Ulrike Hatzer, Dagmar Höfferer, Julia Köhler, Sieglinde Roth,
Michael Wrentschur

As authors we have decided to view this report as a joint project, but also felt we should present it as a ‘many-voiced’ text that reflects the authors’ different individual approaches and perspectives. Furthermore, we decided to begin this report by outlining its challenging genesis to emphasise the point that the lack of professional umbrella organisations in Austria meant we had no institution or organisation we could turn to for support or commitment.

Ulrike Hentschel, Ole Hruschka, Friedhelm Roth-Lange & Florian Vaßen

Since the beginning of the 21st century, theatre pedagogy has enjoyed a considerable upswing as a professional field in Germany, including the creation of new academic courses of study in theatre pedagogy at Bachelor and Master level.

The following conclusion can be drawn from the description above: there is no one theatre pedagogy. As in other application-based disciplines, different practices, fields of work and theoretical approaches exist alongside one another within theatre pedagogy. These are dependent on the respective historical and cultural development and differ according to their underlying tenets as far as subject, the art of theatre, pedagogy and learning processes are
concerned. Over and above that, all approaches are shaped by fundamental ideas about the relationship between pedagogy and theatre.

Roisin O’Gorman, Manfred Schewe, Fionn Woodhouse

There is a long and varied history of amateur dramatics across rural Ireland with a strong tradition of community participation in local productions. These local groups often take part in competitive regional and national festivals which have gained media visibility in recent years.3 Organisations such as Drama League of Ireland supports nearly 300 member groups (offering training, advice, scripts, insurance, etc), and Amateur Drama Council of Ireland organises national festival circuits (over 46 in 2018).

Stanisław Godlewski

In the XXth century, in the interwar period theatre in Poland began to develop new forms of participation. Amateurs theatres, workers theatre (directed by Witold Wandurski), travelling theatres (for example Reduta led by Juliusz Osterwa) created a new space for alternative forms of performance art. This heritage was important for different artists after World War II like Jerzy Grotowski, Tadeusz Kantor, Irena Byrska and Tadeusz Byrski, Jan Dorman, Wojciech Krukowski, and the whole movement of alternative and students theatres in ’70 and ’80

Cat Jugravu, Dr. Bogdana Darie, Dr. Romina Boldașu, Andreea Jicman, Victor Bădoi, Ruxandra Vera Stefan,

As far as performing arts are concerned, Romania has a history of approximately 200 years, commencing with open-air puppet theatre and spreading on to vaudevilles and only
afterwards on so-called solemn theatre plays presented in, for that time, ornate buildings,
some of which still standing nowadays. The communist era, which started promptly after the
Second World War, is considered the golden age of theatre on Romanian territory. Artists
gathered influences from other European countries and far away cultures for whom sacred
rituals are performances or performances are sacred rituals. Recently, national/international
paradigms and directions have fused, generating an authentic/specific post-dramatic style, achieving contextualisation through diversity and overpopulation. The performing arts field has begun to cater to the needs of specific social groups, migrating out of the designated theatrical spaces to bridge the gap between artist and audience.

Ada Mukhina

I took the invitation to write this “country report” as a possibility to reflect on my path in the performing arts in the context of the last ten years. It was a period when the new terms and practices of social theatre were firstly mentioned, then catalogued, established and finally transformed into the new forms of politically engaged performing arts practices that now exist in Russia. My perspective comes
not from the capital, but from the second-largest Russian city; not from the centre of the country but from the place close to the European Union’s border and my experience of living abroad; not from the classical theatre representative, but from someone who originally came “uninvited” into theatre from the field of law, human
rights and non-formal civic education. Nevertheless, my path interweaves with the
development of the performing arts in the Russian context of the country in a very
close and sometimes surprising way.

Ielizaveta Oliinyk

As a result of the enduring legacy of Soviet cultural politics, many theatres in independent, post-1991 Ukraine continued to be led by conservative directors according to a strict hierarchical structure. For this reason, several Ukrainian theatre-makers left to work in Russia, where theatres received superior financial support. Enthusiasm for the verbatim method among Ukrainian playwrights over the last 10 years is due in part to Russian influence, notably from teatr.doc. In turn, interest in documentary theatre in Russia was stimulated by the London-based Royal Court Theatre, which organized a series of workshops on the verbatim method for Russian playwrights in the 1990s. Many of these playwrights were searching for a theatrical language that would represent different cultural minorities; the verbatim method of writing a play using extracts from interviews seemed to appear as a good method to integrate minority narratives.

Meretta Elliott, Mike Fleming, Katja Frimberger

The aim of this report is to provide an overview of the history and current state of ‘performative arts and pedagogy’ in the United Kingdom (UK) and, in doing so, identify key terms that have been dominant in the associated discourse. In compiling the report, there are clear challenges that need to be acknowledged. There first of these is the danger of making over-generalised statements without acknowledging the diversity of contexts, for example: different sectors (school, higher education, community), different phases of schooling (pre-school, primary, secondary), different countries within the sovereign state of the UK (England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland). Any statement about drama practice in a country can easily mislead if it is assumed to apply equally in all contexts. One possible solution would be to avoid too much speculation and attempt to stick to empirical data, numbers of drama courses in schools and colleges, numbers of trained drama teachers, etc. However, even the reporting of facts involves some selection, and therefore has the potential for bias. Moreover, the avoidance of opinion and analysis can sacrifice insight for a form of bland neutrality.

Mira Sack, Andreas Bürgisser, Georges Pfruender

With this text, we would like to offer inroads to aspects of performative arts and pedagogy in Switzerland from three intersecting and connecting perspectives. Following a brief general introduction, we shall describe how performative arts and pedagogy come into play in public schools, what types of courses are on offer in Schools of Education (tertiary institutions), how Schools of Education assist teachers in the realization of their theatre projects and provide detailed insight into the Art Education programmes offered at BA and MA levels in Zurich University of the Arts.