© Finnish Theatre Information Centre

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Project in brief

In 2008 the Delegation of the European Commission to Russia launched a second call for proposals specially focused on culture, to support partnerships between cultural operators of Russia and the European Union. 9 projects were selected, among them Seeds of Imagination.

With Seeds of Imagination the project partners will build bridges between Russia and the EU, particularly Finland, by means of theatre and the performing arts. It targets performing arts professionals including actors, directors, writers, designers, producers, critics, students, translators etc. The duration of the project is 18 months starting 1 March 2009.

The leader of the project is the Finnish Theatre Information Centre, Helsinki
www.teatteri.org

The total budget of the project is 375.000 euros.

The project’s objectives are:

• to establish a strong partnership based on the exchange of skills, experiences and knowledge
• to create opportunities for intercultural dialogue as the basis for future cooperation between Russian and Finnish theatre professionals and institutions
• to promote European values and help shape identities
• to disseminate information and knowledge about Finnish and Russian theatre and to provide access to texts, productions, venues, training and people from Russia and Finland
• to facilitate and encourage mobility across national as well as cultural borders

The project activities are structured in two groups:

The Learning & Sharing activities aim to offer theatre practitioners from both countries the opportunity to enter into dialogue. Like the name suggests, the objective is to learn from each other by sharing experiences and best practices. This happens in artistic master classes, seminars and workshops on playwriting, children’s theatre, translating etc. and in training on networking, international mobility and cultural management.

The second strand of activities runs under the heading Reading & Performing and includes staged readings of plays and support for Russian-Finnish co-productions. The project also contributes to an international playwriting competition called New Drama 2011.

The flowers and trees the partners hope to see grow from the seeds of this project are lasting cooperation between cultural institutions and other performing arts organisations from all involved countries, increased capacity of performing arts professionals to deal with networking, mobility and management issues, improved access to information, texts, venues, people etc., a new play in Russian and artistic co-productions.