Day 1 | Marathon 12 | 07 | 2023 at Bishop’s Basilica of Philippopolis
Where are we now? What is the Bishop’s Basilica of Philippopolis? How do we discover, preserve, and adapt the cultural heritage? How to manage the greatest Basilica, as a contemporary museum, build a team, and create a program? An important introduction by the director of the Ancient Plovdiv Municipal Institute, and the Bishop Basilica., Elena Kantareva launched the key speaker’s panel.
Victor Yankov, Cultart Leader: “As we say today is a Marathon we decided to invite a group of inspiring speakers from and behind the cultural scene and the festival scene. The idea is to give you practical examples from cultural management, meet professionals, and try to work, and imitate the real life of cultural management. (…) Certainly, it is a day for motivation, and with the team, we decided to give you a glance at the future, what we imagine Cutlart to become after the last 5th training here in Plvodiv, and what our ambitions as partners as a consortium are for the next two years. We call it Cutlart PRO. We want to invest in Cutlart Contact Points, which are a local educational ecosystem, an everyday working program of 5 networking spaces with a hundred events happening every week when people from Austria, Greece, Italy, North Macedonia, Plovdiv meet artists, meet participants from different countries. (…)I believe you will stay in contact with us, and we could create a big Cultart Alumni, as a proper university should do, but in a more informal way. We will invest a lot of effort, and professional expertise to increase your employability in the cultural field, to meet more and more cultural institutions, NGO’s and to start your projects, to create your design studio, or project space for a gallery or a festival.“ (V.Y. Plovdiv, 12.07.2023)
Day 2 | Friendly Match
13 | 07 | 2023
Location: Boris Hristo House of Culture, in particular the Concert Hall, Ballet Rehearsals, Opera Rehearsal, and Administration cabinets.
The group had an intense trainer-to-trainee workshop on the detailed spectrum of Opera Plovdiv administrative management from the artistic assistant Tsvetomira Tsoneva. What is to be the choreographer or to be the State Opera Plovdiv ballerina for 17 years? How to manage an international ballet troupe from around the world? What is it to perform Anna Karenina in the Ancient theatre? Or, how to direct and produce the Adams Family?
The group had the opportunity to seek answers from the ballet tutor Petya Dimova, and one of the prominent Bulgarian directors Petar Odadzhiev, to attend rehearsals of the Anna Karenina Ballet, and the premiere musical production of Opera Plovdiv – Adams Family.
The Deputy Mayor of Culture, Archaeology, and Tourism, Plamen Panov, and the CEO of Plovdiv 2019, Kiril Velchev also welcomed the group and exchanged valuable experiences and examples of the ongoing cultural projects in Plovdiv and the municipal instruments of financial support for the creative cultural scene in the city. One of the highlights was the Summer Festival Program of Plovdiv 2019 supporting through an open call procedure numerous large-scale events and festivals. Part of the program are the Opera Open Festival, Solar Festival, and Shake That Hill, on which the Cultart group will have the opportunity to work this week, to go backstage, and also to attend a premier on the Ancient Theatre.
- Photo credit: Anton Schnitter
- Read more about the Festivals Program in the Cultart Book here, pages 19 to 76.
