Bratislava
Thursday 23rd

3pm: Breathe a sigh of relief as our Ryanair flight touches down at Bratislava Airport. Flying can be stressful enough what with having to put your toothpaste in clear plastic bags and paying an extra 40€ if you forget to print-out your boarding pass, but this particular flight was made more so by the fact that our airline chooses to advertise it as a flight to Bratislava/Vienna. You may know that not only are these two great cities 60 km apart they are also in different countries. Would we arrive in Slovakia and be whisked into town in a matter of minutes or would we arrive in Coffee Shop Central and have to find a train to take us over the border, braving mountain passes and fearsome Austrian emmigration procedures? - (probably not as bad as the immigration procedures though). I’m thinking about some colleagues who were so daunted by all this stress that, as a protest, they decided to travel to the meeting in Helsinki by boat and train only. A glance at the map is enough to see this isn’t the quickest way (Google Map puts the drive time at 30 hours incidentally). I suppose flying Ryanair does beat 48 hours sailing up the Skagerrak in a November gale.

But all was well: Bratislava airport was a delightful glass structure and, being Thursday, temporarily clear of stag parties – a short and cheap taxi ride and we were in town.

For a reason I can’t remember we had booked an hotel a few months before that wasn’t finished, so we were even happier when we found Hotel Danubia Gate (make a note of that for future visits) was not only finished but equipped with computers, flatscreen TVs and power showers in every room.

So what is IETM? Not everyone knows what happens at a Meeting – neither is it very easy to describe without making it sound like a weekend city break.

I.E.T.M. is the Standing European Theatre meeting (not sure why it is called this as it is always moving around). Artists, producers, promoters and directors turn up to network – it’s not at all about selling shows or self promoting, it’s about making new international partnerships. It is structured - there is a ‘theme’ (last year in Zurich it was ‘Misunderstandings’) there are seminars and info sessions and a full programme of shows laid-on by the locals. The networking takes place between these events and especially over restaurant tables.

Apparently it all began almost 40 years ago when a bunch of theatre producers got together at a villa in Italy to discuss work over a few bottles of wine. After a few days of this they decided that it would be a good idea to do the same thing again next year - IETM had been created – and they saw it was good.

I went to my first meeting in 1997 in Lisbon. By that time IETM was twenty-odd years old and had a well established way of working. This meeting took place in a brand new arts centre on the outskirts of Lisbon – I say outskirts – in fact it was miles out of town and the bus service wasn’t great. They told me you had to be a ‘people-person’ to survive an IETM - I was all alone and a further difficulty was that everything was taking place in several different languages – speakers would speak in their native tongue and seminars would be conducted in the language decided by majority vote, If you couldn’t speak it you had to sit next to some one who could. (good way of meeting someone to network with too).

Today the official languages of IETM are English and French but the fact is that everyone speaks in English apart from the French. There are a significant number there who seem to be able to converse pretty well in 4 or 5 different languages which makes one feel extremely inadequate.

Our aim this time is to put the idea behind the PIGS writers’ week to the ‘Brainstorm’ Session. This is not a ‘pitch’ but an opportunity to share thoughts and ideas with other practitioners.

5 p.m. At the IETM check-in point in the vast State Theatre constructed entirely of white marble (the vast white building is surrounded by an even more vast white marble concourse which must surely be visible from the moon). We’ve had our mug-shots taken and stuck on the wall and are meeting up with some of the regulars. – It’s time to go and be welcomed by the Mayor – a reception with cocktails it says. Striding unerringly through the unfamiliar streets, wondering which way up the map should be, we eventually arrive at the venue – a splendid building which I would describe as a fine example of Austro-Hungarian architecture but I don’t think such a style actually exists.

Inside, a mob of artists producers, promoters and directors and are grabbing glasses of sparkling wine and a cellist is playing of one of Bach’s suites, we can’t see him because the stage is too low and he is sitting down, but it sounds great. The suite finishes and the Mayor gets up and starts his speech – his translator is putting his words into some sort of mangled English. I feel pleased that Slovakia is still so fiercely independent they can’t find anyone who can translate Slovak into English. After a few minutes, overcome by the moment, the translator collapses and is carried out horizontal. Undeterred, the Mayor carries on in Slovakian – but it’s too late – he’s lost his audience and people are using the diversion to slip out to a bar before the evening programme of shows. Apparently the translator was OK.

These shows are really the link between the Meeting and the local culture – without the programme of work the meetings could as well take place anywhere. In this part of the world any theatre subsidy that might be available goes to the State Theatre. Small companies have to fend for themselves. Work is shown in unusual places – someone’s flat; a closed-down shop; an underground car park have all been used over the last few meetings. Here in Bratislava they do have a number of decent venues and, given the history of Eastern Europe over the last thousand years or so it’s not surprising that most of the companies are taking the opportunity to deal with some tough material:

In the catalogue one play is described thus: ‘In the gloominess of the lounge, three siblings dance their dance of death in expectation of the time when they will once again be able to celebrate the birthday of their spiritual leader Himmler. Behind their civilized masks, they hide the monstrous faces of small-town people who dream of ethnic cleansings and gas chambers’.

The dance piece Not Only About Pain was ‘inspired by the problems and pains of real people’s bodies. Composition and decomposition of this “physical and poetic medical record on the stage” The production openly speaks of the feelings of a person who loses all ability to move naturally and fights with the blocking or limitation of movement caused by physical pain. It also deals with how the malfunctioning of the body influences the thinking of a person and his/her sense of searching for new meaning though the inner beauty of movement.’

8 p.m. Passing on these we decide to start with the only show billed as a comedy: 100 years of Pain but duck into a nearby bar first where friendly locals insist on us trying the Vodka. Suitably braced we enter the theatre. ‘100 Years’ has a company of about 18 who are experts in acrobatics, puppeteering, playing all sorts of instruments and generally camping it up in Rocky Horror costumes. It isn’t until well in to the second hour that I realise that we are watching an allegory in which the hapless central character Kobo, insulted, reviled, exploited, used and abused (physically, sexually and emotionally) represents little Slovakia where the population starves, despite the rich and fertile fields all around, through the corruption of rich landlords/Russians/other invaders through the millennia. Having realised this it all made sense.

After seeing a few shows most people retire to the Late Night Meeting point where the main business of networking is supposed to happen. I say supposed because there is always deafening music which means everyone has to resort to sign language even though they all speak English.

2 a.m. Walking back I realise that I don’t know the way quite as well as I thought. Rescued by a café owner who was able to understand my three words of Slovak: Hotel Danubia Gate.

Friday a.m.: attend seminars, Info sessions and plenaries.
4 p.m Our Brainstorm Session and Orla talks eloquently on the subject of pigs and other food related matters. The French seem to get the idea better than most and we come away with some good contacts including an excellent funding body from Normandy and one for an orchestra that only uses instruments fashioned from vegetables.

Later: attend performances and late-night meeting point – become lost on way home again – but not so lost as last night

Saturday 25th
Sadly our visit is coming to an end. Bratislava has much to recommend it. We have decided to head home early thereby avoiding the temptation to go to the all-night end-of-meeting party which this time features fancy dress (your national costume).
11 a.m. Taking a stroll round some sunny boulevards
12.30 p.m. Can’t resist the temptation to buy a doner kebab from this street vendor here to set me up for the flight hmmmm… delicious
1.30 p.m. hmm.. just wondering if that was such a good idea.
1.45 p.m. Martina at HDG has ordered a taxi – we dive in.
“to the airport please”
“Which airport – Vienna or Bratislava?”