Christopher Balme

INTRODUCTION

IETM is composed of over 500 organisations and individual members working in the independent theatre scene mainly in Europe but also internationally in the areas of theatre, dance, circus performance and media arts. Members include festivals, production companies, producers universities and research institutes. The network meets twice a year in different European cities and additionally in smaller conferences worldwide. As the first European network for the independent scene IETM has been in existence since 1981 and is closely linked to the European project (EU). The acronym stands for Informal European Theatre Meeting, but the organisation now uses the title ‘International network for the independent performing arts’.

The word ‘network’ featured in the title is not an arbitrary label but rather refers to a special organisational form characterised by a certain freedom of connections and association, but nevertheless means more than simply a series of regular meetings. Therefore the development of IETM from an informal gathering or meeting to a network is a logical step and characterised by a certain degree of formalisation. When the first meeting took place in 1981 in the context of the Polverigi festival in Italy, international cooperations were mainly organised through state or parastatal institutions. The innovative aspect of IETM was the self-organisation of professional theatre artists by means of individual memberships. It was not until 1989 that the organisation was formally established as a not-for-profit international organisation on the basis of Belgian law with a secretariat in Brussels and membership fees.

Networks

A network is more than just an arbitrary term. It refers to a specific form of organisation and cooperation characterised by lateral rather than hierarchical connections. In his book The Square and the Tower (2018), historian Niall Ferguson uses spatial metaphors to contrast hierarchies (towers) and networks (squares).1 The invention of the printing press led to at the beginning of the early modern period European networks of social and economic exchange: Protestant circles, trade routes and Freemasons all constituted networks in heterogeneous but also highly effective and powerful forms. After 1790 we see, according to Ferguson, an increasing dominance of hierarchies (states with the bureaucracies, large companies, permanent armies) which have only begun to be destabilised in recent times through the emergence of digital technology which favours once again networks. Although this differentiation, as Ferguson admits, is somewhat simplistic, his arguments regarding networks cannot be dismissed out of hand especially regarding their power and influence. The word network is ubiquitous, but nevertheless the theoretical concept and the methodologies of network analysis provide clear and productive criteria for examining social and historical phenomena. We all belong to social networks made up of friends and families, sports clubs as well as Facebook friends. Trading networks have existed since the Stone Age with the goal of providing for the differential needs of groups living far apart. While hierarchies (from the Greek “rule of a high priest”) tend to concentrate power, networks fulfil precisely the opposite function of evening out and distributing human relationships.

Although the word network is very rare before the end of the 19th century, network analysis as a theory and method is now well established. Whether mathematical, historical or sociological, network analysis always differentiates between ‘nodes’ and ‘edges’, where the nodes are usually the actors and the edges represent the relationships between them. These relationships or connections are examined in turn in reference to their centrality, their degree and proximity. ‘Betweenness centrality’ means for example which actor provides the most information in a network or via which the most valuable communication is relayed: in family networks for example it is usually the mother, and in companies the secretaries. Furthermore network theory differentiates between homo- and heterophilic networks. Homophilic ones are those held together by strong affective relationships such as families or clans. Heterophilic networks are in contrast characterised by weak connections. Paradoxically, the weak, heterophilic networks are the more valuable ones when it comes to fostering and distributing innovation. Homophilic networks tend towards closure and isolation, whereas heterophilic networks because of their weak internal connectedness are much more open for exchange and new ideas: they build bridges between other often disparate networks. Heterophilic networks offer many ‘structural holes’, these are gaps between the nodes and clusters where innovations can enter and establish themselves. This process is normally enabled by mediating figures or brokers.

IETM as a network

IETM is a prototypical heterophilic network. Although the secretariat in Brussels represents an important node and no doubt provides a high degree of betweenness centrality, the true strength of the network resides in its many small and ‘weak’ relationships. These manifest themselves particularly in the active forums and working groups which either meet over a longer period of time or constitute themselves for one particular meeting. At the Munich conference they formed around topical themes which attracted a large number of interested parties. Groups that meet regularly such as the Sound and Music Theatre group or a group interested in art in rural areas (their session was entitled ‘dig where you stand’) are examples of long-standing collaborations. Other forums concern themselves with topics familiar in the larger public sphere such as for example the future of gender in the working place, also in the independent performing arts (‘The gender of the future’), Europe’s problematic postcolonial legacy (‚Postcolonial Minefields‘) (see the article by Ursula Maier), or the institutional challenges faced by professional artists with disabilities on a daily basis (see the article by Luisa Reisinger). Whether established or new, all forms were open to both long-standing members and guests.

The best proof of the heterophilic character of the IETM network were the working sessions such as ‚Next steps – learning from exchanges‘, which took place in collaboration with ITI Germany and the 10th edition of the theatre festival Politik im freien Theater which took place in Munich at the same time.2 In this case three different networks formed an alliance. Discussions in the various forums demonstrated the high degree of transnational collaborations within the independent performing arts scene. Because most of these groups are not hierarchically organised, they possess considerable potential for and capacity to establish and foster intensive cooperation with groups in other countries. The larger, usually publicly financed theatres (in Germany the state and municipal theatres) internationalism usually means the occasional guest performance with very little long-term sustainability. An artists collective such as Kainkollektiv from Bochum on the other hand has engaged in intensive contacts over many years, with regular visits and working collaborations in Poland, Croatia and Cameroon. In all cases the local Goethe Institute played the role of broker in order to facilitate the connections between the nodes, in this case the local groups. Their production Fin de mission is for example the result of a six-year collaboration between the group and artists from Cameroon which examined Germany’s involvement in the slave trade in the country.3

Also certain productions shown at the festival such as Global Belly and Girls Boys Love Cash would not have been possible without transnationally operating collaborations. In Global Belly the independent group Flinn Works (Berlin/Kassel) examined the globalised surrogacy business on the basis of intensive research, and the Young People‘s Theatre JES from Stuttgart presented in collaboration with the Citizen.KANE.Kollektiv the results of two years of fieldwork on the topic of sex work in Stuttgart and in Bucharest/Romania. In an interview with Claus Six the artists Sophia Stepf and Lucy Kramer, (a dramaturg at JES) and the Citizen.KANE.Kollektiv explain that such performances requiring a high degree of intensive longterm preparation would not be possible at the established theatres.

Despite this high degree of organisational and financial investment the independent scene is continually struggling to obtain financial support beyond the usual cycle of short-term grants and project funding. It is characterised by reliance on a large number of diverse types of support. The more prominent and established the group, the longer the list of coproduction partners and sponsors. This dependency on heterogeneous sources of funding is perhaps the most striking characteristic of the independent scene which has emerged since the end of the 1980s as a transnationally organised network of venues and festivals. This transnational network structure is the most important distinguishing characteristic compared to the first generation of independent groups, which, after they had obtained permanent venues, often remained locally focused and were seldom active beyond their immediate locality....