How theatre festivals can support urban development?

1. Joanna Ostrowska, Culture Studies Institute, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan jjoaostrowska@wp.pl)‏ How theatre festivals can support urban development?

2. How can festivals support urban development? • festivals are visible events that focus the attention of authorities, inhabitants and media and thus can start debate on issues brought about in the festival. • all chosen festivals are directly connected with the theme of “urbanity” (as a real and mental space) and have enclosed in their concepts and formulae the city as a very concrete space.Moreover, they can be considered as a part of the cultural policy of city authorities that are trying to define the identity of the place. • all are taking place in cities marked with a multicultural past, which want to raise questions about their past and how it can help them to re-create their actual identity. • the program of these festivals is planned according to specific presentation spaces (in Legnica all performances were prepared for special city venues). • all use real urban space, not especially designed art spaces.

3. Poznań – “Festung Posen”. Is still…? • a city that for more than a century was a German fortress with a very strong German cultural influence • considered as one of the most conservative and bourgeois cities in Poland • city of International fairs (image of commercial city) with no cultural associations. • in the beginning of the Polish “period of transition”, in early 1990s, city authorities wanted to change that image and make it more “open”.

4. Malta Festival (1991) – “school of being together” • deliberately invented by the city authorities in 1991 to keep the area around the artificial Malta lake alive after it had been restored for the 1990 European Rowing Championships. • for many years this area was abandoned and did not exist in the “mental map” of Poznań inhabitants. • The main idea of the festival in the beginning of the 1990s: “Rehabilitation of the city spaces, which were demoted in their cultural function for more than 40 years of the rule of institutional culture. Secondly, incite a wider audience to more open forms of participation in culture, along with the beautiful slogan: ‘The art of open spaces is the art of democracy’, and thus rendering the festival a ‘theatre celebration’, whose protagonists are not only the performing artists, but also (or most of all) thousands of spectators and co-authors.” (Michał Merczyński)‏

5. helped to create public space in the city (this was in the beginning of 1990s)‏ • through artistic activities the festival not only incorporated an abandoned area into mental map of Poznań but also • changed the area of Malta Lake into a popular area for leisure – new infrastructure not connected with sport was built (hotel, restaurants, small amphitheatre)‏ • made inhabitants of Poznań more open to the new forms of art and perhaps more open in general* • changed the image of the city to a more artistic one. *according to a survey by Joanna Baranowska, student of Culture Studies Institute (2007).

6. According to a research study 'Street Artists in Europe”, all Polish street festivals operators have the same goals: • reconstruction of public space in the city, • integration of local inhabitants (but no one chose “integration of excluded groups”), • reinforcement of the attractiveness of the city, • improvement of the international image and position of the city, • a contribution to the urban renewal. But among the open air festivals, only Malta Festival was deliberately invented and used by the city authorities to incorporate peripheral zones – newly built sport facilities around the artificial Malta Lake and then the Old Slaughterhouse – to alter the mental map of the citizens and also to create a popular place of sociability.

7. till 1945 a German town all actual inhabitants are descendents of people that were brought there after Second World War, mostly from east-south part of pre-war Poland (Ukrainians and Łemkowie) from 1945 called “Small Moscow” due to a large garrison of Soviet soldiers (60.000 after the war, approx. 15.000 in the beginning of the 1990s; Soviets left Legnica in 1993)‏ in the 1960s Polish central authorities destroyed the old medieval town in Legnica to make the town “more Polish” and wiped out all traces of the German past the town is a “former everything” – former German town, former Russian town, former capital of an administrative region, a former industrial town A town that has been deprived of its history and heritage and has now to deal with its past, to re-create its contemporary identity in a united Europe. Legnica – “former” city

8. Festival City (2007) – “to reinstate beautiful yet forgotten places for the city and its inhabitants” (Jacek Głomb)‏ • main goal of the festival seems to be a very practical one – revitalization of abandoned places. • all performances are prepared for special venues (all performances had their opening nights during the festival)‏ • venues: among others: variété theatre, former “summer theatre” (in town park), former evangelist church (all of German origin), Soviet pillbox, an abandoned factory and a store – all neglected and symbols of the town’s past • after the first edition one practical goal has been achieved: variété theatre is being turned into a Youth Centre and a public debate on the future of Summer Theatre has started.

9. second largest city in Poland that was build in 19th century in three decades thanks to the development of the textile industry created by 4 nations: Polish, German, Russian and Jewish after the First World War lost approx. 40% of its inhabitants (mostly Germans)‏ during the Second World War lost more than 50% of its pre-war inhabitants (the whole Jewish community)‏ till 1989 a textile industry centre, almost all factories collapsed in the 1990s. Łódź – “monument of understanding among four cultures”

10. Festival of a Dialogue Among Four Cultures (2002)‏ • expected outcome seems to be less practical than in Legnica: it recalls the glorious days of former prosperity, rooted in city’s cultural diversity and recycles formerly important venues, now neglected • the festival wants to start an intercultural dialogue that once helped build Łódź, so it invites artists connected with these four cultures • this dialogue is invented to help build “European identity”, rooted in cultural diversity that was for many years forgotten in Poland • through this festival city authorities want to change Łódź’s image – from an industrial one to more artistic one (as in the Malta Festival case)‏ • through artistic activities organizers want to re-map the city, to revitalize abandoned urban spaces: 19th centuries abandoned factories, the old synagogue • recalling the Jewish tradition of Łódź (not only through festival) gave a quite practical result: Łódź is now opening a direct airline connection with Tel-Aviv.

11. Conclusions: • arts festivals can help to revive once neglected space through artistic activity and give new life to it (area around Malta Lake, old buildings in Legnica and Łódź)‏ • they can help to deal with the city's past in order to create an identity for the present (Legnica, Łódź)‏ • festivals are visible events that concentrate the attention of authorities, the inhabitants and the media and thus can start a debate on issues brought about in the festival (Legnica, Łódź)‏ • they bring inhabitants together, to recreate in some circumstances a polis in our post-modern cities and make inhabitants aware that they are responsible for their environment (Poznań, Legnica, Łódź)‏ • formulae of festivals can signal if a city considers itself primarily as a “product” for the tourists (Feta in Gdańsk, MFTU in Jelenia Góra, Festival Summer in Barlinek – tourists already are there and need to be entertained) or seeks to redefine its image (Malta in Poznań) or identity (Four Cultures in Łódź) or revitalize its urbanity (Legnica).