TRANSIT
TRANSIT is an international theatre festival and meeting organised at Odin Teatret, Holstebro, Denmark, directed by Julia Varley, one of the founders of The Magdalena Project, a network of women in contemporary theatre that exists since 1986. Transit and The Magdalena Project are committed to nurturing an awareness of women’s contribution to theatre and to supporting exploration and research by offering concrete opportunities to as many women as possible, both in the profession and in study. Both structures function internationally to give voice to the concerns of women working in theatre today. Transit and The Magdalena Project encourage women to examine their role in the future of theatre, by presenting existing work by women, by sharing methodologies, by examining form as well as content and by making new material. Transit and The Magdalena Project aim to set up opportunities for women to explore new approaches to theatre making that reflect more profoundly their own experiences and political priorities as women. The ripple effect of Transit Festival usually results in other festivals and meetings, workshops and productions in close contact with the network of The Magdalena Project.
TRANSIT VI
VI Women’s International Theatre Festival and Meeting
Theatre - Women - On the Periphery
6-16 August 2009 at Odin Teatret, Holstebro, Denmark
Programme
Workshop Information
As an actress my first thought on periphery concerns the
relationship between my centre - the heart of the action in my
torso - and the detailed precision of the extremities - my
hands, feet and eyes - that tell the anecdote and make the
action believable. As an actress my main concern is the power
concentrated in my centre. So I am confused. Why chose to
work on the periphery? Why is being on the periphery so
important to many of us women theatre practitioners?
We chose to work on the periphery, both geographically (in
places distant from the main cities, in countries at the
extremity of the world, in neighbourhoods at the edge of the
towns) and as genre (theatre that confines with film, music,
nature, visual art, writing…). The choice of the periphery
comes as a consequence of where we place our
performances, why we make theatre and with whom, as a
need to emigrate and travel.
When the Magdalena Project lost its physical centre - the
office in Cardiff and its revenue funding - the activities
mushroomed in events all over the world and the network
maintained its connection internationally through the website
and The Open Page journal. The Magdalena Project became
a tangled bond of peripheries, and each of these peripheries
was at the centre of our professional and personal lives.
In a global world, in which it is becoming more and more
difficult to remain enclosed within the boundaries of a national
and traditional culture, where is the centre and what is the
periphery? Each periphery exists only in relation to its centre
as each centre to its periphery. Women in theatre are our
centre, like the poor in opposition to rich, mad in opposition to
normal, black or yellow or red in opposition to white, young or
old people in opposition to middle-aged could be. We make
the periphery our centre because we do not accept the world
as it is, with its injustice and segregation, its mainstream
thinking and order. We make work on the periphery because
we are not satisfied with the theatre we know from before. We
chose periphery as the place where small essential human
values are cherished.
Women working in theatre are definitively on the periphery of
those deciding for the world, but although we know our influence is nearly inexistent we still feel the enormous
responsibility of sharing our knowledge which unites body and
mind, torso and hands, feelings and actions to promote a
different way of perceiving and thinking.
Remembering how the Magdalena Project acquired more life
and dynamism after losing its physical centre, I understand
that the actress’s principle I should refer to when thinking of
periphery is another: going out of balance and transforming
weight into energy. Abandoning the centre is a way of taking a
risk, of accepting the challenge, of needing to move away
from an inert centre that no longer feeds us and gives a false
feeling of security. Being on the periphery is to explore
unknown places with the necessity of making something
happen.
The heart of the action, our centre, becomes our profession,
and how we manifest it, our periphery. The 6th Transit Festival
will gather examples of ‘peripheral’ manifestations inviting
performances and women who are geographically and
artistically placed at the borders. The programme includes
workshops, site specific events, performances, lectures,
master-classes and work demonstrations.
Julia Varley
TRANSIT V
V Women’s International Theatre Festival and Meeting
Stories to be Told
18-28 January 2007 at ODIN TEATRET, Holstebro, Denmark
Programme
Workshop Information
20 years have passed since the start of The Magdalena Project. Although the first Festival was in 1986 and the first idea came even earlier, Jill Greenhalgh etablished The Magdalena Project itself in January 1987. With age comes the desire to tell and listen to stories, like those we hear from our grand-mothers or those we enjoy concoctin about the origins of our families, the relationships within our theatre groups or concerning the political situation in the world.
Stories need to be told: to give face and voice to people whose identity would otherwise only be defined by numbers. They need to be told for us to remember; to refelct and inspire; to talk about the tragedies and comedies of everyday life through fiction; to conquer a place for women in history; to emerge from silence, to give colour, irony and perspective to our actions. Dramaturgy and narration, story-telling and poetry in space, sequences of words spoken or sung are all central in the process of creating contact between performers and spectators in our theatres, although stories are told in different ways.
The intimate, personal and vulnerable qualities of story-telling - its closeness and human significance - are characteristics that women in particular can defend, helping theatre to keep on being a live art of communication between individuals, an autonomous space of exchange beyond cultural and language borders. The difficult task is to protect the spontaneity of a mother-tongue - the music of an exclusive experience, the roots of a tradition - while at the same time reaching beyond them. We open our Pandora's Box of stories to turn the dreams of the night in the reality of the day.
At Transit 5 "Stories to be Told", story-telling techniques and different examples of how theatre performances tell stories will be presented, with workshops (story-telling training and workshop stories), lectures, performances, work in progress and demonstrations (professional stories). Many have expressed the wish that the women who started The Magdalena Project should make a performance together: Women with Big Eyes - Work on a Magdalena Story is going to be an experiment in inventing a practical structure within which to work that hopefully can be transported to other events. At Transit 5, the Magdalena Project's 20th anniversary will also be marked by the presentation of Chris Fry's book The Way of Magdalena and by short stories on the theme: "Origins and aspirations: secrets, water, tears, stones and laughter". These stories, like others, will allow us to meet in a place half-way between history and fiction, reality and imagination, truth and falsehood, presenting events we wished had not happened and ones we wished had, inventing a future of dreams, passion, relations, ideals and tangible actions.
Julia Varley
TRANSIT IV
IV Women’s
International Theatre
Festival and Meeting
Roots in transit
16-25 January 2004 at ODIN TEATRET, Holstebro, Denmark
Programme: Transit.pdf
Video now available
Roots are usually imagined sinking into the ground and going backwards in time.
In cultural terms roots usually represent an existing identity to which people
belong and which they sometimes wish to acknowledge. Roots in Transit would like
to propose a different image: active, germinating, sprouting roots that point
outwards, forwards and upwards. Roots which allow us to stand upright
autonomously and move. Roots that give a boundless sense of future. Roots like
seeds that we plant in the air, in the water, in places far away from the earth
where we were born, or roots that lead us back into our environment of origin
after having travelled across foreign landscapes.
Many young women search for a technical base and a
professional identity among people whose social behaviour and habits are
different, and in places where their mother tongue is not spoken. Theatre allows
those of us who belong to a community of uprooted individuals to chose the mould
where new and different roots will grow. Even women who strongly identify with
their culture and ancestors rediscover the wisdom passed on from a living past.
Biographical, professional, historical and cultural references and intentions
compose intricate horizons in which only the need to belong and be accepted is
shared.
The image of a network is made up of crossing lines and empty spaces. The
experience of the women meeting within The Magdalena Project tells us that
important information is contained in the spaces opened by the intersecting
lines. The composite pattern of migration followed by women working in theatre
creates similar spaces of fertile ground where roots can grow. Roots in Transit
will give particular attention to geographical diversity, and to the
simultaneous presence of women working in theatre, music and dance of classical
or indigenous descent with women who confront a contemporary reality of global “con-fusion”.
The programme consists of two parts: the first with practical workshops,
demonstrations and performances; and the second with vocal and physical training
(Cultivating), workshop demonstrations (Sowing), presentations (Orgins), videos,
lectures, discussions, concerts, performances.
Julia
Varley
TRANSIT III
International Theatre Festival and Meeting
Theatre - Women - Generations
18 - 28 January 2001
ODIN TEATRET,
Holstebro, Denmark
Master/pupil
relationships, independent auto-didactic realities, the practice of workshops
and training, traditional western schooling, the passing on of a craft through
family connections or apprenticeship, or the absence of references, are
different examples of how theatre knowledge and practice is transmitted from one
generation to the other. Compulsory schooling, the need to earn a living, the
forty-five minute rhythms of lessons, the demand to produce quick results and to
sell, and the artistic process of live performance being taken over by mass
events and television – all these factors are influencing the way of teaching
and learning for women who work in theatre. The generation of women who now
embody experience and can reflect upon the early years when they knew clearly
what they wanted, but lacked the tools to achieve their aims, faces a younger
generation of women whose perceptions and expectations are different.
Transit III explored
what and how we can learn from each other, and what experiences can be shared
across the generations. During the festival some of the performances directly
addressed the questions of the learning and teaching process in theatre, while
others presented themes and characters that explore the needs of women of
different ages and from diverse cultural backgrounds. Transit III involved women
practitioners, artists, intellectuals and scholars from Europe, America, New
Zealand and Asia to present performances, videos, demonstrations and lectures,
to give workshops and participate in discussions. Particular attention was given
to young practitioners and older artists searching for renewal. Transit III saw
the theme of "Generations" as a lifetime of growing.
The programme included
vocal and physical training (Entrances), demonstrations by masters and pupils
together (Bridges), presentations of exercises considered to be essential by
practitioners of different theatrical ages (Corner Stones), lectures, concerts
and performances.
Transit III was dedicated to Melissa of Gotas de Rap
During eleven days 5 workshops, 25 performances and 10 debates were presented
by: ODIN TEATRET, Denmark; THE MAGDALENA PROJECT, Wales; GILLA CREMER, Germany;
DEBORAH HUNT, Puerto Rico/New Zealand; Birute Marcinkeviciute, Lithuania; VOIX
POLYPHONIQUES, France; GRENLAND FRITEATER, Norway; Birgitte Grimstad, Norway;
MAGDALENA AOTEAROA, New Zealand; MARIA CANEPA, Chile; ALMA THEATRE, Wales; ANA
WOOLF, Argentina; TOPENG SHAKTI, Bali; TEATRO DELLE RADICI, Switzerland;
SAGLIOCCO ENSEMBLE, France/Norway; Marianela BoAn, Cuba; JO RANDERSON, New
Zealand; Verena Tay, Singapore; Gilly Adams, Wales; Josefina Báez, Dominican
Republic/New York; Magdalena Segunda Generación, Argentina; Marie-Josée Ordener,
France; Ya-Ling Peng, Taiwan; Teatret Om, Denmark; Chiara Zamboni, Italy.
Exhibition
The Transit III
programme was illustrated by
Dorthe Kærgaard, Denmark, who also exhibited her paintings at Odin Teatret
during the festival.
TRANSIT II
International Theatre
Festival and Meeting
Theatre - Women -
Politics
5 - 9 November 1997
ODIN TEATRET, Holstebro,
Denmark
This festival was an
occasion to continue the debate started within The Magdalena Project on theatre,
women and politics. To keep on doing theatre is in itself a political choice:
opting for human relationships rather than mechanical, for intimacy rather than
mass media, for memory and resistance rather than neglect and success. Politics
has very different meanings across time and geography, and the meaning is
constantly changing. Politics can quickly be related to power: a way to keep in
power, or a way to criticise, overthrow, counterbalance and take power, or a way
to live, survive and deal with power, or a way of separating from power and
refusing. Women in the world are now feeling a greater political responsibility
and are making a point of having their opinions heard. In theatre women create
performances which take position, denounce or inform; women give new importance
to the contents of shows and they have a strong participation in social
movements and activities. For a long time the form was the content and the
stress for change and development was on how to make theatre, now it seems that
many women are pointing towards giving more consideration to what is said with
theatre and where they place their work.
This Festival was an occasion to meet theatre women practitioners, artists,
intellectuals and scholars who in different ways are politically or socially
engaged, therefore aiming to give theatre an active role in society. The
presentation of performances, the lecture-demonstrations and discussions gave a
vision of the diverse and personal paths followed while trying to understand the
motives behind and the consequences on the craft. The programme included
practical sessions with Rap, Breakdance, Group Work and Physical Training, and
1000 Voices singing sessions every morning.
During five days 14 performances and 11 debates were presented by: ODIN TEATRET,
Denmark; THE MAGDALENA PROJECT, Wales; GILLA CREMER, Germany; CIRQUE DIVERS,
Belgium; TEATRO DELLE ALBE - RAVENNA TEATRO, Italy; GRENLAND FRITEATER, Norway;
GOTAS DE RAP - GRUPO RAPSODA, Colombia; OJIWA THEATRE, Ivory Coast; DAH TEATAR,
Yugoslavia; POL PELLETTIER COMPAGNIE, Canada; TEATRET OM, Denmark; TEATRO DELLE
ALBE - GUEDIAWAYE THEATRE, Italy-Senegal; DONATELLA MASSIMILLA, Italy; LENE
THIESEN, Denmark; TANITH NOBLE, France; KODULA LOBECK, Germany; BRIGITTE CIRLA,
France; CHRIS FRY, Wales.
TRANSIT I
International Theatre
Festival and Meeting
Directors and the
dynamic patterns of theatre groups
What are women
proposing?
1 - 5 November 1992
ODIN TEATRET, Holstebro,
Denmark
The Festival was an occasion to continue the debate started within The Magdalena Project on women and theatre directing. The Festival was designed as an opportunity for theatre practitioners to show their performances and explain the processes used to create them, for an investigation of new and evolving ways of directing. focusing on the conducting element, be it the group, the actor, the director or the working process itself. The Festival presented performances directed by women, or performances whose prime motor were women actors, performances with only women, or performances with no director where the group’s collaboration has been essential for the result. During five days 13 performances and 11 process explanations were presented by: Odin Teatret, Denmark; Teatro delle Radici, Switzerland; Theater im Pumpenhaus, Germany; Voix Polyphoniques, France; Cirque Divers, Belgium, Grenland Friteater, Norway; The Magdalena Project, Wales; Freja, Denmark; La Otra Orilla, Germany; Koreja, Italy. The Festival is documented with photographs by Rossella Viti and a video recording by Leo Sykes. The video is available from Odin Teatret Film.