About

A short (hi)story of how it all began

The International Conference for students of theatre theory, history and critics was held in Lithuanian music and theatre academy for the first time in the year 2011 with the topic “When theatre talks about theatre”. It gathered a variety of students from different countries to discuss the specifics of meta-theatricality and the theatre itself. The first Conference was organized as a reply to the Theatre students’ Conference in GITIS, Moscow, organized by InUNIT and foreign participants mostly represented Russia and Belarus.

Next year the conference was held under the topic “(Re)vision: Heroism” and represented speakers from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, France, Germany, Russia and Georgia. The aim of the conference is to continue gathering theatre theorists of the youngest generation from different countries and different theatre schools to share personal experiences as well as discuss specific theories and hypothesis. The conference is a platform for contrasting different concepts of under-graduate students.

Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre is providing accommodation, passes to the performances of the Lithuanian Showcase in the festival “Sirenos” and catering for the participants of the conference as well as the invitation for free visas if there is a need.

2013 the Conference was presented as the Lithuanian nominee for the European Charlemagne Youth prize that is brought by the European Parliament together with the International Charlemagne prize fund.  The prize is given to those youth projects that are encouraging understanding and getting to know different points of view of the European Union citizens’. Although, this project is open not only to Europeans, but to the youth all over the world.

The Conference has already been a gateway for several different cultural projects between the theatre students’ who have met in Vilnius, also it helped not only to build new friendships but cultural relations also: people who have met during the first two editions of the Conference have been exchanging information and have already been invited and participated in several different festivals, workshops in different countries and so on.

2014 the Conference was being held at the French Institute, it was moderated by a young Russian theatre critic Alexey Kiselev and it had two guests of honor: the Conference was opened with a lecture by Patrice Pavis and later on had a workshop led by Willmar Sauter.

2015 the Conference is organized by a newly established Lithuanian Theatre Agency. It was held in theatre “Meno fortas” with moderators from Latvia – Zane Kreicberga, Estonia – Ott Karulin and Lithuania – Jurgita Staniškytė. The “ctrl+txt” topic was discussed not only by report presenters from Australia, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia and Germany, but in a discussion with the Hungarian theatre director Arpad Schilling.

In 2016 the Conference was also moderated by Ott Karulin as well as a newly joined Andrew Haydon from the UK. As a well-pointed title “(re)FRESH” denoted, the conference addressed the issue of the fresh theatre, i.e. the young generation of theatre makers and its role in the dynamics of theatrical processes, as well as the demand for new and unique voices among theatre creators. During the three days of the conference, its theme was explored in three different angles: “New Generation: Are they ready to take a stand?”, “Rotation of Ideas: What’s new in new drama?” and “Post-Soviet Block: Quarter of the century of free speech”. What is the relation of young theatre makers with the history of national theatre? Are they turning their backs on the values of the previous ideologies or are they continuing them? Young theatre: is it refreshing or repeating itself? The new theatre they create: are they really making it or are they faking it? How does the voice of the new theatre sound like, does it mutate, do we hear it at all? Do young playwrights bring truly fresh winds, or is it just words, words and more words?