NEW TEXT, NEW STAGE II – Session 1

 

NEW TEXT – NEW STAGE  II (2015 – 2017)

Graphic (3)

In “NEW TEXT, NEW STAGE II”  we will build on the good results from the past edition. But we will also introduce new elements: we selected a theme, we expanded the group and the scope of the project.

After having read numerous manuscripts, we have chosen 8 playwrights from 4 continents; China, Italy, Norway, Russia, South Africa and the United States. They stood out because of their way of developing a theme, creating a structure, and their unique signature. During the next year we will make workshops in Beijing (July 2015), Shanghai (November 2015) and Guangzhou (March 2016).

Our goal is to produce all the plays created during the workshop in a theatre festival in 2017 in Beijing. We want the texts circulated and produced in theatres around the world. Drama is a most vivid form of telling the essential human stories. Good texts are universal, they can be staged anywhere and talk to anyone.

We live in a most extraordinary phase in human history, afflicted by massive contradictions yet full of potential for great things. Migration contains both, and it appeared to us as an ideal theme. We migrate to escape from war, hunger, oppression, but also to explore new paths, opportunities, territories.

For the last 30 years, China has been a laboratory for the big changes in the world; economical, environmental and social. The Chinese theatre scene is blossoming. That’s why we find China as an an ideal place to start a new writing project.

 

 

1. THE BIG PICTURE

Our point of departure, and key to this edition, is the theme Graphic (3)of “migration”. To better explore migration, we invited experts from different fields to explore its different aspects. Robert Earley gave a lecture on “Migration & climate change”, describing the changes afflicting our planet, and how this determined (and will determine) human migration world-wide. In her lecture on “Migration & gender”, Shou Juan  discussed how gender-related matters impacts on individuals’ choices of migration. Fudan University’s professor Ren Yuan analysed the massive internal migration in China with a lecture on “Migration, welfare & society”, and Dr. Tommaso Previato provided a historical overview on how migration of people and culture shaped Asia with a lecture on “Migration, Ethnicity & Culture”. The four lectures served as a source of information, and inspiration, for the writers to construct their stories.

 

2. MAKE IT PERSONAL

After having located migration in a broad context, we found it necessary to go back to the personal level: good drama successfully blends the universal with the personal. That is why we requested all of our participants (writers and dramaturges) to share their personal migration stories with the group. Ultimately, each of us is the result of a journey that started far away (in time and space) with our ancestors, to end up in a single individual. Similarly, migration processes aren’t only the big-scale migration fluxes that shape whole continents, but also small events like moving from city to city, from town to town. Sharing our stories with the group contributed to bind each other together, and to pay attention to how migration works on a micro-level.

 

3. FROM WRITTEN TO PERFORMED

As we learned during the 1st edition of NTNS, working closely with actors provide valuable feedback to the authors. By writing for the stage, when playwrights hear and see their words coming alive through actors, the perception of their own work changes, and help them achieve a better understanding of it. In this section, we selected short excerpts from each writer’s previous work, and we rehearsed them with our group of actors. On the final day of this session, we presented the result of our work to an audience at the Pioneer Theatre / National Theatre of China, one of our long-term partners in Beijing.

 

PARTICIPANTS:

Artsistic and Managing Director:
Inger Buresund

Dramaturges:
Hege Randi Tørressen
Fabrizio Massini
Vilma Štritof
Yngvar Julin

Project coordinator:
Jennifer Zhang

Interpreters:
Liu Chao
Hu Peiyao

Playwrights:
Kim Davies (United States)
Sombel Gaffarova (Tartarstan/Russia)
Liv Heløe (Norway)
Gu Lei (China)
Hanne Ørstavik (Norway)
Letizia Russo (Italy)
Zhu Yi (China)

 

PICTURES FROM THE  WORKSHOP:

 

NTNS 3

from left: actors Wang Xiaohuan, Zhang Xiaochen, Wang Xiaodi

 

NTNS 4

from left: playwright Liv Heløe and dramaturge Yngvar Julin

 

NTNS 12

dramaturge Vilma Štritof

 

NTNS II 1

Prof. Ren Yuan  during his lecture on “Migration, welfare and society”

 

NTNS 5

from left: actor Fang Li (left), dramaturge Hege R. Tørressen, writer Hanne Ørstavik and
actress Wang Xiaodi during rehearsals

 

NTNS 6

from left: dramaturges Fabrizio Massini and  Hege R. Tørressen

 

 

NTNS II 10

writer Zhu Yi during rehearsals

 

 

 

 

 

NTNS II 13

 

writer Kim Davies

 

 

NTNS 5

writer Letizia Russo

 

 

NTNS 8

writer Hanne Ørstavik

 

 

NTNS 7

writer Sombel Gaffarova

 

 

NTNS II 11

Dr. Tommaso Previato during his lecture on “Migration, ethnicity and culture”

 

 

NTNS II 8

writer Gu Lei