Atelier for Young Festival Managers

«Car le vrai rôle d'un festival est d'aider les artistes à oser, à entreprendre des projets...»

Bernard Faivre d'Arcier, former director of Festival d’Avignon
and Chairman of Les Biennales de Lyon, France

The Atelier for Young Festival Managers is a unique, intense, one-week training programme initiated by the European Festivals Association.

“The European Atelier aims to offer to emerging festival directors a stage to explore creative ideas and open up new perspectives”

Kathrin Deventer, EFA Secretary General

Motto of the Atelier

The sentence borrowed from Bernard Faivre d’Arcier “The true role of a festival is to help artists to dare, to engage in new pro­jects…” (lecture on the future of festivals in February 2006 — download) is the motto of the Atelier. Particular emphasis is given to the artis­tic aspects of festival management. This touches upon artistic vision, political and social responsi­bility, internationalization, networking, renewal and sustainability.

Format of the Atelier

Next to a high-level reflection in working groups and lectures, interactive exchanges and insightful face-to-face talks about case studies make the Atelier a unique format.

Read the Mission Statement of the Atelier here: EN - FR

Presenters

Leading and experienced festival operators, professionals and artists give lectures, lead workshops and take part in round tables and debates – all of them spending at least two to three days with the participants.

Presenters in the past editions of the Atelier include:

• Robyn Archer (The Centenary of Canberra and Festival Light in Winter - Australia)
• Steve Austen (Felix Meritis Foundation - The Netherlands)
• Darko Brlek (EFA President and Ljubljana Festival - Slovenia)
• Hugo De Greef (Kaaitheater - Belgium)
• Bernard Faivre d’Arcier (Festival d’Avignon and Biennales de Lyon - France)
• Rose Fenton (London International Festival of Theatre and Festival In Transition - UK)
• Agnes Havas (Mezzo Opera Festival - Hungary)
• Gavin Henderson (Dartington International Summer School - UK)
• Nele Hertling (Hebbel-Theatre - Germany)
• Tzvetelina Iossifova (Red House for Culture and Debate - Bulgaria)
• Nevenka Koprivsek (Mladi Levi Festival - Slovenia)
• Gundega Laivina (New Theatre Institute of Latvia - Latvia)
• Brian McMaster (Edinburgh Festival - UK)
• Jonathan Mills (Edinburgh Festival - UK)
• Gerard Mortier (Paris Opera - France)
• Mark Russell (Festival Under the Radar - USA)
• Marie-Agnès Sevestre (Festival des Francophonies en Limousin - France)
• Galin Stoev (Fingerprint Company - Belgium/Bulgaria)
• Tom Stromberg (Impulse Festival - Germany)
• Matthias Vogt (Institut für kulturelle Infrastruktur Sachsen - Germany)

Participants

The Atelier is especially designed for those who are working or have ambitions to become in­volved in programming or in programming-related departments within a festival.

The Atelier is about formulating experiences and how to hand over these experiences to a next (new) generation of festival makers, focusing thematically on the very essence of art and festivals: ‘the art and the artist’.

Hugo De Greef, General Director of Flagey Art Centre
and former EFA Secretary General, Belgium

Why the Atelier?

EFA noticed that there are insuf­ficient possibilities for adopted training in the festival sector focusing on the aspect of “programming”.

This is surprising considering the boom of festivals in the last decades. The professional category of the “festival manager” has emerged and requires specific competences.

Objectives of the Atelier include to:

• Internationalize one’s environment
• Contribute to the professionalization of the festival sector
• Broaden perspectives and give new inputs on the level of content
• Connect and share different management skills from East and West
• Foster and encourage cooperations and coproductions
• Enhance international networking
• Challenge and inspire emerging artistic festival directors by bringing them in contact with their forerunners
• Build up self-confidence among participants
• Explore the diversity of models on how to run a festival
• Help structure and evolve the different management skills and competences requested from a festival operator
• Confirm and establish creativity and innovation

Interested to participate?

download the Call for Application:
Singapore 2011: EN, FR, DE
Izmir 2011: EN, FR, DE

Contact for further information:
European Festivals Association
Kleine Gentstraat 46 • 9051 Gent • Belgium
Tel.:+32 9 241 8080 • Fax: +32 9 241 8089 • atelier (at) efa-aef.eu

Documents related to the European Atelier for Young Festival Managers

• 1^st Atelier in Görlitz (Germany) - 2006
• 2^nd Atelier in Varna (Bulgaria) - 2009

May 2009 Press Release: EN - FR - DE
Atelier mission statement: EN - FR