Saturday 17th November 2018
“If you don’t move, you’re gonna lose” I. Jones
It’s 10 am, the class of ’18 is gathered together for one last day under the beautiful wooden ceiling of the conference room of the Antiguo convento Santa María de los Reyes. There were still a few more presentations to be heard, mostly from the Netherlands, and then the time came to work on return strategies., that is to say, projects which germinated from the lab discussions and could be implemented in one’s respective venue.
Javier Pachón gave two powerful and captivating speeches. The first one was on the way to communicate in a fresh and genuine fashion, mastering the art of quality storytelling on social networks because if we don’t adapt to the new way people consume, and be “the friend they want to hear”, we’re going to lose. This opening intervention was completed by the illustrations of Filmtheater Cinecenter’s Romée Swaa whose enthusiastic team personalize content for social media. For instance, they did a stopmotion video for the release of Isle of Dogs with toys and a miniature reconstitution of their theatre ! Tobias Jong also added to the subject with his demonstration of the Studio Ghibli retrospective which was organized in his Lab111 theatre and well branded on the social media. According to Tobias, one should always take advantage of the beautiful aesthetics of the film to communicate. Javier Pachon’s second presentation dealt with a sort of non hierarchical team organization, represented figuratively by self contained circles and based on trust and communication. An impressive and thought-provoking occurrence of self-analysis for an internal organisation modeling!
During the day, other brilliant and original initiatives were unveiled and enthusiastically discussed like the creation of a podcast – an emancipated way to communicate -, inclusive screenings with dogs which demands a lot of logistics but also entailed a lot of interest and press coverage, the workings of a cooperative cinema launched thanks to crowdfunding…
The two problems shared this day enabled the attendees, through the cases of Francesco Palma and Jon Michelena, to reflect upon working efficiently with the educational system, Maeve Cooke mentioning the resources of the ECFA for instance, and upon furnishing cheaply and ingenuously your theater through a connection with other bigger theaters or sponsoring systems (selling seat plates along other things), for companies or individual customer. A focus was also given to spaces becoming “places” for communities and Chris De Zeeuw’s bold and refreshing Lab-1 project from being a nomadic alternative venue to investing a proper place and making it sort of “underground” spirited and crossing arts triggered many reactions.
When asked to identify the most inspiring and striking idea they heard over the past 4 days, the participants mentioned the format of the Lab which in itself provoked the desire to create a body to be stronger together, the little attentions like the tiny furniture for children at Mestni Kino Ptujto, the knitting concept which is quite unique and reveal a peculiar attention for your audience etc. In the end, one could borrow and twist Paul Auster’s words “the identity is in the details” !
Chris De Zeeuw, winner of THE POST OF THE DAY would confirm…
The end…
Charlotte Wensierski