or not. It may be a harder sell because the audience is unfamiliar [with the work], but that’s also where the opportunity lies. You don’t just watch life in another language, you watch, learn about a different culture.

The international context also offers an important opportunity for Irish artists. At the annual Irish Theater Exchange event, co-hosted by the Irish Theater Institute and Culture Ireland, Irish presenters can meet representatives of international producers as well as regional Irish venues. White talks about the importance of these potential relationships, and also those between Irish and international artists.

When German author Thomas Ostermeier visited the Festival in 2015, for example, to give a workshop to attendees of the festival’s Next Stage program for emerging artists, he saw Dead Center’s production of Chekov’s First Play and invited the company to play it at the Schaubuhne in Berlin. , leading to a lasting relationship. Dead Center presents a new work at the Festival this year, a collaboration with writer Emilie Pine, and it is striking how many Irish shows are partially funded by international partners from Belgium, New York, California, France and from Norway.

However, what sets the Dublin Theater Festival apart from other international festivals, says White, is its local flavor. “Dublin is a small place,” he says, “so we like to be able to show our guest artists and our international presenters.” With that in mind, White curated a playlist showcasing Dublin music and led an expedition to Forty Foot “to get [artists] out of town, show them a nice trip along the coast, the Joyce Tower, a swim. It is important to welcome people, to make them feel welcome as guests.

The festival continues to face challenges, of course. “The Arts Council’s funding has never been better, but Dublin’s infrastructure has never been worse,” says White. “That sounds extreme but it’s true.” Like other theater professionals in the city, he feels the need “for a real 500-seat theater in the capital. There was no new [capital investment in the arts] from the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre. Former venues that would have served the medium-sized needs of art producers “are now hotels and office buildings.”

The problem is symptomatic of a greater difficulty, believes White, “how unaffordable [Dublin] has become for artists, for all kinds of people really. If people can’t afford to live here, can’t play here, that’s a problem. Indeed, one of the most important roles of an organization like the Dublin Theater Festival is its participation in “the civic, cultural and social life of [capital]. We need good housing infrastructure, cultural infrastructure,” he concludes. “We need the arts if the city is to thrive.”

International Highlights

Fatal Farm, Vivarium Studio (France): Environmental fable from the visually inspiring Philippe Quesne. Project Arts Centre, October 14-15

Jezebel, Frascati Producties (Netherlands): Cherish Menzo’s visceral dance performance on 1990s music video templates. Project Arts Centre, October 3-4

Crowd, Gisele Vienne (France): Ritual scenes set to a techno-trance soundtrack by French choreographer and visual artist Gisèle Vienne. O’Reilly Theatre, October 7-8

Average, Campo in association with ISM and HEIT (Belgium/Netherlands): Julian Hetzel’s performances are attempts to untangle the world, while trying to implement strategies to transform it. The Complex, from October 13 to 15

The Dublin Theater Festival runs from September 28 to October 16 dublintheatrefestival.ie

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Arts, Dublin, dublin-theatre-festival, Fringe, Irish, prosper, times

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