Příspěvek Dity Lánské na sympoziu Building Bridges: Collecting, Researching and Mediating the Performing Arts v Theatermuseum Düsseldorf & Deutsches Tanzarchiv Köln, 6. – 7. června 2025
“Out of the Bubbles: On the Importance of Cooperation and Popularization”
Dita Lánská, vedoucí Divadelního a filmového úseku Městská knihovna v Praze
Dear colleagues,
I want to present our unique project that combines community, educational and popularizing function.
Society for Theatre Research
Society for Theatre Research (Teatrologická společnost) is a professional association that was founded in 1997 as citizens´and interest initiative in the atmosphere of the mid 90’s in the Czech Republic. Two years ago, it underwent partial generational renewal. The new board was elected, and we started a change. A new program was named “Out of the bubbles” and we try to fulfil this statement in a whole range.
Connecting people
As I have talked about the specific position of my work place (Theatre and Film Department, Municipal Library of Prague) in my paper at Warsaw SIBMAS conference 2022, our specialized department is part of the public library and I see as our task to connect professionals with laymen because other institutions meant mainly for professionals don’t have such space for community and popularizing work. So, I have suggested relocation of the activities of the Society for Theatre Research to our public library.
International Context
In Warsaw, I have also talked about the changes of functions that happen not only in libraries, but also in memory institutions like museums, as consequence of the technology development and that are connected with decreasing importance of printed documents and about surviving as an institution paid by the public finances. And where we are now?
Now, I can say, that three years ago I haven’t forseen the deterioration of the geopolitical situation that resembles the turn of events before World War II. Arrangement of forces in the world, we were used to last decades, are no longer valid. I can see around, that the atmosphere in society is not good and the pressure of an economic crisis makes working conditions worse and worse, especially in culture. But I could use same sentence that I have pronounced in Warsaw three years ago: “That’s how the situation is, although we like it or not and if we want to survive as an institution paid by the public finances, we have to adapt to the situation.”, but maybe soon we will face the situation in which we will want just to survive generally.
The power of the community
In light of what has just been said, I want to speak about the importance of cooperation, backing community cohesion and popularization of our scientific field in the described situation. Staying together makes our voice stronger, and it helps us also psychically to be more resilient in such hard times. Popularizing our field makes our work more visible and then we can better speak about it. Last but not least, we can share our problems with others, so it is also a kind of therapy.
New program
So back to Society for Theatre Research and its program “Out of the bubbles”. Main goal is to connect academics and memory institution workers with practitioners, students with teachers and other people from the field; professionals with laymen with interest in theatre; to support cooperation between institutions, interdisciplinary view and we also want to try all this on the international level. I want to present our activities.
The main outputs of the association were cycles of lectures, before we moved activities from the Theatre Institute to the Municipal Library of Prague. It was because of the pandemic that stopped most of the events with personal presence. Besides regular lectures, we also started to organize workshops, trips and commented walks. The idea of moving to the environment of the public library was the basis of the change. We perceive this step as a crucial tool for opening up our field to the public and different groups and communities. It works.
Formats
To the formats of events, we arrange: lectures are meant as a presenting work of researchers and academic workers to others. After moving lectures into the public library, we wanted to adapt also our way of communication and language we use. We wanted to keep a professional level of the content but add more attractiveness to the way we communicate it and also the way of presenting a particular topic through the lecture. That applies also to dramaturgy.
Communication
We have made a new website, logo, and whole visual identity. We aimed all that at a purity, modern design, and clarity. Our intern also started an Instagram profile. Facebook profile we already had. We make efforts to be active on both social networks. We struggle with the amount of this PR work.
Formats
The idea of the backing of community life brought us to organizing trips, excursions and commented walks as these formats are based on common experiencing of some new place and space. The sharing of new experiences and knowledge is an important bonding dimension.
As we wanted to engage also students, we thought about the ways, how to do it. First, we arranged official confirmation of the presence of students at the lectures in the form of studying credits by the Department of Theatre Studies at Charles University. This was crucial for the motivation of the students to come. Then we wanted to attract them through the offer of the events. We were thinking, what could interest them… How about some practical dimension of the field that could show them the work of the theatrical practitioners. It turned out to be a good idea. This format is also popular with non-professional public. We perceive all formats of our activities as a kind of an unformal education and an addition to university studies.
Examples of workshops:
Theatre Aldente – workshop of actor-specific theatre. They showed us the way of their theatrical work, training of the actors which we could try with them. The actors also presented their relationship to theatre and acting.
Intuitive Dramaturgy – workshop led by the alternative theatre group. They showed us the process of the dramaturgical choice and work with the materials in the author’s theater that ends by making your own theater script.
Encyclopedia and Theatre – we wanted to draw a comparison between two kinds of electronic encyclopedic projects: Wikipedia and academic Czech Theatre Encyclopedia that is project of colleagues from Czech Theatre Studies Department at Theatre Institute. We wanted to promote these projects and show possibilities of practical use of a field to students. The surprising circumstance of this workshop was the interest of the workers from memory institutions. It turned out that they want to promote their work through Wikipedia, that is a public open access source and platform where everyone can work on it.
RVS
I want also to boast about our latest successes. We were accepted into the Council of Scientific Societies what is subsidiary society of the Czech Academy of Sciences. That means confirmation of professional quality, development of the Society for Theatre Research, as well as new opportunities for promoting the field and interdisciplinary cooperation. We intended to increase prestige and awareness of our field by this step.
Senate
We also obtained patronage of the 13th annual Václav Königsmark Award competition, which is awarded every second year by an expert committee to emerging researchers in the field of theater and performativity by the senate Committee on Education, Science, Culture, Human Rights and Petitions.
Conclusion
If I should say what works – it is open neutral space of a public library, emphasis on communication, intergenerational dialogue and dramaturgy based on interdisciplinary approach, interinstitutional cooperation and community life care. Popularization is possible but it needs a lot of work!