(Re)Connected – Audience Participation Using the Examples of Supporters Clubs, Funding Associations, Visitor Organizations and Audience Structures

Audience organizations are exciting examples for cultural communication when it comes to community building and the involvement of different people in cultural life. They get their members excited about culture and offer them a comprehensive service by, for example, offering childcare during the performance or help for senior citizens. They organize single nights and support people in difficult financial situations with discounted admission to museums, theaters, cinemas and concerts. They offer hikes and cultural trips, provide invitations to open discussions, preserve historical theatrical documents and make these accessible.
 
Members of various initiatives for audiences provide insight into the current praxis and demonstrate how they build relationships with their members and the options for participation that they offer to them. Presentations by artists and culture makers from the independent theater and dance communities using the examples of (established as well as newly created) welcome centers, workshops, clubs as well as flexible community projects show how their involve their audience in the theatrical work beyond attending the performance, the spaces for engagement and interaction they create as well as who encounters whom here and how.

In a work group as well as in a practical workshop, we will discuss new places for interactions between people and art and explore the question of what models for supporters clubs and audience organizations look like within the  independent performing arts community and how they can more present within the independent performing arts community. Please decide in advance which of the two workshops (please see the schedule of events) you would like to attend and communicate this to us as part of your registration.

Guests: Dr. Vera Allmanritter (Institut für Kulturelle Teilhabeforschung, IKTF, Institute for Cultural Participation Research), Nicole Hummel (Theater Thikwa & Thikwa Werkstatt), Benjamin Melzer (PACT Zollverein & Die WerkStadt), Maria Kipp (Tentaja Soziale GmbH), Marianne Fritz and Dr. Sarah Gentrup (Schaubude Berlin), Dr. Sybille Wolff (Silbernetz e.V.), Cornelia Hinterschuster, Stella Konstantinou, Yasmine Salimi and Volkan Türeli (Akademie „Kunst & Begegnungen“ des Bündnisses internationaler Produktionshäuser e.V., Alliance of International Production Institutions), Dr. Beatrice Miersch (voluntary director of the museum funding association Stoberkreis – Freunde der Nationalgalerie).

Schedule of Program

Information About Digital Access: The symposium will take place digitally using the data protection compliant software ecosero. It is not necessary to download a software in order to participate. There will be a short technical introduction at the beginning of the event. We will send you a link with the access information and a brief set of instructions for the technical usage after you register. You can find the digital schedule of programming at: https://pap-berlin.de/de/event/fachtag-kulturvermittlung-publikumsforschung

From 9:30 am Arrival & technical introduction

10:00 am Welcome: Janina Benduski (Program Direktor LAFT Berlin), Swetlana Gorich & Susanne Chrudina (Performing Arts Program Berlin)
 
10:15 am Start of the Day
Keynote speech from scholarship and research: Participation Through Community Building – Making, Maintaining and Expanding a Connection to the Audience.
Dr. Vera Allmanritter (Institut für Kulturelle Teilhabeforschung, IKTF, the Institute for Cultural Participation Research)

Afterwards: Time for questions, discussion & break10:50 am A Look at Praxis I

Artists, performances venues, initiatives, audience organizations and additional participants will provide insight into their praxis and explore the topics of the symposium in short contributions.

• Satellite in Urban Space - Mobile Laboratory and Meeting Place for Residents, Local Figures and Artists: Benjamin Melzer (WerkStadt of PACT Zollverein)
• #letsjusttalk – Telephone Conversations to Fight Against Loneliness in Old Age: Dr. Sibylle Wolff (Silbernetz e.V.)
• Strengthening Society Through Interactions: Maria Kipp (Tentaja Soziale GmbH)

Afterwards: Time for questions, discussion & break

11:40 am A Look at Praxis II

• Theater Audience Associations – Cultural Services Between Communication, Education, Engagement and Inspiration: Michael Grill (managing director of Theatergemeinde e.V Münich, the theater audience association in Munich, representative of the board of Bundes der Theatergemeinden, the Federation of Theater Audience Associations)
• Thikwa Werkstatt – A Vibrant Social Laboratory and a Place for Art, People and Experimentation: Nicole Hummel (artistic co-director of Theater Thikwa)
• Friends of Contemporary Figure and Object Theater: Marianne Fritz and Dr. Sarah Gentrup (Freundeskreis, or group of supporters, as an initiative of Fördervereins der Schaubude Berlin e.V., the association founded to support Schaubude Berlin)

Afterwards: Time for questions, discussion

12:30 pm – 1:30 pm Lunch Break

1:30 pm – 3:00 pm Parallel Work Group & Workshop (please decided which workshop you would like to attend and communicate this to us as part of your registration)

• Work Group “Art and Encounters”: With the academy Kunst & Begegnungen (Art & Encounters), the Bündnis internationaler Produktionshäuser e.V (the federal association of international producing institutions) seeks to create an open platform for exchange and for coming to terms with the “practices of encounters” in the independent performing arts. Cornelia Hinterschuster, Stella Konstantinou, Yasmine Salimi and Volkan Türeli will present the ideas and plans of the newly created academy and invite all interested parties to join a digital think tank to reflect upon the various dimensions of taking part and participation in the independent performing arts and upon encounters between human beings and art as well as to discuss strategies of social interaction.
   
• Workshop How To “Friends Of” How can we sustainably shape our relationships with our audiences? What motivates us to rethink these relationships and imagine them differently? Dr. Beatrice Miersch (voluntary director of the museum funding association Stoberkreis – Freunde der Nationalgalerie) will present the funding association Friends of the Nationalgalerie. She will speak about the motivation for funding a friends of funding association, about the possible goals that friends of associations can set and, proceeding from these goals, how a friends of funding association can be set up and designed. With her workshop, she provides an invitation to reflect upon the relationships with our audiences and to think about models for friends of funding associations.

3:00 pm – 3:30 pm: Break

3:30 pm Reports from the Work Groups & Closing Event
To close out the day, impulses from the work group and the workshop will be shared with each other. Together, we will look back on the day and envision different visions for other forms of encounters. We invite those attending the symposium to take part in the future plans for the Berlin Performing Arts Program and to reflect upon the creation of a mutual friends of funding association for the independent performing arts community.