Report on Teater Patraskets workshop with Figurszzler Teater Kompany in Mardin,
august 2008

Dirck Barker

This is a little report on my visit and workshop in Mardin from the 24th to the 30th of august 2008

Premices:

As you know, the project was a result of Teater Patraskets presence at the Bursa festival in 2007, where contacts were established between Ubeydullah Olam from Figursuzler and me.
We agreed to work on a cooperation project that could give Figursuzler some theatrical inspiration from outside Turkey.

After some time of consideration, I made an application for the Danish Art Counsil on the idea of a one week workshop and pilotproject - and was pleased to get the funding, covering both travel expences and a salary.
On behalf of Turkish Assitej, Tülin and Beliz coordinated my contacts to the group and arranged the presence of a translater during the week.

The purpose of my workshop was:
- to give inspiration to the group, presenting some of the experience and work principles of Teater Patrasket. This with an intend of openness and looking for possibilities of cultural exchange.
- to establish network and research in the possiblities of a longer and bigger cooperation project, creating a performance with the group in the future.


Practical matters:

All the practical details around my visit were well prepared and taken care of.
From arrival to departure I was carefully sought for by the leading members of the group, Ubeydullah Olam, Servet Demirel and Servets brother Lezkin. The latter is not usually part of the group, but is a bright young man with a very good english.
I felt imidiately very good in their company, and we shared mutual values and humour.
The group had arranged my accomodation with help from municipality and my food with local private sponsorship (in fact a very nice restaurant).
Baris was present as translater and did a good job to make the communication flow across the language barriere, and even Lezkin was able to translate.

The workshop:

The workshop was held in a Youth Culture House, where the group has a workspace.
We were working every day from 3 pm to 6 and and some hours in the evening.
These hours were set to meet the working hours of some of the attendants and to overcome the midday heat.

The themes of the workshop was stage presence, playfulness and techniques of group storytelling in the tradition of LeCoq/TeaterPatrasket.

Attending the workshop was a group of 8-10 people. Besides the mentioned key members of the group, participants were friends and young people from the periferi of Figursuzler. They had very varied previous experiences with theatre, some had their first, but as the work progressed, they formed an enthusiastic and well motivated group.

I think the workshop succeeded in giving inspiration to the participants, of whom some may get to be new actors in Figursuzler.
But it was none the less a group for the occation, as, unfortunately, a number of the usual main-actors of Figursuzler - of unknown reasons - never showed up to the workshop.
This turned out to be a big disappointment, especially for Ubeydullah and Servette, who were obviously embarassed by the fact that they were let down by their group members.
They were also very angry about it, and I am sure that they intended following my visit in Mardin up by a major “clean up” in the group, which made them in the last days speak about cancelling their planned tour to the Bursa Festival.
The absence of the group members was also a disappointment to me, and it limited to some extent the perspectives of the workshop, as it was not possible for me to get a proper dialogue with the present theatre work of the group (I could only watch a video). The workshop turned for this reason to be less culturelly exchanging, than what I had hoped and expected it to be.
It also limited my effort and research in the establish of a succession to the workshop, the idea of a longer cooperation project.

Perspectives:

Despite the problem of participation, I had a very good time in Mardin, and when it comes to network establishment, I got warm and close personal relations to Ubeydullah, Servette and some of the workshop participants.

I think Figusuzzlers idea and effort of creating theatre in Mardin - the only theatre activity in a town of 100.000 - is really worth supporting, and I have experienced both the strong commitment of Ubeydullah and Servette, and - though, only through the videos - their own ability of creating performances for quite a big audience in Mardin.

Their idea of artistic work seems very much linked together with the local cultural and ethnical tradition of the people in Mardin. As Mardin is a place of severe historical and cultural interest, but also quite disturbed by the presence of potential conflict, police and military etc., I see a lot of meaning in supporting culture events and theatre in the region.

I think Figursuzzler basically is fighting the organisational problems of an amateur theatre, building on voluntary participation from people who are busy earning their living from other sources than theatre. And it is obvious, that the group members have very different degrees of motivation, a fact that Ubeydullah and Servette became very aware of, through the abscence of the group members from the workshop.

I would love to come to Mardin again, but for me to continue the pilot-project of the workshop into a bigger cooperation project, as I first had in mind, the group needs to find a more solid organisational foundation.
It needs to be possible to work with the group - and by that I mean a more consistent and permanent group - in a somewhat longer concentrated period.
As the conditions are at present, it seems not so easy to establish that possibility.
But it might be happening in a little longer perspective, as I am sure that Ubeydullah and Servette will be working on, and by doing so, they might be able to create better conditions for the group.

I could see the possibility of coming to Mardin again for another workshop, but for this to happen it might need to involve some degree of local/turkish funding. This could be promoted maybe by including a workshop for schoolteachers, as Ubeydullah is a schoolteacher himself.
Another perspective that I see, is to bring more culture from outside to Mardin, both from other parts of Turkey or even for instance danish childrens teatre - because Mardin presents such a wonderful setting. I mentioned this to Ubeydullah, but he was not too optimistic about the
possibilities of getting local muncipality support for developling events like that - maybe he was not too turned on being an organizer either.

Last: I want to thank you, Tülinn, Beliz, Baris and Turkish Assitej, for our mutual realisation of this project, which - even though it was not in all aspects completely professionally satisfying - came to be a very memorable week, both for me and the workshop participants.
For me it is very meaningful and a matter of great interest to try to establish projects like
that, and I am very open to future ideas, that we can accomplish.

Best wishes

Dirck