2016 OISTAT Education Meeting Minutes, Seville, Spain

Auditorium Riberas del Guadaira, Seville, Spain
October 21st, 2016 – 1730-1900

Download the minutes in pdf
 

1. Welcome & Introductions by Chair Ian Evans.
   1. Meeting began at 18:00.
   2. Introductions were made around the table to get to know new members.
   3. Presentation of Agenda.
2. Summation of last meeting’s minutes.
   1. All prior meeting minutes are available on the OISTAT website.
   2. Chair Evans summarized the main discussion points especially those that are relevant to future events.
3. Past OISTAT Education Reports to the Executive Council.
   1. Each year the Chair is responsible for providing a report to OISTAT’s Executive Committee to summarize the efforts of the Commission over the past year.
      • Chair Evans summarized the efforts of the report from the year 2013 as an example of what is available from the past 4 years.
      • Chair Evans summarized the current report that has just been supplied to the Executive Council, to bring people up to speed on the current year’s activities.
4. Beijing International Biennale.
   1. Fantastic Project, 27 countries and very many students to the event in 2014.
      • Exhibitions of student work, with prizes,
      • Workshops melding students and faculty from around the world.
      • Organizing for 2016 was going very well, more money was raised, event moved to Tsing Tao to accommodate larger group of attendees.
      • Due to recent political turmoil, Chinese government specified that invitations to attendees from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau were cancelled. Chair Evans, with approval from President Janssen, sent a letter stating that this exclusion is against’ the principles of OISTAT, and that OISTAT would have to pull out. As a result, the event is cancelled for 2016. Hopefully it will occur in 2018.
5. Chair’s report on Executive Council/Governing Board Meetings.
   1. Working groups are dissolved, and there will be new titles and slightly more clear procedures for voting and such.
   2. Cloud group or cloud project – new project that will work across Commissions.
   3. WSD2017 - 13,000 people in Cardiff, hopefully as many coming up in Taipei.
   4. Scenofest will go forward, but there have been some budget issues to iron out.
      • WSD2017 is an exhibition of working professionals and emerging artists.
      • Everything else is Scenofest. Ran for many years with PQ, and moved over to WSD in 2013. Hundreds of performances and other unique events.
   5. PQ Collaboration.
      • This past year’s event collaboration was somewhat strained.
      • New director of PQ is Marketa Fantova, who is also Chair of OISTAT Performance Design.
      • Sean Crowley & Ian Garret – working with PQ to help move things forward.
      • Next PQ event in Lapidarium in Prague in November 2016. Incorporates Lighting Design & it’s effect on spaces and objects.
      • PQ is asking for help in identifying students to be part of the production teams developing the next PQ. These students will work with more students coming up through the pipeline. These students might end up holding very important roles in the organization and operation of the next PQ & WSD.
      • There are also many opportunities for students to volunteer just for the event.
      • WSD 2017 will open applications for volunteers. There aren’t any grants available yet for students to help with travel. Erasmus program now has possibility to get 6 months support to go work in other countries (may be limited to just in Europe).
      • Those not in Erasmus countries should still look at site for outside funding.
   6. Core Strategy Project.
      • Uses students to run projects to find out what OISTAT is, and develop marketing strategies.
      • Group has been developing videos of OISTAT work to be broadcast on a web video platform.
      • Carl Walling is heading up this effort, but needs students to help, and content. Simple films of events are great, but should be from young point of view.
6. Report of Member’s Projects.
   1. Chris van Goethem gave report on Erasmus projects.
      • Official completion date is past, and will be online soon, hopefully.
      • Project ETTA - Developing basic safety training that would be broken into 10 basic competencies. Must show competencies and not just testing in theory, and then these should be accepted across different countries. Second level will deal with more complex training and tracking laws across schools. Third level is for trainers.
      • This brings person back into the core of the safety training as opposed to just listing of laws.
      • Will be open source except for assessment, so that card that is earned has credibility.
      • What are minimum standards for training? Impossible for all trainings to be 100% the same, but perhaps 70% similarity is appropriate. 
        • Using 3 lighting jobs as test subjects to show how evaluations work.
        • Chris would like to collect emails so that he can build database of skills for each project.
   2. Anders reported on visit to Serbia in November last year.
      • Used laser capture system as part of the project.
      • SceneTech website where you can see results. 500,000 Euros raised to put this project on. Publication will be forthcoming about this project.
   3. Portfolio Based Assessment
   4. Chris & Anders will report later on Baroque Machinery.
   5. Chris reported on project to investigate how masters are trained.
      *Meeting ‘paused’ at 1900 to allow delegates to attend a performance in the nearby castle venue.*
      *Meeting resumed 1705 the next day (10/22/17) in a larger room to accommodate the following roundtable.*
7. Aby Cohen presented on E-Scapes in Brazil in August of 2014.
   1. Group Meeting with Performance Design & Education.
   2. In addition to workshops in Sao Paulo, additional workshops were held in Cidade Tiradentes.
   3. Additional visits were made afterwards by Ian Evans to follow up on efforts to train technical and creative personnel.
   4. Every event helps to promote OISTAT, events were held in 2015 & 2016.
   5. Another project occurred this year, involving professionals in 5 theatres belonging to city council. Looking to see if technical training can be offered here. Best place to develop programs is Central Technica because they have many resources.
   6. Important that you create a legacy from the meeting in your country, not just the event itself, but develop long term results.
8. World Stage Design 2017 & Scenofest.
   1. WSD will be over 100 people exhibiting their work from around the world.
   2. Scenofest has become a huge event, and has a great impact. Several small issues will be sorted in the near future.
   3. We need a great deal of effort from the members of the Commission to come up with things to do during the event. We have a deadline a week from Monday. Need to be many small projects, rather than long events. Workshops, round- tables, presentations, whatever you want to do.
   4. At this point, we just need a proposal with subject and rough idea of resources needed.
      • Michael proposed a workshop on Dance Design. Apparently there is a venue that is well prepared for this presentation.
      • These kinds of events are great for recruiting. WSD2017 will be a showcase for world programs to be seen across Asia.
      • OISTAT needs much more participation from new and younger representatives.
      • Scenofest is open to everyone, since many presenters were sneaking into other presentations in the past.
      • Slots are 90 min, 3 hours, or across 2 days, but shouldn’t be longer.
      • Possible to use Skype across WWW to develop the project and then come together for first time. Perhaps find things that the students at your school don’t have exposure to.
      • Encourage your students to volunteer. 40 performances from around the world will be presented and need help. School is equipped with 4-6 spaces and the gear that goes into it; so much of the needed gear might be there. There isn’t any funding to bring gear to the event at this time. Visit WSD2013 and PQ2011 websites for ideas from previous events.
      • Accommodations are off-site and are a short metro ride, and there are some on-campus housing perhaps for volunteers. WSD2017 site is open for registration, and has a timeline for when things will be announced.
9. Membership & Promotion.
   1. Ask not what OISTAT can do for you, but what you can do for OISTAT.
   2. 50 members on our list, but only a core group that is doing the projects. We need more involvement, and help to promote OISTAT across the world.
   3. Chair Evans shared a Certificate issued by Unicamp, a massive college system in Sao Paulo. Great pride is shown by those receiving the certificate, and it is easy to do & generate. This is given weight by OISTAT name, and adds to OISTAT’s name at the same time.
   4. Bring your students to the next meeting!
   5. A discussion followed about the challenges of language issues within workshops, especially in the ones in Brazil. A theatre person who can serve as a translator is critical.
10. Discussion of next meetings & events.
    1. Mexico, Columbia, Australia, Beijing, & Spain all were interested.
    2. Mexico, Columbia, and Australia all have fallen off the list, but Australia may happen in the future. Beijing would have been a great place to hold a meeting in conjunction with BIB, but that fell apart with cancellation of BIB. Georgia has requested to host at some point in the future. USITT will plan to host in 2018 in March in conjunction with our annual tradeshow.
    3. We are looking for someone to host in the future. Doesn’t need to be huge, if it’s just the Education Commission. Can be a fully hosted or partially hosted meeting, depending on fundraising.
    4. Eufrasio Lucena-Muñoz will return to his school to propose a meeting.
    5. When meetings happen during PQ or WSD, attention is split and it’s harder to feel local flavor since the time is flooded by international travellers, but if we hold additional meetings in the same year as a PQ or WSD, then there are cost issues.
    6. Suggestion to hold in Japan in 2020 after the Olympics for the Commission.
    7. Also there is a possible offer from the Philippines, but might not be right away.
11. Roundtable.
    1. We will have a session immediately after this meeting to hear about how theatre training occurs here in Spain. Follow-up to similar event in Sao Paulo.
12. Election of New Chair.
    1. Ian will stand down now that his term is concluded.
    2. Wan-Jung stood to explain process for election for new Commission.
    3. Due to Markku stepping down from the election, William was voted in unanimously.
13. Final words from the Chair.
    1. Ian offered several remarks in conclusion.
    2. William appointed Anders as Vice Chair.
14. Conclusion.
    1. At the previous meeting in Prague, a request was made for a paper agenda and a visual presentation, but we have decided to instead send out the visual presentation to all attendees so that they may have the pictures and web links for the future promotion of OISTAT.

The meeting concluded at 1830.

Respectfully Submitted by Vice-Chair William Kenyon.

Please direct any comments or corrections to Prof. Kenyon at wck10@psu.edu.