The festival ran for 30 years when, due to lack of funding, it had to close down. It was supported for the first 26 years by the corporate sector. The last six years were difficult as the access to funding was limited with no interest from the city or government in assisting the platform. I would like to discuss the mistakes we made as well as share how it expanded over the years developing into a ten-day event that presented work all over Johannesburg in venues, museums, galleries, and open spaces. It also developed international partnerships along the way.

The Dance Umbrella started as an open and free platform for artists to show work on a series of mixed bills. For the 10th edition, we commissioned new work and opened the platform to international artists. The last 20 years we curated mostly full-length programmes but continued to assist young artists in presenting work.

We initially programmed all works in the Wits Theatre complex (two venues). When we expanded the festival to including the Dance Factory and Market Theatre (Newtown), we realized that we would have to ensure that the programme was curated to present works in the Wits Theatre complex one night and in Newtown the next, as people would not want to leave the venue to travel. We saw this when we programmed one work in Wits Theatre and another in Market Theatre. It was as if we "lost" audience. If we curated two works in Wits’ complex, the audience moved from one space to the other comfortably and the same applied in Newtown between the two venues there. We also eventually supplied transport for the audience when we expanded to the Soweto Theatre in Soweto to assist them to move between spaces. We learned to consider audience and if possible, assist them in how to better attend the various programmes.

Mind The Fact is curated on projects based upon True Stories: either non-professional actors participate in it (refugees, homeless, etc.) or real stories (from life in camps) are brought into the public space and interact with the audience.

A group of teenagers, living in a shelter in Athens, presented a performance in Athens Town Hall, presenting themselves as the future Mayor and politicians of the city. The interaction with the audience, as well as the genuine aspect of their speeches, created a common field - a bridge between the two sides. In our eyes, this was a presentation of unification and integration.

The 2021 edition is a new format. We made an open call for artists to serve as ‘CultureNauts’, who together with the artistic director, will research the territory in joint residencies and collaboratively develop the projects for the festival. Additional projects are to be curated by the artistic director. Out of the 410 applications we selected 15 CultureNauts.

For the previous edition we developed a project with Ondamarela from Portugal/UK, in which we created a citizen's orchestra and choir. The music and lyrics were all composed and written in collaboration with the citizens. We worked with numerous local partners including regional music schools. The main goal for the festival was to network and connect the artists with both citizens and organisations, and to build trust, as the festival takes place every 2 years at a different location. Over 100 citizens participated in the opening concert of the festival. I am sure that if the festival stayed in the region over 200 would have participated the following year.

“rEvolver” is a submission-based festival. Emerging and early to mid-career artists from across Canada are invited to submit their work through an open call. Our curatorial team consists of our two Artistic Producers and two emerging Resident Curators who join the company on overlapping two-year terms.

Our Resident Curators are vital to the process as they represent the community of artists that the festival serves. The program has grown in recent years to become central to the way we work. As our Artistic Producers have grown older, it has become increasingly important to us to have representation from the emerging and early-career artists whose work the festival presents on our curatorial team. They bring knowledge from "the front lines" in terms of who is doing vital and important work, how younger artists are working, etc. that we used to have when we were young artists ourselves. Increasingly, they also are more able to reach out into under-represented communities and help us build bridges to ensure we can use our resources to support artists who might not otherwise access the opportunities we offer. We have recently expanded this program from one curator on a single year term, to two curators serving overlapping terms, so there is always a "first year" resident, and a "second year". This helps in the transmission of knowledge as individuals move through the roles and allows the residents to have a year to learn about the organization and the festival, and a year to provide feedback into it and help make us stronger.

We launched “Freespace Jazz Fest” in 2019, during the first year that the new arts centre FREESPACE opened. Freespace is part of West Kowloon Cultural District, one of the largest arts and cultural developments in the world. 

Freespace is located in the middle of The Art Park, a huge gorgeous open space on the bank of Victoria Harbour. We chose to launch Jazz Fest, an annual jazz and world music festival, to support Hong Kong's talented and undernourished jazz scene, and provide a new focal point for jazz in Asia.

The festival is hosted both indoors and outdoors. In our first year, we had nearly 14,000 people over two days. We never expected these many attendees in our first season, as it took place amid Hong Kong's ongoing protests. It was a huge success, however there was not enough food and beverage for all the people -- a happy problem to have. We incorporated a photo exhibition, jazz dance, workshops, film screenings, as well as incredible headliners and amazing local talent. We learned a lot. This year's festival during COVID will be a new experience altogether.

“Kina Festival” is curated by Ishyo, executive director, in close collaboration with a group of 3 regional and international artistic advisors. The role of the advisors is to identify shows across the world which are responding to the festival’s values, mission, and the yearly artistic line. Every two years, one artist/company is attached to accompany the development of a new collaborative production involving young African artists. Kina festival also curates specific Pan-African co-productions to support regional collaboration and touring within Africa. Kina Festival activities include performances, workshops for professional artists and children, an International Conference bringing together guests and local artists, teachers and educators and researchers, and “Kina Labs”, a platform for creations in process to be seen by a small audience of children and professionals.

Rwanda belongs to the Great Lakes region. For the past 25 years, the region hosted many conflicts due to political and economic issues. With the intention of analysing and supporting theatre for a young audience in the region, the Kina festival coordination team initiated a two-year project with 20 young artists (writers, set designers, actors, directors) from the three countries were invited on quarterly basis to Rwanda. During these meetups, they would discuss these regional issues and eventually create performing arts works for young audiences around these issues. This was an incredible journey as artists in each country are still developing work together, supporting one another, and created a strong sense of commitment to continue developing TYA in the sub-region.

This is a multi-genre festival that focuses on arts and activism. The programming is specific, as it looks at works of art that promote freedom of expression, respect for human rights, challenge oppression, and advocate for a just society in a country that is difficult to operate in due to the heavy handedness of the state. Arts activism becomes the central issue but should be delivered in a way that is exciting and engaging. The activities at the festival also target diverse audiences who have different interests rather than just activism.

In programming the festival, I have realised that people come to the festival to have an experience outside of probably the thematic elements of the festival. In all the editions of the festival, the question has always been, how do can entertainment and activism be balanced so that people enjoy the festival outside of the themes that it is pushing. It has therefore been a learning experience in trying to programme work that engages with issues but at the same time being of high entertainment value such that people will not be bored by issues. The festival also takes place in a country that is very critical of dissenting voices. The navigation between being banned by the authoritarian state and giving the audiences an experiential festival is the exciting element that has been a considerable aspect within the festival programming. The intellectual engagement through a vivid symposium and the performative platforms should create an interesting balance to the festival pushing ideas, entertainment, and activism.

The programming is based upon the idea that it should demonstrate and invite to adapt and understand the idea of improvisation, different venues across the city, spontaneous performances in public space and "Out of the Box" think-workshop about performing arts in context, city planning, participation, blind Date concerts, open slots that are curated by the artists on site, and a totally free minded definition of Jazz. 

It is a FREE ENTRANCE Festival:

I am bored by programming everything and think of concerts as defined 60-min slots. I like to take risks at my own festival and love to invite the artists and visitors to take risks too - since this is what life is about: be open for things that turn out to be the opposite of what you expected, except that you cannot control everything around you and embrace the unknown! So, over the years I programmed the festival much more open, with many slots that I leave undefined until some artist takes them spontaneously on the festival. Sometimes 20 minutes before the timeslot, I don’t know who is coming. The idea behind those Blind Date concerts: perform with somebody you do not know. Find somebody on the festival and pick a Blind Date Slot: meet each other in front of the audience. It is a great way to show the people the magic of improvised music and performances. 

Two years ago, I decided to cancel my GALA Grand Finale Concert on Sunday night and end the festival instead with a great improvisation in the baroque Mirabell Garden in Salzburg. All the artists from different fields of arts were invited to come into the garden and do whatever they wanted to. It was very special, and the garden department did give out the permission to do so. I thought: “The artists will love it: a big playground!!”. A such, I decided to take full risk, planned nothing, and led everything open to the artists if they wanted to do something and what they wanted to do from 12-3pm. At 12 the garden became packed with visitors but no artists. People started complaining and asking me what the programme is, and I could only tell them: “I don’t know!”. I didn’t feel great. After 1 pm, a few musicians came, some dancers, clowns, but really not many. It was a disappointment and I thought that maybe I asked too much. But later, many more artists came to check out the situation and said that this is an actual great idea and that next year they would want to participate. Nowadays, the Sunday Park Impro creates itself and still I do not interfere. People love it now.

We start research 2 years or more in advance and we travel to the chosen country/city/region and find out the most burning questions/topics/issues. Subsequently, we build a network of artists, institutions and follow said line. At the same time, we continue our relations with our co-presenters in Switzerland and slowly bring together the ideas/topics/existing projects and venues to show.

So far, we have had an array of topics depending on countries or cities. The last three were Iceland, Greece, and Poland, with the theme being Europe and its challenges, and using the selection as a trilogy programme. Each time, we found very quickly strong topics pertaining environment, society, history, ruptures, and conflicts. But all was still based on a "country" with its boarders, its cultural canon, its proud in certain heroes of history etc. And, after 16 years of programming like this, we needed another challenge. We also felt that borders and countries are more of an obstacle than a solution for the main topics of our time. Consequently, we changed into a planned series for the upcoming 4 editions by focusing on critical zones of our planet/bio-systems with upmost importance such as: 2021 Amazonas, 2023 Sahara, 2025 Himalaya, and 2027 Oceans. Let's see how this is possible during Covid-times!

A theme is chosen, and a call is opened for researchers and artists to participate. We do so since it is part of Researchers' Night across Europe, so we communicate research in an artistic manner. We shortlist the proposals and have meetings with the artists. We develop each work and, subsequently, partner them with local researchers. We keep doing so until the festival.

Once, we had research we wanted to communicate regarding the interesting phenomenon that exists all around us but only becomes apparent at the microscopic scale: light can push objects around. Just like leaves flapping in the breeze, tiny objects can be pushed one way or the other simply by shining light at them. This is now an active and fascinating field of science that promises to give us quantum drums, computers that use light instead of electricity, and small beads of glass being in two places at once. We wanted to create a light installation, so we contacted local artists who work with such medium and paired them up with Dr. André Xuereb. They produced a piece that was part-funded by the research outreach fund, Arts Council Malta, and the festival itself, which consisted of kinetic lights being pushed up by means of torches held by the audience members. The artwork was engaging, felt alive with all the participating audience and the research was communicated through animation and live explanation. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtkGp_3RIOk