the white room - conversations on theatre

(streamed & recorded on March 22, 2021) We wanted to limit ourselves to one hour, but got carried away a little bit. Celebrating the anniversary of this podcast, we cannot help but notice the real sad anniversary of the pandemic. We discover it's hard to recall how we actually did feel one year ago, and to recollect how many big and small things have changed - for good? Will we get to the point, where we return to whatever shall be normal? Among other things, we look at important Performances without Spectators, especially Pope Francis' "Urbi et Orbi" blessing from March 27, 2020, and – Football / Soccer. Links: Pope Francis, Urbi et Orbi, March 27, 2020: https://youtu.be/P6mMM8uZXkY Michael Spicer on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TerencePlato

(recorded and streamed on March 8, 2021) A very bifurcating conversation with Linda Cunningham, containing: Ambiguity, #InternationalWomensDay, Real Emancipation vs. Emancipation as Brand, Privileges, Greenwashing, Power, the Daughters of Dún Iascaigh, Relation, Theatre, Linguistics, Reality, Rhythm, Suspension, Music. In the end we discover and reject "Thinginess", and speculate why we don't respect Mystery anymore. Show notes Daughters of Dún Iascaigh - https://twitter.com/iascaigh Pensions pay gap - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56315730 We are happy to receive any (constructive) feedback and criticism, corrections, comments, questions and notes: whiteroom (at) whiteroom-pod.com. You can also comment below. We will try to reflect on this input in the podcast. You can support the podcast by subscribing to it, by recommending it to your friends and by becoming a producer, if you like. A small regular contribution already makes a big difference.

(recorded and streamed on 22 Feb, 2021) After touching some smaller topics, Simon speaks at length about Jean-Claude Carrière, screenwriter, playwright, narrator, dramaturg for the greatest films of Luis Buñuel and theatre productions of Peter Brook and many others. A remarkable person, a true liar, he died on 8th February, 2021. Shownotes: https://ourworldindata.org Study on Contagion in Concert Hall Dortmund (in German): https://www.br-klassik.de/aktuell/news-kritik/corona-aerosol-studie-dortmund-ansteckung-konzert-theater-100.html Jean-Claude Carriére: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Claude_Carrière Carriére and Buñuel: https://youtu.be/Q080ljkfeQA Peter Brook's The Mahabharata, TV version: https://youtu.be/yhqkRGISQr8 From now on we will gather in the white room fortnightly on Mondays at 20:00 (CET). Join us live: https://whiteroom-pod.com/live We are happy to receive any (constructive) feedback and criticism, corrections, comments, questions and notes: whiteroom (at) whiteroom-pod.com. You can also comment below. We will try to reflect on this input in the podcast. You can support the podcast by subscribing to it and by becoming a producer, if you like. A small regular contribution already makes a big difference.

(recorded and streamed on 8 Feb, 2021) containing Coronavirus Update: Resignation, Clubhouse Ladidah. Speaking about Practice without the Practice. Future Topics: Classic Texts & Artificiality. "The Village" online project: more information is coming! Future of Theatre Work towards precarious sustainability. The cover is "The Incredulity of Saint Thomas" by Caravaggio (~1601). Slightly darker. From now on we will gather in the white room fortnightly on Mondays at 20:00 (CET). Join us live: https://whiteroom-pod.com/live We are happy to receive any (constructive) feedback and criticism, corrections, comments, questions and notes: whiteroom (at) whiteroom-pod.com. You can also comment below. We will try to reflect on this input in the podcast. You can support the podcast by subscribing to it and by becoming a producer, if you like. A small regular contribution already makes a big difference.

(recorded and streamed on 25 Jan, 2021) Our first episode 2021 starts with a scanning of possible topics that interests us. Contents: Signal, Digital Naivité, Surveillance Capitalism, Attention. Where is Theatre Going? Auditive Worlds and Online Performances, Problem of Interaction and Flow. Virtual Hacker congress #rc3 in Germany. Rhythm. Working language, Metaphors and Scientific Thinking. From now on we will gather in the white room every fortnight on Mondays at 20:00 (CET). Join us live: https://whiteroom-pod.com/live

(recorded on Dec 30, 2020) We sat together for a special end of year episode, which we streamed live on the evening of December 30. We had a lot of technical problems (who didn’t this year!?), but lovely guests, drinks and a lot of fun. We wanted to do our own preposterous retrospective of 2020. So we let ourselves pass freely from general reflections of the year to more theatre related topics. You can use the chapter markers to jump to topics that interest you. We speak about the privilege of choice and how much we’re NOT „in the same boat“ in this crisis, about technology as a tool or collaborator, at length about „performing online“ and the immediacy of theatre. Thanks to Christian, Linda and Marta for taking part in this somewhat improvised experiment and sharing their input so generously. With Christian Grüny we recorded our 7th episode: Proto-Knowledge With Marta Wryk we recorded our 11th episode: The Athletic Voice

"Agora. The marketplace. This is where we negotiate who we are. Who we want to be." With this claim Marcel Cremer founded the Agora Theater in St Vith in 1980. A German-speaking theater in Belgium. The first question: The involvement of the local population in the Hitler era. Consequently, the first performance with amateur actors is "Die Ermittlung" by Peter Weiss. For 30 years Cremer was the artistic director, author and director of the AGORA Theater and formed it into a professional and renowned ensemble of the independent scene. After he died in 2009, the group managed to continue. On the occasion of Agora's 40th anniversary we speak with Felix Ensslin, philosopher, dramaturg and director about this special theatre.

Again we are fortunate to be joined by Christopher Shorr and JP Jordan from Touchstone Theater in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA. We sit together in the white room and talk about the upcoming elections, the role of the theatre, surrounding community, hope and fear and a great division. Confronted with the opportunity, we speak to a REAL Dictator: Generalissimo Carlo Supremo, who coincidentally is also running for President of the United States (POTUS). He seems to be a really nice guy! We converse on his biography, his policies and his political and philosophical beliefs. We also play a little game together. And we are inevitably confronted with questions: Who is Carlo Supremo? How did he get so far? What are his plans? And how can we get rid of him!? The musical fragments are from "Dictators 4 Dummies" https://www.dictators4dummies.com, written and directed by Christopher Shorr and produced by Touchstone Theater. See Touchstone's livestream of the last "Tyrants of Tomorrow Telethon" here: https://youtu.be/m-oyPO24LaY TOUCHSTONE THEATRE (Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA) was founded in 1981 as a street theatre troupe and slowly grew to be a professional not-for-profit theatre dedicated to the creation of original work. At its center is a resident ensemble of theatre artists rooted in the local community of Bethlehem, the Greater Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania and the international community of Ensemble Theatres. --- We are happy to receive any (constructive) feedback and criticism, corrections, comments, questions and notes: whiteroom (at) whiteroom-pod.com. You can also comment below. We will try to reflect on this input in the podcast. You can support the podcast by subscribing to it, by recommending it to your friends and by becoming a producer, if you like. A small regular contribution already makes a big difference.

Harald Redmer, born in 1954, lives in Münster as a freelance actor, director, producer and dramaturg. He was co-founder of the renowned Theater im Pumpenhaus Münster and has been a member of the Bonn "fringe ensemble" since 2001. In August 2013 Harald switched "to the other side of the table", becoming the manager of the Landesbüro Freie Darstellende Künste (Regional Association for Independent Performing Arts) North-Rhine Westphalia in Dortmund, Germany – which he developed and expanded in seven laborious years together with his team to being one of the biggest regional associations of independent performing artists in Germany, with lots of different activities from lobbying for theatre to managing government funds for performing arts. With Harald we speak about the strange need of being a so-called "independent artist", what could have to do with the disease of "projects", how funding works and what should be changed, how changes happen through voicing interests (a.k.a. lobbying), how to transition from project funding to something like "practice-based funding", about corona-driven funding revolutions and much more.

Simon has had the great pleasure to accompany this year's edition of the FAVORITEN Festival, one of the oldest festivals for independent performing arts, which is organised every two years since 1985. Now this podcast is becoming a peripandemic podcast, meaning „about“, „around“, „surrounding“ the pandemic; as we have to deal with the pandemic, which is not going away, we have to deal with this podcast which is also staying, by reinventing it and trying out new things. So this is the first episode of the white room "on the road" - and it was fun! In the podcast Simon talks to • Antje Velsinger, choreographer and performer based in Cologne and Hamburg, about her performance „dreams in a cloudy space“ and the meeting of young and old bodies • Ulrike Seybold, manager of the regional association for independent performing arts in North Rhine Westphalia, about her work • Maria Vogt from the performance group KGI about their opera „And now everyone! An Opera“ and working with "non-professional" performers • Olivia Ebert, one of the Artistic Directors of the Festival together with Fanti Baum, about the festival in general and the topic "WORK" • Saskia Rudat, performer and director, and her team about their performance „Defining identity“ and all the questions that Simon had. You can use the chapter markers to skip to what interests you. We are happy to receive any (constructive) feedback and criticism, corrections, comments, questions and notes: whiteroom (at) whiteroom-pod.com. You can also comment below. We will try to reflect on this input in the podcast. You can support the podcast by subscribing to it, by recommending it to your friends and by becoming a producer, if you like. A small regular contribution already makes a big difference. See the website for more information.

(recorded on Sep 6, 2020) "And now summer has left as if it never came at all. It’s warm still where the sun falls. But it’s not enough. (...)" - Arseny Tarkovsky Towards the end of the summer period we sat in the sun and talked about what‘s on our mind. In a talkative mood we produced a long conversation. You can use the chapter function to skip to a topic that interests you. First we reflect on how summer has been for us, borrowing the term "peripandemic" from Christiane Hütter, who talks about "peripandemic theatre" (the article is in german). This is followed by a lenghty inquiry on a topic that Simon brought in for the occasion: Giving birth. Without claiming to lay foundations for any kind of theory, we discover some surprising parallels between how a human being and how a performance is born. We end on some thoughts on how to relate to (theatre) traditions, which die with the people who embodied them. Show notes: Parliament of Practices - website soon to be found under www.parliament-of-practices.space Cross Pollination - network for dialogue in-between practices: http://www.crosspollination.space Chapters: 00:00:00 Meeting in the Blue Moon of September 00:05:09 Peripandemic Projects: • Parliament of Practices 00:12:17 • Embracing the Unknown 00:18:27 • #1001fires 00:25:24 • Small Summer Festivals... 00:37:17 • ...Pecuniary Affairs and Cultural Policy 00:51:27 • Street Theatre Festival 01:01:36 Towards a Peripandemic Podcast 01:03:47 Giving Birth (to a Performance) 01:41:32 Relation to Tradition: (Re)Inventing the Wheel 01:48:22 Looking forward We are happy to receive any (constructive) feedback and criticism, corrections, comments, questions and notes: whiteroom (at) whiteroom-pod.com. You can also comment below. We will try to reflect on this input in the podcast. You can support the podcast by subscribing to it and by becoming a producer, if you like. A small regular contribution already makes a big difference.

GONZALO ALARCÓN (Brussels, BE) started as a Circus performer on the streets of Chile. He then discovered the Art of the Clown, which continues to be his focus. His latest performance Chiringuito Paradise tells the story of the grand opening of a bar which ends in complete catastrophe. We sit together with Gonzalo for the third time and finally get to listen to some clips. We start with a short one and discover the Rhythm of John Cleese's performance in "Fawlty Towers". We try to figure out how to learn, shape and discover the "professional intuition" that enables you to play with Rhythm. We listen to the cleverly constructed "failing tunes" by John Edwards, a pseudonym of pianist, arranger, composer, and conductor Paul Weston and laugh a lot. Finally we listen to the charming Victor Borge, who seduces the audience with pun after pun.

GONZALO ALARCÓN (Brussels, BE) started as a Circus performer on the streets of Chile. He then discovered the Art of the Clown, which continues to be his focus. His latest performance Chiringuito Paradise tells the story of the grand opening of a bar which ends in complete catastrophe. This is the second part of a series of conversations spiraling around comedy. As these episodes will be quite long, you can use the chapters to jump to what interests you. We are back in the room with Gonzalo talking about comedy. After some preliminary talk about the question "KEATON or CHAPLIN!?" we take our time to discuss the classic masters and why we need to look at their work and what we can learn from them; then we dive into the “anatomy” of the joke, the punchline, how to create a problem and finding a surprising solution to it, how to increase the "potential energy" of the joke, comparing it to music and especially concentrating again on rhythm. We find a lot of nice analogies to the laws of nature and are proud of having discovered the "Physics of Comedy"!

TOUCHSTONE THEATRE (Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA) was founded in 1981 as a street theatre troupe and slowly grew to be a professional not-for-profit theatre dedicated to the creation of original work. At its center is a resident ensemble of theatre artists rooted in the local community of Bethlehem, the Greater Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania and the international community of Ensemble Theatres. With Christopher and JP we speak shortly about their story, about how we met each other, about Touchstone Theatre and then enter a long "money talk". We speak about funding strategies and public support for the Arts, the situation and history in the USA and in Germany and the Netherlands; we speak about Theatre Networks and helping each other. We touch the current situation in the USA and how Touchstone is reacting. We ask ourselves more generally how to act in times of chaos - and find that it's our duty to create beauty. In the beginning and in the end we listen to some sweet Accordion music by our friend Jonas de Rave (Gent, BE).

We are back, just the two of us, and we are in the mood. In this evening conversation we try to make some sense of what is going on at the moment. As we experience the possibility of opening our venues again, we need to speak about dealing with the risks - which Berlin virologist Christian Drosten called “dancing with the tiger”. Marije speaks about the project “1000 Fires Burning” - a cooperative message from artists and culture makers from all over the world. On July 25 this summer, you can take part and present a “fire” and share it with the hashtag #1000FiresBurning. A fire can be a performance, a song, an installation, a poem, a dance... We argue that if the big festivals are cancelled and lost, we should have a summer of many small events, interventions, invitations that offer places and situations to meet safely. Small campfires to grill marshmallows, listen to stories and get an understanding of each others lives. In the end we turn to the events in USA following the assassination of George Floyd by Police, Simon recommends listening to the latest, raging Episode of the Tomorrow Podcast and to what Trevor Noah had to say about it. The foto shows a mural in Minneapolis, a collaborative project by artists Xena Goldman, Cadex Herrera, Greta McLain, Niko Alexander, and Pablo Hernandez, that centers George Floyd within a sunflower. He’s surrounded by the names of others killed by police, in addition to protestors. The 20-by-6.5-foot project is located near the Cup Foods where Floyd died.

MARTA WRYK (Cologne, DE) is a Mezzosoprano Opera singer. She debuted in 2011 at the Virginia Opera (USA) before establishing herself in Cologne. Her manifold experience extends from performing in established opera theatres to more experimental and fringe productions. We speak about her musical and artistic roots in Polish singing traditions , about beginning to sing, about the extremely efficient use of voice by babies and why most persons lose that ability. We speak at length about voice and the work with voice - which is basically learning to shape and change an extremely complex physical process with your imagination and your intentions. We dive into a discussion of the Opera World and touch the question of why apparently there is no Independent Opera movement and despite all the revolutions of Theatre and Dance that shaped the 20th century and still intrigue and question us today - somehow Opera stayed very much in in the 19th century and enjoys its colorful pompousness with a very genuine culture around it. (This is absolutely not meant as depreciation!) In the end there is a reflection on what great performance could be - and we listen to Marta generously singing a Quartet alone - Così fan tutte in home office...

GONZALO ALARCÓN (Brussels, BE) started as a Circus performer on the streets of Chile. He then discovered the Art of the Clown, which continues to be his focus. His latest performance Chiringuito Paradise tells the story of the grand opening of a bar which ends in complete catastrophe. This is the first part of a series of conversations spiraling around comedy. As these episodes will be quite long, you can use the chapters to jump to what interests you. With Gonzalo we try (and fail, and try again, and fail better) to understand the nature of comedy, of what is funny, or how is funny. We return to the questions on technique, being good and the necessity of taking risks. We look at Rhythm (the key to it all?), jumping between jazz and theatre, with some fruitful insights into the nature of what "comic" could mean. Of course we look at Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. In the end we listen to and think about the comedy of sounds and objects.

MARIO BARZAGHI is Actor and Director. He started doing theatre in the 70s as a factory worker. In 1981 he joined Teatro Tascabile di Bergamo under the direction of Renzo Vescovi and began studying Kathakali. He has been practising this form of theatre for 35 years under the guidance of his Master Kalamandalam K. M. John. He danced with him in India, Europe and Latin America. In 2000 he founded Teatro dell’Albero together with Rosalba Genovese. Developing the Actor’s Art between East and West has remained their core interest. With Mario we speak about the current crisis, how theatre has to transform itself, about the relation to the spectator, about saving your work and the double face of the things. We speak about roots and craft and time, and how Theatre and Art are governed by a different kind of time. In the end we look at Michelangelo.

DANIEL JACEWICZ is the Artistic Director of Teatr Brama (Goleniów, PL), which he founded in 1996, when he was 17 years old. With Daniel we speak about his beginnings in the theatre, how crazy accidents determine our way, how theatre is above all a Group of people working and struggling together. We speak about keeping a group alive through conscious shocks, changes and foreign elements, about how the theatre confronts a new performance, about the relation between director and actor. We speak a good part about the practice of singing and making music as a special kind of "Training", shaping, informing and renovating the Group, about a quality of singing which is far beyond just "singing in tune" and "hitting all the notes" - which actually is something completely different - and we speak about the beauty of the "ugly" voice. We listen to a recording of the Ucrainian "Song of the Forest" sung by Teatr Brama in 2017. Finally we speak about Teatr Brama's great achievement: receiving a new theatre space financed by the town of Goleniów.

You could have guessed from the first episode on: Marije and Simon have an inclination towards "hammer philosophy", indulging in their proto-knowledge. That's one of the reasons why we are very happy about today's guest. With philosopher Christian Grüny we practice "fabrication of thoughts while talking", following our associations on performance, philosophy, thinking as practice, (re)presentation and much more. We shortly present Christian to our listeners and speak about his work, especially about his work as performer** and about lecture performances in general - from this we drift into reflections about the relation between representing and presenting, talking, writing, performing, academics and artists - about form and content and how they inform each other, about artistic strategies, academic realities, and if there is something like artistic research.

André Erlen is one of four Artistic Directors of Futur3 - a Cologne-based theatre group he co-founded in 2003. With André we speak about his work, his beginnings in the theatre, founding Futur3, performing outside of theatre buildings, about Cologne, scenography, light, space and the relation to the spectator. We speak about Polish theatre, about the Art world and not liking Premiere parties & Vernissages. We speak about Theatre which always vanishes and strategies to react to this. We speak about streaming theatre and why it does not work, about the necessity of translation, acting in virtual reality, games, shows without actors. We speak about truth and lies in the actor's craft, the necessity of being in charge of the situation and much more... We are happy to receive any (constructive) feedback and criticism, corrections, comments, questions and notes: whiteroom (at) whiteroom-pod.com. You can support the podcast by subscribing to it and by becoming a producer, if you like. A small regular contribution already makes a big difference.

ADRIANA LA SELVA is a theatre maker, a performer, a networker and a researcher. Adriana is working on a practice-based Ph.D. at the University of Ghent in Belgium, in association with the School of Arts (KASK), where she is investigating contemporary performer training processes in relation to politics of embodied research. She has been a member of the international theatre group The Bridge of Winds since 2015, led by Odin Teatret actress Iben Nagel Rasmussen. In 2017 Adriana co-founded the Cross Pollination Research Platform together with Marije Nie, an international network of performers and researchers, which focuses on the dialogue in-between practices of art, community building and academic research. With Adriana we speak about training, heritage, etymology, legal issues and training as a resistance and a way to be present. We also talk about her PhD research entitled ‘What Are You Training For?'.

We meet again in the white room; this time we bring a topic which interests both Marije and Simon very much and which is one of reasons of having started these conversations - a basic element of performance: Rhythm. Before diving into it we react to a comment that we received, one part of which provokes us to speak at length about the current situation and how theatre artists react to it by creating a lot of digital content, which is both great and strange.

PER KAP BECH JENSEN is administrative director of Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium - Odin Teatret in Holstebro (DK) since 2014. In January 2021 he will move to be Director of the theatre. Odin Teatret was created in Oslo, Norway, in 1964, and moved to Holstebro (Denmark) in 1966, changing its name to Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium - Odin Teatret. Today, its 40 members come from a eleven countries and four continents. With Per we speak about his beginnings in the theatre, about the work of the dramaturg and about what the current crisis means for a theatre that performs around the world and is home to artists from various countries, a theatre which is based on the presence and relation of actor and spectator.

We sit down and want to speak about our beginnings in the theatre. Instead we drift into a long reflection about what it means to begin, what it means to be a beginner, what it means to be an expert, and if you can be both at the same time. We speak about Groove, the paradox of repeated improvisation and young vs. old musicians. We listen to a small part of a lecture of Orson Welles in Paris, in which he narrates his first days on a movie set. We discover that the work of the actor/performer is quite particular in the relation of skill, knowledge, ignorance and the demand of delivering every performance as if it were the very first.

What are we going to talk about? Why are we going to speak about what we're going to speak about? Why are we making a podcast about theatre? Why even talk about theatre? Conversations on theatre? Or on performance? Or on practice? We sit down together in the white room, trying to figure out what this is all about, evoking and struggling with the power of the words. In the effort to convey this to you and to ourselves, unreckoned help approaches through a famous quote by the famous Ludwig Wittgenstein. As the poet says: “… where the danger is, also grows the saving power.”