ITTA Director Constantine Kiriyak, President of the International Theatre Festival in Sibiu, Romania
《Sibiu International Drama Festival: Releasing the Vitality of Ancient Towns》
Sibiu is a Romanian town, which has a history of thousands of years. I was not born in Sibiu. I came here as an artist. In order to release the vitality of the city, we decided to hold a theatre festival, using the cultural heritage of the place, to outline the cultural outlook of the local people. We not only need to present the local artistic content, but also have a systematic planning of the Drama Festival. So far, the Sibiu Drama Festival has gone through 25 years of history. At the beginning, we only have eight performances in three countries. This year, we will have 525 performances from 73 countries. 3,300 artists from all over the world will bring performances to more than 70,000 audiences. The unique Sibiu International Drama Festival has been among the top performers in the world. In 2007, Sibiu won the title of "Capital of European Culture".
In order to hold the Sibiu International Drama Festival, we have resorted to a variety of human and material resources, involving different communities and ethnic groups. At first, I discussed with some artist friends, some of whom worked in the National Theatre, and when we talked privately, the idea of hosting the Sibiu Drama Festival came into being. We believe that it is very important to avoid political interference and ensure the independence of artists'ideas. At the same time, we have also organized a cultural trade sector - "cultural fair", so that artists from all over the world can participate.
China has formulated a very good cultural strategy. The President of China has also paid great attention to cultural undertakings and decided to promote the common development of culture and tourism. This is worthy of serious consideration. In the past three years, we have planned a project involving China and 16 Central and Eastern European countries. We have invited the best dance teachers and students from 16 countries to perform, teach and hold some dance festivals in China. We believe that this is a very good exchange and interaction. We hope to take this opportunity to promote further cooperation in dance and drama in all countries. I have just come from Hong Kong. Hong Kong is inviting me to participate in the construction of their "West Kowloon" cultural project. There are some similarities between their project and Yueju Town. They have five different large performance venues and are also committed to building public space. Not only are they, but we have very good cooperation with many Chinese institutions, such as Beijing Dance Academy and Shanghai Theatre Academy. I believe that experts from all over the world will work together to create more artistic possibilities and turn our ideals into reality.
In the process of founding the Sibiu Art Festival, my concern has always been the public. We have abandoned many brilliant achievements and do not care about awards from the government or related agencies. What we care about is how to develop and nurture new audiences, which is the most important. In Sibiu, we have more than 400 performances of more than 100 different plays every year, and 100% of the tickets for each show are sold out. This is a great achievement. Obviously, how to cultivate new audiences correctly is very important in this process. To this end, we have done a lot of outdoor performances, so that the audience can participate. Audiences come here not only to see the performances in theatres, but also to participate in high-quality outdoor activities. As you can imagine, as a very small city, the mayor of Sibiu was only a mayor at the beginning of the festival, and now he has become the president of Romania. Not to mention it jokingly, culture has given us a president, and this example tells us the importance of culture for development.
As I said at the beginning, the first thing we need to solve is the budget problem. When I consulted the mayors, they probably gave me a budget of 0.1% of the city's budget, up to 1% and, at best, no more than 2%. But Sibiu's cultural budget accounts for 12% of the city's budget, the largest proportion in the world. More importantly, however, I used this budget to build a cultural system for the city, and relying on this system, 12% of the budget brought 16% of the city's revenue. Is this the best example? Culture can not only improve the popularity of a region, improve the quality of the community, but also make profits and increase income. I think there will be more and better opportunities to test my point in the future.
Finally, I hope to invite the project of Yueju Town to the Sibiu International Drama Festival. Bring it to the "Cultural Fair" and demonstrate it to partners from all over the world. Sibiu International Drama Festival will welcome the coming of Yueju Town very much!
Mr. Constantine Kiriyak was attracted by the performances of Zhejiang Xiaobaihua Yue Opera Troupe.
(These contents are from the tape recordings of the speaker.）