General assembly Lisbon 2017 report

EURODRAM

ANNUAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY

LISBON September 2017

Attending coordinators : Gilles Boulan (French), Lilach Dekel (Hebrew), Gergana Dimitrova (Bulgarian), Dominique Dolmieu (general coordination), Amin Elsaleh (Arabic), Andreas Flourakis (Greek), Sarah Grochala (English), Maria Joao Vicente (Portuguese), Tiana Krivokapic (BCMSerbian), Anna Lengyel (Hungarian), Jeton Neziraj (Albanian), Frédéric Sicamois (Italian), Hakan Silahsizoglu (Turkish), Ulrike Syha (German).

Other attending members : Wolfgang Barth, Henning Bochert, Nicole Desjardins, Nohar Lazarovitch, Nuno M. Cardoso, Carolina Mano, Alexandra Moreira Da Silva, Veselana X.

Absents : Iva Brdar (BCMSerbian), David Campora (Catalan), Ivan Dodovski (Macedonian), Sedef Ecer (Turkish), Laure Hinckel (Rumanian), Bleuenn Isambard (Russian), Kim Komljanec (Slovenian), Katrin Hrusanova (Bulgarian), Neda Nejdana (Ukrainian), Frosa Pejoska (Macedonian), Nikolay Rudkovski (Belarussian), Zohar Wexler (Hebrew).

WELCOMING

22 members from 13 committees are present in this GA.

Maria gives a few welcoming words and introduce the programm to the participants.

(summary of the programm)

The GA a strong and moved thought about Fadwa Suleimane, a Syrian member of the Arabic committee, a friend of MEO, a very famous actress and activist of the revolution, who recently died in Paris at the age of 42.

The press conference is finaly reduced to an interview of Maria and Dominique, about all journalists being very busy with the running election in Portugal.

SELECTIONS

338 texts in translation have circulated for the last session. 14 committees have been able to delivery a selection.

The selections are shortly described for Albanian, BCMSerbian, Bulgarian, English, French, German, Hebrew, Portuguese and Turkish. Dominique doesn’t know where is the solution to avoid a too long session like it was lastly in Istanbul, but regrets the synopsis of the selected texts couldn’t be more shared between Eurodram members and Portuguese members. Congratulations to Stéphane who collected them – we’ll need them anyhow for the new website.

The BCMSerbian and English committees invited the translators of the short-listed plays to join, what is an excellent initiative, and should be extended to all committees.

The German committee kept the criteria of unstaged and unpublished texts for the selection, what was also adopted by the BCMS and Hebew committees. At the opposite the French committee accepts only plays that have been recommended by one of the committee member or by another French-speaking committee (out of Eurodram).

It is reminded that it is necessary to have the authorization of the playwright and the translator to submit the play. When possible, it is also good to ask them to give basic information (summary,..) at this step of the process. They can also be asked, depending the situation of each committee, to give their autorisation for a public reading if they are selected.

Dominique asks why some plays have been translated in Turkish from their English translation and not from the original. Hakan answers that was because there was no other choice, as there were no translators able to do the job. Ulrike mentions she had similar problems for German, but the concerned texts have been taken off from the selection process.

English and BCMSerbian committees also used anonymous readings (not mentionning the name of the playwright). This is very good, but it makes the resources sharing (benefit of readings made in another frame) quite difficult… If some members previously read plays out of the committee, and if the submission is anonymous in the committee, the member can’t use his/her previous readings for the committee.

Dominique asks all coordinators to send him (again) the stats of texts origins (how many plays from which languages they have received).

STATE OF THE NETWORK

(Below between parenthesis the achievements of the duties & goals : recent renewal of the committee, translation of the rules, translation of the committee webpage, participation to Creative Europe application, spreading of the call for texts an readers, number of texts collected, running of a festival, running of a blog, presence to the GA, delivery of a selection, promotion of the selections, number of members. The average achievment is 60%.)

The networks now counts on 274 members organised in 23 committees.

العَرَبيّة / Arabic – Amin Elsaleh

Amin tells about the Arabic selection, but Dominique says the selection is not agreed as only a single play has been submitted, and as it arrives much too lately. Amin reminds it is not so easy to work without money for so may Arabic country, and says he is going to focus especially on Egypt this coming session. He has tried to forward a few Arabic plays translated into other languages, but it has appeared some of them have been translated via Google translate, what of course can’t be acceptable, and that the others never reached the coordinator of the concerned languages.

Dominique says that strong efforts must be done to make the Arabic committee working in a better way. Other board members agrees, confirm that all committees are working with the same conditions, that no texts can’t be received if the call is not sent to Arabic medias and professionnals organizations, and that no funds can be raised if no application nor contact are done.

Dominique reminds that the double coordinations work in a good way and that it is now absolutely necessary for the Arabic committee. Gilles proposes to accompany Amin before this happens, and Lilach proposes to look for new members in the Arabic community in Israel, among which a second coordinator could be found.

Amin says he will try to organize an event in the Alexandria library in 2018, with the help of Maria for the contact.

Белорусский / Belarussian – Nikolay Rudkovski

Dominique says that Nikolay announced that Alexander Marchanka will come to Lisbon, but unfortunately there has not been any more news. Dominique says he discovered indeed that Alexander went to Avignon festival but didn’t contact anyone previously, what is a pity as Dominique was also at the festival and that they could have met. Hakan will try to find new members.

BHCSrpski / Српски / BCMSerbian – Iva Brdar & Tiana Krivokapic

Tiana says that considering the present political situation, about only amateur theatre can be contacted in Serbia at the present time, and that she has a good contact with a theatre where an event could be organized. Dominique says a connexion could be tried with the BITEF teatar in Belgrade but Jeton says the director has changed and that it is not worth it anymore. Tiana is also developing the committee in Bosnia, Croatia and Montenegro. Different works are now on the run, and she could find a book of 3 portuguese plays translated in BCMSerbian. The Serbian ministry of Culture has supported her travel to Lisbon.

български / Bulgarian – Gergana Dimitrova & Katrin Hrusanova

Gergana says the activity was a bit lower this year but it shouldn’t last. Unfortunately quite a few texts were submitted this year. Gergana is now focusing on fundraising for next session and to organise a meeting in Sofia on Spring 2018. She has to submit its application before 2nd of October. An anthology of Portuguese plays in Bulgarian has been published a few years ago. There might be a change soon in the coordination as Katrin seems to have new obligations. Last Protext festival of 36 Monkeys was a bit reduced this year too but went on well. Next session of the festival will concern both original and translated texts and will be held in February or May.

Català / Catalan – David Campora

Dominique says he hopes the talks with David are going to restart again. Gilles and Hakan will try to reach the Sala Beckett in Barcelona, and Andreas a friend of him there that could help.

Deutsch / German – Ulrike Syha

Ulrike tells that by random the German committee had a whole Balkanic selection this year. The grant of the Deutscher Literaturfonds is on its last year, for different reasons. The festivals in Theatre Drachengasse in Vienna (April) and in TG7 in Manheim (June) went on very well. There will be events next year again in Drachengasse, and maybe also in Leipzig. Ulrike still believes it is better for the German committee not to have too many members.

Ελληνικά / Greek – Andréas Flourakis

Andreas says the selections are very helpful to have the plays produced in Greece, what is really great. The medias made good reports of the selections. A new trend is running in the country about Spanish drama, in a good part thanks to the huge work of Maria Chatzemanouil. There has been some questions about how to evaluate the quality of the submitted translations, but referent professionals have been found. The economic situation makes that it is definitively impossible to get grant in Greece. Anyhow different projects of publishing are on the run.

The priority for Andreas this next year is to organize some playwriting workshops and he sends a call to the other coordinators who could be interested or have ideas how to help in this direction. He didn’t find anything about Portuguese drama in Greek. Unfortunately no readings could be organized this year, but he hopes to be able to do something for next year with WIP theatre and with new transations.

The GA expresses its special congratulations to Andreas for the success of the translations of his texts.

English – Sarah Grochala

Sarah says it was quite difficult to participate to the EU application because of the Brexit of course but more because it was quite uneasy to involve the university, in terms of administrative needs. The specific role of the English language make things not always very simple, in general drama in translation is something that concerns more big productions, and the public reading is not something so common. An application for a grant is on the run with a British publisher. She will soon continue to recrute new members and try to find more partners with/where to organize an event nextly.

Español / Spanish – looking for a coordinator

Dominique says that unfortunatey Simon Breden has resigned. He sent a message to the committee to find someone to take over but there was no volunteer. Maria will see if she can do something in this direction.

Français / French – Gilles Boulan

Gilles says the committee was recently renwed in part, and counts now several publishers. Some things are now less easy than before as the Maison d’Europe et d’Orient recently closed its venue in Paris. The selection meeting was hosted by SACD (Société des auteurs et compositeurs dramatiques). The festival l’Europe des théâtres happened in another theatre but was less successful as MEO budgets have been reduced to their third, and publicity was not sufficient. Gilles says it is quite difficult to make promotion of the selection in medias as most of these ones only cares about institutions, but he succeeded to promote it among professionnal networks. He will ask for some help in this direction for the next session, and should find a second coordinator to help him with English and for the blog. Lots of Portuguese drama have been translated and published in French. The Maison Jean-Monnet agreed to help for one translation stipend but a think tank is still on the run to see how it could be used in the best way. A meeting will soon be hold with Dominique and Laurent Muhleisen from the Maison Antoine Vitez to try to agree about basic & mutual things that could be done between the two structures. Dominique also says he tried to make connections with Theatre Ouvert in Paris, a member of Fabula Mundi project, but that they refused. Dominique thanks the French ministry of Culture (DGLFLF) for its support.

עִבְרִית / Hebrew – Lilach Dekel & Zohar Wexler

The members webpage should be translated as soon as possible and the links of the promotion of the selections sent to Dominique.

Lilach says the Hebrew committee was selecting only women playwritings this last session. Dominique said it was ok as an exception, for one year, but this can’t be done again. There has been a lot of German play as there just has been a German season in Israel. As in many other countries the committee has to deal with an inappropriate ministry of Culture, but also there the fact that most of translations are English classics or goes with big commercial productions, and that a lot of artists are doing self-censureship because of the political situation. It is also not very used to have readings of translations. The committee keeps on building itself, slowly but surely, what is actually a need, and also decided to share the different tasks (communication,…) among the members, what is of course a very good idea. No texts translated from Portuguese seen.

Italiano / Italian – Erica Faccioli & Stéphane Resche

Frédéric says the works with the PUM (Presses universitaires du Midi) continues in the best possible way. A text from 2016 selection translated by Stéphane and Frederic had 4 readings last year, one of them at La Mousson d’Eté in Nancy, a partner of the Fabula Mundi program. Nevertheless Stéphane is a bit disappointed by the very little mention of the work of Eurodram in the case. In the beginning of 2018 a book will be published by an important Italian theatre publishing house with the 3 translated text of the 2017 selection. One of the play (Macmillan) was already on stage in Italy before selection and continues on its tour. The committee has now an Internet site/blog. Dominique says again that the Italian committee might be too French oriented, but Frédéric answers the committee is working in the way to change this, with first successes. An italian theatre is still to be found to create an event, but projects are planned with Tino Caspanello in Sicilia, Dracma in Calabria, and Andrea Naso from Sanita theatre (April).

Magyar / Hungarian – Anna Lengyel

Anna has had major health issue this year and could arrive only lately to the GA. The board keeps hope that things will be soon back on the run as Anna wants to propose to organize the 2019 GA in Budapest. But a lot of work is obviously to be done yet : translation of the rules in Hungarian, promotion of the call, delivery of a selection, promotion of the whole selections of the network, organisation of an event, recruitment of new members (only 4 at the moment..). She will try to organise an event on 2018.

Mакедонски / Macedonian – Ivan Dodoski & Frosa Pejoska

Dominique says he succeeded to convince Frosa and Ivan to coordinate the committee together, what is an excellent news. But obviously they will need help as a lot of work is still to be done there also. Veselana will try to help to find new members, and any tracks to translators from or into Macedonian are welcomed. Alexandre Sitzmann could also be invited to join.

Polski / Polish – looking for a coordinator

Dominique says he still has to talk with the 5 members left of the Polish committee and see if anything could be done, but that involving Dialog would obviously be a very good solution. Sarah will try to help to find new members.

Português / Portuguese – Maria Joao Vicente

Maria says they involved the national theatre of Porto (so an institution + a structure out of the capital city), to moderate a debate about theatre and translation. They involved universities, both in Portugal and abroad, to find translators to work on the selected texts, experts to participate to the talks, and young actors for the readings – and all actors and transators have been paid. They involved a radio station to broadcast extracts of different plays, the radio is also available in the Portuguese speaking countries in Africa, and it should be done again with the next session selections. This Depois Babel first session festical will be organized again next year.

Română / Romanian – Laure Hinckel

Dominique says Laure is doing a very good job and permitted the network to keep a Rumanian committee alive, but she doesn’t live in Rumania and is not so much involved in theatre matters. So it would be good to have someone in Rumania for a double coordination. Maria and Carolina will help to find new members.

Русский / Russian – Bleuenn Isambard

Dominique says Bleuenn, as Anna, also had private important priorities this year and couldn’t come to the GA. He also says that Bleuenn, as Laure, is doing a very good job but doesn’t live in Russia, so another coordinator based in Russia is absolutely necessary, especially as Russian members are not very active.

Shqip / Albanian – Jeton Neziraj

Jeton says that they organized a Balkanic program this previous year, in Kosovo and Albania, with stipends for translations and a published book, and will continue on the coming year, in Tirana, and maybe also in link with Polip Literature festival from Qendra Multimedia. A renewal of the members will soon come, as some of them don’t react anymore. Jeton says contacts with medias are quite easy, they always promote the selections. Some translations are produced but it is mostly, as in many other countries, bad popular comedies from America. No connexion known with Portuguese.

Slovenščina / Slovenian – Kim Komljanec

Dominique says Urska Brodar told him she had prepared many new contacts, and prepared the ground to let Kim take over the coordination. First step remains to translate the rules into Slovenian, what should already been done at the present time.

Türkçe / Turkish – Sedef Ecer & Hakan Silahsizoglu

Hakan says the committee is about half active. He sent the selections to newspapers but none published them. Projects for a reading festival is on the run with the theatres of Eskisehir, Bursa and Antalya. There are about a hundred of translations performed every year in Istanbul but most of them concern classical texts or reprises. Concerning the selected plays, they had already been produced at the time of the selections, so it was not possible to mention Eurodram. There are probably not translations of Portuguese drama.

Українська / Ukrainian – Neda Nejdana

The GA deeply regrets that Neda finally couldn’t come, as she didn’t find the money to pay for the travel. Unfortunately none could help as we learnt it only a fews days before the meeting. Dominique says that Neda told him the economic & cultural situation was getting worst and worst in Ukraine, and as main running project was the anthology into French, that has been delayed many times because of the same problems happening to MEO, members feel quite hopeless and depressed at the present time. But as one of the texts just won one of the main French price for translations, we hope this will be the sign of a new start.

OTHER LANGUAGES

The committe of correspondants still gathers

Հայերեն / Armenian – Anaïd Donabédian

Языки Кавказа / Caucasian Languages – Bernard Outtier

ქართულიენა / Georgian – Mariam Kveselava

Kоми / Komi – Sébastien Cagnoli

Latviešu / Latvian – Anna Zvaigzne

Persian / فارسی – Liliane Anjo

Rromani – Marcel Courthiades

Serbšćina / Sorabian – Jean Kudela

There are still no committees nor correspondants for

Azərbaycanca / Azeri

Čeština / Czech

Dansk / Danish

Eesti / Estonian

Íslenska / Icelandic

Kurdî / کوردی / Kurdish

Lietuvių / Lithuanian

Nederlands / Dutch

Norsk / Norwegian

Slovenčina / Slovakian

Suomi / Finnish

Svenska / Swedish

ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵜ / Tamazight

Hakan is about to suceed to re-start a Danish committee.

Ulrike will try to help with Armenian and Persian.

Andreas and Sarah will try to help with Persian too.

Ulrike and Gilles will try to help with Icelandic.

Nicole gives the contact of a Norwegian artist that seems to be already interested in.

Amin gives the name of a Tamazight speaking playwright.

And here and there coordinators are proposing to recommend new members to different committees, what is also very good.

Dominique says he will –as far as enough time can be found- contact each coordinator to evaluate how is the balance between youngsters/elders, men/women, etc.

Frédéric and Tiana say they will do the same for available languages inside each of the committees.

Dominique reminds that a committee should be divided by half between experts of the concerned language drama, and translators ; and that it should be a translator to or from all other languages, that is about 25. So a committee should be about 50 people… But that is an utopia, and of course he understands that the network has to adapt to each local situation, but he would like this tendancy to be followed as far as possible.

INTERNAL COMMUNICATION

Dominique reminds the coordinators to check twice if the message they want to send does concern all coordinators, or a majority of them, before to send it on the coordination list, to avoid spamming.

Dominique asks not to copy the adress of the general coordination ( -me) when you write to the coordination list or to your committee. Of course he is subscribed to all lists, so he receives it twice. Dominique also asks, as far as possible, to gather new memberships in the same committee and to respect the procedure described at http://sildav.org/component/content/article/502

Ulrike says she would like to develop office/google tools and items. Dominique says of course it would be great but that it obviously needs pedagogy, as most of coordinators are not so familiar with such things.

Jeton and Ulrike asks the coordinators to mention what the message(s) they forward on the list is about, especially if it is not in English.

Ulrike asks if it would be possible to have eurodram.org adresses instead of sildav.org actual ones. Dominique says we would have to pay for it and is not sure if lists can be done with wordpress. He will check and tell the board.

A website email group will be soon created. Please let Dominique know if you wish to be subscribed on it.

EXTERNAL COMMUNICATION / PUBLICITY

Maria and Carolina will contact Beatriz Cabur to see if they could write a new article for Theatre Times.

Dominique will forward the call on The Fence page and says that MEO will pay to promote the call on Facebook.

Ulrike will contact ITI (International theatre institute) and On the move to see if they can send the call in a next newletter.

Hakan will contact EUNIC for the same thing.

The call for 2018 session for translations can be promoted when the coordinators want. The coordinators must send the links to Dominique, who will share them on the website & the facebook Eurodram page.

There has been talks about making simple & short videos (for example with phones, but subtitled) videos to post on facebook, and about a proposal of app by Stéphane Resche. It seems things have to be tried or more documented if we want to go ahead. Its needs attractivity, accessability, and to solve the copyright issues. Tiana tried the videos with Retors but it was not so successful. Henning also tried a kind of library with Dramapanorama but finally also renounced.

WEBSITE

Dominique has created a first draft that is already online and can be seen at eurodram.org. He reminds it is a draft and not a definitive version, that all comments and help are welcome. He also reminds that its address must not be communicated before its official launching, planned for next Spring.

Dominique reminds that there won’t be any webmastering (even if he will still manage to make it working), and so the website is mostly en empty shell, redirecting menus and tabs with links to each committee blogs.

That makes a bit necessary for each committee to have a blog, and not to change the adresses of the basic links (homepage, rules, members, selections). For example if a committee is renewed, you must not create a new article called « committee2018 », but modify the usual page. If not the link will be broken and Dominique will have to do it again.

The tabs of the menu will lead to a list of languages (and probably years for the selections), linked with the committes blog pages. It is agreed that the menu language will be in English, and that language headlines will be mentionned both in the original language and in English.

It is agreed to separate active languages (having a committee) from others. But it is necessary to keep passive languages to advertise that we are looking for coordinators for them. Then the menu will be :

ARTICLES

The home page will show any last article from all committee blogs, in their language, with a « click to read more » link and a list of the few previous ones. A technical help might be required there. There will also be of course an article tab with the list of previous articles.

ABOUT US

Dominique will re-send the short text for the « About us » section to the board to be agreed. As an exception the English version will be directly visible, and the usual list of languages will follow.

CALLS

If a committee doesn’t want to let the call visible, it should not hide the page, but find an alternative solution like announcing clearly the date of the calls at the head of the page. If not, the link won’t work and people will believe the committee doesn’t work.

RULES

At the head of the page, in English, it will be reminded that there are few differences between each committees so it is needed to have the look to the concerned language – with the usual list below.

COMMITTEE MEMBERS

At the head of the page there will be a link to a board page with its members. Dominique insists to keep a list of the names of former members at the bottom of the page – this is a part of the history of the network that shouldn’t be erased.

PARTNERS

There will be a « Partner » page, so every coordinator is asked to send the logos and names of their partners as soon as they can.

LIBRARY

Of course, this is the main, there will be a library with the synopsis of the texts and a few more information (extracts, when it is possible, and a few other things). Each coordinator will have to fill a form and send it directly to the system, that will include it directly in the library. A technical help might be required there.

Dominique insist to have the synopsis of the selected in as many languages as possible, not only in English. For example, from his own experience and the concrete tests he has done, he can assure that about half of the French directors doesn’t have a sufficient knowledge to understand a synopsis in English. At least, it is rather easy to ask the translators of your committee. A special focus should be done on Hebrew (see below).

FUNDRAISING

Dominique says the application for Creative Europe was refused and you will find the official feedback at the end of the report. it was not possible to apply again as they were no time nor money enough to do it. Anyhow Ulrike could get a very interesting analysis of our previous application from the Austrian agency « Enter », of which you will also find the summary at the end of the report.

Hakan talks about Erasmus plus and will collect more information to share. But it already seems that it concerns only a part of the EU countries et has obviously to involve young people. He will send more information.

Ulrike tells she has a next meeting with Übersetzerfonds, the translators fund supported by the Robert Bosch foundation, and her hope to convince them to support the network. She also has contacts with the new TOLEDO program, also supported by RBS, concerning cultural exchanges and translations, with private funders and the ministry of Culture in Hamburg.

The option of crowdfunding is on the table but it is agreed this is something more proper to each committee.

Dominique says MEO just got the French financial agreement of « general interest » that allows donators to spare 2/3 of their taxes in France.

There are talks about various possibilities of grants, especially for mobility and translation stipends. Anna will compil a list of possibilities grant (to be included in the website).

ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANISATION

The board has been partly renewed. To remind you, board members are proposed by the general coordination among the third of the committees doing the most active and complete work, plus the one that is organizing the next GA.

All committees are asked to create an NGO or if not to find a solid registred partner to work with. Andreas says that creating an NGO is about impossible in Greece, as they have to pay about 600 € each month for taxes…

The board will create an NGO for general Eurodram. The question remains where to do it : in France, as there is the general coordination and the history of the network, or in Germany, who is the leading country for economy and theatre in Europe, or in Belgium, to be closer of other European institutions and networks, or in Luxemburg, where there might be some better economic conditions. The board members will try to get more information before to take a decision.

In the case where the federative NGO is created, the other committees will be the members (not the people themselves). There will be a membership fee to pay, but it can be like one euro per year.

2018 GENERAL ASSEMBLY

Lilach proposes to organize the 2018 GA in Tel Aviv, in the frame of the Tuna festival, the 70th birthday of the Israeli State and the French season in Israel.

She had a meeting with the direction for Culture in the ministry of Foreign Affairs and they are ready to support the event. She had initially planned to organize the festival in Acco but the ministry of Culture wrecked the festival there. At the present time the Goethe institute also agrees to support and there will also be stipends to translate 5 Israeli plays into French. Lilach also made an application to the Lotery foundation. Anyhow she says that it is already possible to organize it even with the low budget from the ministry of Foreign Affairs, and that the answers for a bigger budget will arrive between March and July. Each coordinator will have to contact directly the embassies of the countries of their language, concerning the travels. Dominique asks to give a special attention to the French institute, as many coordinators are still based in France.

The TUNA festival lasts 3 weeks in Octobre, during which 5 days could be dedicated to the GA. Sarah reminds to pay attention of universities opening dates. Lilach asks each coordinators to send her their (im)possibilities for October as soon as possible.

She would like to organize a presentation of the selected plays in front of the audience – knowing we will have to find the way to do it in a good way, a show case of Israeli plays with English subtitles. She would also like to organize workshops with coordinators ; whenever someone is interested please get in touch with her. Speed datings could also be possible.

Each coordinator and members wishing to come will have to send their biography, a photo and a copy of their passport, before the end of 2017. They will have to mention if they ever visited an Arab country. They will have to sign a document engaging themselves not to visit the Palestinian territories during the journey. This is quite important for Lilach as they will have a lot of problems if this engagement is not respected. They will receive an official invitation of the ministry of Foreign Affairs that will permit them to avoid a 5 hours talk with the Israeli police.

Lilach says Arab members will of course be welcomed with a special attention, and informs that there is a possibility to prevent anyone from photos.

Gergana says it might be better to concentrate the 36 Monkeys Spring event to something than a GA, and Anna prefers to postpone her proposal of a GA in Budapest to 2019. Gergana will ask which coordinator like to come and on which dates.

The decision is submitted to a vote of the coordinators, that says 13 for, 1 against. So 2018 GA will be in Tel Aviv.

Dominique asks the coordinators to start as soon as possible to recruite translators in or from Hebrew in their committee and try to find resources of previously translated texts. He also reminds them that they can forward the next GA advertisement to their committee members so they could also come if they can/like.

OTHER MATTERS

There are talks about the idea of an annual Eurodram price. It would be strange for a translation network to give it to a playwright but it might be quite difficult to appreciate a translation if you don’t speak the language… Indeed there are too many different points of view so it seems to be better to think more about it.

Maria says Teatro da Garagem is a sub-member of PEARL, an NGO who tries to fight against the liberal/capitalism of the EU, and will contact them to see what could be done together.

There has been talks about the duties of the coordinator (more info ?).

There are problems –for some time- with the fact that coordinators or members of committees could be selected –by themselves. It seems the previous rule about it is not sufficient. The last idea about it seems to be that committee members can be selected only once, or should have to wait for one, two or three selections before to be eligible again. This could also be extended to all playwrights and translators. But there has not been time enough to talk about it, so the board will keep on talking about it and propose a final decision to the coordinators.

Dominique still would like to work on its project concerning history of drama in translation, but didn’t find the serious wikipedist needed yet – any help welcome. He would also like to have a sort of a scan of the concrete results of the Eurodram works

TO CONCLUDE

The Eurodram 2017 GA has been amazed by the very gentle welcoming, the perfect organisation and the exemplarity of the activities proposed by Maria and Carolina. The GA deeply thanks and highly congratulate both of them.

The board sees the activity is in development and congratulates all coordinators for their work, all members for their readings and feedbacks, all playwrighs and tranlators for their participation. It believes the network is a nice contribution to linguistic diversity for drama in translation and for the circulation of playwriting in Europe and its neighbourhood. It send all best wishes for the coming session.

This report will be sent to all members of the network.

ANNEX : FEEDBACK FROM ENTER AGENCY VIA ULRIKE

– The main problem of our application is that we are a network that needs money to sustain itself. So we applied for structural funding without admitting it and they could easily tell that we are actually applying for money to make the network work. Structural funding is what we need and it is more or less the opposite of what Creative Europe has on offer. So in a future application we would have to hide that fact significantly better.

– The second problem is the language. He says the language is much too empathic and emotional. It gets carried away by our (just) belief in our own project. He says that is very often the case with applications in the cultural sector. What we need is a much „drier“, neutral language, completely emotionless, no philosophy involved. He says it is a well-written application for someone who has not done it before but it is not the kind of language the evaluators understand or want to hear. They might not even have finished reading it. Especially the parts about finances etc. do not sound convincing and would need to be done by a pro.

– Also, there seem to be too many „voices“ in the application; the evaluators prefer an application written by one author. He says it does not sound coherent enough because there are too many different styles involved. It is also slightly too long (an evaluator would have about 2 hours to read and evaluate it).

– 66 points is not a good result, more a polite result. He says the number does not mean anything really because the evaluator already knew that we had no chance to get funding. So it did not matter to him if he gave 50 or 66 points. So a lot of improvement would be necessary – but it is not impossible, from Dr. Schwaiger’s point of view. Especially since the evaluators change every year.

– We might need at least one or two more partners, our group is a bit too small. (He does not count the small cooperations, only the main partners.) One bigger institution would be good. We need to explain better WHY we chose our partners (the fact that we all happen to be part of the same network does not count). What is the exact benefit of having this and that organization in, say, Germany – and not another one?

– It is not clear enough what makes our project unique and INNOVATIVE. Innovation is the key word. What is the brand-new thing about our proposal ? They understand Creative Europe as a kind of start-up financing (no structural funding intended!). It remains unclear in our project proposal how this is going to be turned into an economically working network within two years.

– There are too many graphics in the application. The evaluator would want it much simpler and much more concrete. What? Where? Why? Who? In very neutral and simple words.

– We can apply for an innovative, experimental project that is a TRY-OUT though. In that case it would not have to be able to sustain itself within two years – but we would need to be much more experimental. Try out something really weird, a flashy experiment, something that sounds a bit crazy… A combination with other sectors might be helpful (for example science).

– We would have to pay exact attention to the new keywords in the new call. They might sound as if they have only slightly changed – but the change could mean something significant in the bureaucratic world.

– ENTER could offer us a complete rewrite (starting early September). They say they prefer to offer a full package (they write the text, they do the budget etc.) and we only add material and thoughts. They have a good record of granted applications and have worked as evaluators themselves before. They say they would usually take 5.000 Euro for the complete package, plus a bonus of 2.000 Euro if the application is successful. That would cover all expenses between start and application submission in November.