Theatre Embassy - Berith Danse

Pedro Manuel: How did Theatre Embassy started?

Berith Danse: Theatre Embassy is a development organization with art in the field of Africa, Asia and Latin America, and started after I had worked in Nicaragua for almost five years, as theatre maker, just making plays, being involved in local cultural organizations, and there I met a woman that had been working in Namibia, also with theatre, and we decided to start an organization. Also because more Dutch artists were involved with art in developing countries, and we wanted to create a platform so that it could be more visible. We started the organization in January 2001. We worked as freelancers in the Netherlands to support the things we were doing, to build a curriculum, because we had been away from four to five years. Most of the organizations were very receptive to our idea, a organization of theatre in the developing filed, specially because we were opening a new market for theatre makers, new employment possibilities. And more and more we started to have funds. First from the City of Amsterdam, then from the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and then Theatre Embassy become for the first time a professional, small organization, with an office and staff. We had support also from Hivos, Stichting Doen, but we always apply for fund in the cultural sector. Which is difficult because we are not a Dutch cultural organization and we are very community based on what we do. Development cooperation may find strange to fund art, which seems a luxury and not a necessity. We always say we are engaged, but we are always in the between of these two things. Other times we receive funding for specific themes, like now with child sorcery in Africa.


PM - From my period in Mozambique I felt that most of the times the problems were very specific, you really needed to be in the field to understand what is a need there.

BD - The strongest motivation to start Theatre Embassy, from my side, always have been the question: "Why aren't artists involved in the development cooperation?" And it is deliberately, because it is not really an objective of the northern countries to solve poverty, so they are deliberately outcasted in discussion. But we happen to be able to involve artists in development aid cooperation. We are still very small, we are five here, and all the people is working part-time. We send freelancers abroad, in a very personal matching, and some times things go wrong. But this groups really need support. It's this crazy people that in the most difficult situations you can imagine decide to have a theatre group. Why? This has to do with a very strong commitment towards the community.


PM - In the end, the group creates a performance, like he always would, but the process tries to generate empowerment in administration, funding, cohesion.

BD - We do it through creating performances and workshops. But our goal is not to have our own artistic products. Theatre Embassy is a theatre organization, not a theatre company. All the collaborations with theatre companies are about what they need. We don't need to get anything, to bring anything. We are in between. With meeting comes exchange. And what I have begin to realize is that the Dutch theatre maker is isolated from the international development because of the language. French people go to Africa, Portuguese go to Brazil, Spanish to Latin America, Dutch do go a lot to South Africa but that's it. So, the perception of what's happening worldwide, with the globalization, stopped to theatre makers. They go to school, they learn their thing, want to be famous... I myself wanted the same thing, twenty years ago. Dancers are different. Also visual artists. And there is a lot of curiosity by theatre makers, theatre schools, because of internet, cheap flights... but the language, how to share is not there yet. And there is still a proposition that the world is divided in two, which is a very strange thing. But there is a big difference between international cooperation for performing arts or cooperation for performing artists in developing countries. The whole embedding and impact of working with theatre in a developing country, because of being poor, because of being more folklore, is much different than going abroad to a festival. It is much more close to what theatre is in the base. Theatre is, more than any art, a community based art. So the impact of being confronted with these many aspects is still strong for me.


PM - How do theatre makers see the possibility of working with these companies? Is it exotic or are they really interested?

BD - We do a minimum of preparation although we would like to do more. It has to have an interest in being a provider instead of being busy with personal ambition. I am not saying there is anything wrong but It is not very handy. The people I select to go are not the text people but more the visual, or the objects, or the puppets, or the dance theatre makers, so they already have a more diversified language that fits to the more interdisciplinary kind of thing that you find in developing countries. We don't bring European texts. There is more, an enormous amount of material in the field, that you can use. You can make people conscious: "why don't you use that? have you ever think about it? let's try". People want to develop themselves. You can show and teach this art and craft of theatre. We also work with people that come from theatre for education schools. They are theatre makers that are skilled to work with social groups, so they are able to translate or transform material in a more pedagogical way, without loosing quality. You work in a slower process, you include people. But we always have problems with cultural shock. It can be a problem, it can be inspiring. But the biggest difficulty and error we do here, and that we can't avoid it is: what we do with people when they come back? They don't have a stage where to express what happened to them. Their experience, what they have learned. Because here the market is not open, curious to it. It's a very old history.


PM - One of the things I find interesting is the role of counseling in Theatre Embassy. You mediate the groups, but also have an inner structure for decisions.

BD - We have the "theatre ambassador" that is the person that has assimilated within the regional culture, as a theatre maker, working as a bridge of communication and translation from Dutch cultural field for the Indian cultural field, for example. We say you are an ambassador, and it is really like a job. Because you are the one that lives in between, putting in context, although you are working as a freelancer. Then we have "cultural ambassadors", that are five famous people, that have a very important place in society in Holland, that want to associate to Theatre Embassy and promote it from their position. And recently we started with something we wanted for a long time, the Advisory Board - South, with prominent people that already know how do we work. We meet once a year, saying where we are and they advise us from the experience in their countries.


PM - What is the criteria for selecting a project, a group to support?

BD - The criteria are that there is a theatre group, or organization that has theatre within its practices, that already exists for a while, at least three to five years, that has shown some quality output but that also shows that is limited in the capability to develop itself. If we see a potentiality of people around, that we can lift, we can start a process of growth. I do a visit, very informal, I see the necessity. Them we do a tryout with small things, to find out what can be done next. And then we aim to have a relationship from three to five years as partner organizations.


PM - What's the importance of the "long term cooperation"?

BD - That the organization becomes better, and the artistic output become better. That the skills of the people that participate in the theatre company are diversified. More tightened, so they are not collapsing all the time. We don't do full support to the theatre group. People have to act themselves, not being passive. Giving a workshop is already a big capital investment. People expect that art should be free, but is not for free, life is not like that.


PM - How do you see this passage from empowerment to cultural politics?

BD - We have to influence local governments or national governments. We don't do that by ourselves, but by our network. Groups can only grow through support. You cannot live from culture, people don't do it here, why should them in Africa? How can we expect a group to be independent in five years? Only the commercial theatre, but not the artistic theatre, where there is liberty of speech, of creation. How can you expect that in developing countries the cultural sector can be independent? The governments should support because it is the only way for a social, economic, democratic society.




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