Next Generation
Building the next generation of leaders
Tony Mack and Jason Cross speak about the thoughts and reasoning underpinning The Next Generation program a ten-day international initiative focusing on artistic leadership, taking place during the ASSITEJ World Congress and Performing Arts Festival.
The Next Generation program, taking place during the ASSITEJ World Congress and Performing Arts Festival in Adelaide in May 2008, is a ten-day international initiative focusing on artistic leadership. This international symposium between young artists, administrators and producers will engage, provoke and stimulate its participants to actively engage in the Congress, through a program of master classes and forums. The participants will by invited by an internationally recognised selection committee working in theatre for young people from distinct regions, including Asia Pacific, Africa, Europe, Australia, South America and North America.
At the time of writing seventeen people from five continents including eight Australians have been invited to take part in the Next Generation program. Congress Director Jason Cross and Tony Mack, Director of International Relations, discuss the thinking behind the program they have been working on.
TM: The context of this rather odd conversation between two people who know this project inside out is the Lowdown focus on innovation and emerging artists. It’s interesting too, that since we’ve mentioned this project in e-news bulletins and the media, there’s been a lot interest from around the world and around Australia in the Next Generation program at the Congress. It seems to have generated considerable excitement and expectations. From your point of view as Congress Director, where do you see the need for Next Generation leadership as part of the Congress program?
JC: I think there’s a responsibility for international festivals to engage with practitioners who haven’t necessarily developed a body of work that is seen at those festivals. They’re engaging with work that eventually will become part of those festivals and, within any art form, there is continuous transition. But it takes time to develop that
work, and there’s a responsibility for festival directors to create points of exchange with those practitioners.
In effect, there’s a problem if festivals like the ASSITEJ World Congress and Performing Arts Festival don’t enable that discourse to be shared with all those who should be a party to those discussions, and if the ownership of that discourse continues to be held by the same people. The value of this exchange between people of varying age groups and varying stages in terms of practice in any industry is critical to the way we see ourselves and the development of practice. It needs to be a shared journey rather than a separated one.
TM: It’s very easy to make the mistake that it’s a generational thing, whereas it’s more about balance. Any industry has to have the balance of experienced, proven leaders at the top of their game, mid-career leaders who are building their reputations and getting the experience to move to the next stage of development and emerging artists and leaders. If it doesn’t have that balance, then you’re really in trouble.
In 2003 at a festival in Kolding, Denmark, the Danish practitioners (who produce some of the best children’s theatre in the world) were saying there was a problem with what they were doing but they couldn’t figure out exactly what the problem was. As an observer, I noticed that everyone in the room had grey hair. Nothing wrong with that, but it did indicate to me that too much of the responsibility of Danish Children’s Theatre rested on the shoulders of one generation of leaders. I felt at the time that may have comprised at least part of their problem.
JC: In the context of theatre for young audiences, it’s absurd too, to not engage with young artists who are closer to the age group of the people we’re making work for. Even at the age of 38, I think that I have a responsibility to engage with artists who are closer to my audience in age than I am. The shifts that we’ve made in terms of communication and language, and the changes we’ve seen in terms of technology and how these elements are integrated in theatre making… At my age, I’m distant from it, and I feel the need to have a conversation with that generation to have a closer empathy for the form and the changes taking place.
There is the need to prioritise projects like the Next Generation program within theatre for young audiences internationally. Japan and Korea are good examples. In Japan my observations were that while there are young performers and artists, they’re essentially managed and directed by older practitioners. In terms of the aesthetic, form and content, it doesn’t reflect the development taking place in some of the other Asian countries, which are seeing their young practitioners take more of a leadership role in both the conceptual development of their theatre and the realisation of their theatre. While this new work has all the challenges that all theatre has dramaturgically, in terms of form etc, there is a refreshing aspect to the practice. It’s been re-energised.
TM: The Next Generation theme has been an ASSITEJ focus for a couple of years now. The original terminology is linked to the NEXT program of TYA/USA, the US ASSITEJ centre; there was a forum in Linz in Austria and ‘The ASSITEJ Book 2006/2007’ has an international Next Generation theme. Tell me about your thinking in developing the Next Generation concept for the Congress.
JC: The project isn’t about skills development in theatre-making per se. It’s specifically about artistic leadership. It’s about giving a significant group of participants from around the world and Australia an opportunity to engage in discussions about what artistic leadership is, and how you can provide an environment to facilitate leadership in performing arts organisations and in their own personal lives. How to lead an artistic life while being an artistic administrator, a bureaucrat and an artistic director at the same time. A lot of the time the arts doesn’t pay the same respect to the skills of leadership as it does to artistic training.
TM: Let’s talk about some the things that might take place in the program. Obviously it’s so far out [from the festival] that things are still fluid, but I think you’ve already touched on some of the principles, and one of things that I think we both agree on is that we don’t want a
passive situation. A situation where we
have a group of some of the most exciting people in the world in theatre for young audiences, sit them down to listen for ten days and they don’t get a chance to say anything themselves. How can we make this a really active experience for the participants?
JC: Important to the project is a sense of understanding, of getting to know each other prior to coming to Australia next May. So we’ll be developing an online community in the next couple of months. I want us to bring these individuals into the Congress as an ensemble, with some understanding of the people that they’re going to share this experience with. And, as an ensemble, we want them to be visible within the Congress, for delegates to be able to identify them, and see that they are working together and they are active together. That visibility enables Congress delegates to actively engage with them as a group and as individuals.
Further than that, clearly there is a need for them to spend time by themselves, to formulate those ideas, to have those discussions and arguments. We want to stimulate their perceptions of leadership too, whether by bringing in a heart surgeon or an airline pilot or an artistic director of a state theatre company to discuss leadership manifested in different areas.
TM: Both the Executive Committee of ASSITEJ and the Congress organisers seem to be as one in not only wanting that visibility and active participation, but also showing visible leadership right now. Whether it be hosting some of the official ASSITEJ International forums, emcee-ing events, taking part in productions or making an address to the General Assembly of delegates from 40 countries, we want that leadership now. We’re not preparing for the future, we have the future. They are very significant leaders now.
JC: I agree entirely. It’s not a case of handing over the baton; it’s a case of sharing the same stage at the same time. It’s critical that you allow that energy to have a place to go…because otherwise it’s lost.
So it’s also critical that an outcome from the Next Generation project is that we have a group of people who come out of this experience with the belief that it is their role to be a leader in an organisational context. Whether that’s ASSITEJ, or large performing arts organisations, or in advocacy roles in countries around the world. And for them to know that they are being listened to, and it won’t take another fifteen or twenty years for them to break through.
TM: And it will be incredibly empowering to walk out of the Congress with an extraordinary set of contacts. Twenty-five colleagues from around the world and Australia perceived as the next generation of leaders, and access to the most influential decision makers in world youth arts.
JC: And it’s an amazing ensemble of people, with a wide range of skills. We’re not suggesting that you have to be a director to be a leader. You can be a creative thinker and a leader within diverse roles in the theatre.
TM: It’s interesting to look at the spread
of skills: director, designer, writer,
producer, administrator…
JC: You can already imagine the great discussions they’ll be able to have within the Congress, not only in the formal context, but also in the anecdotal and the shared spaces they have together. At the end of the day, what we have are our friendships and relationships that should be personal, and we hope relationships are created from this project that last a lifetime. There’ll be shared experiences that lead to the creation of art and other exchanges, whether they are just emails between two people or artistic collaborations between countries.
