International Directors Exchange 2023

I have just returned from a 7-day International Directors Exchange in Marburg, Germany, hosted by Hessisches Landestheatre and organised by ASSITEJ Germany. This was something I was meant to attend in 2021, but of course our friend Covid got in the way of that.

The Directors Exchange has been running since 1976 and it is a bi-annual event hosted by a theatre somewhere in Germany each time (it will be Hamburg in 2025). It is for directors working in the field of Theatre for or by Young People and you only get to attend once.

Before I left I didn’t know who else was on it and what we would be doing. This was a purposeful omission, designed to keep us in the moment of experiencing our week together - genius! I only knew there were 28 of us and that we came from all over the world.

The week was an immersive opportunity to share, talk, listen, make, explore together. We were each put into a pod group of 10 and in this pod we were to decide how we used our time together. We did do activities as a whole group of 28 but within each day we usually had between 3-6 hours in our pods.

My generous and thoughtful pod of people were from Sweden, Germany, Ukraine, South Africa, Poland, Serbia and Mongolia, plus me from Aotearoa.

It was a unique and to-be-savoured time where we could shape our time together. We identified areas of interest to share using the Open Space form of collecting, allowing whatever time was needed to spend delving and investigating.

We walked and talked, shared exercises and games, explored puppetry and physical approaches to work, sat and talked. It was such a gift to have the time to this with all these new people. It was a reminder to stay open and curious. There was nothing to achieve except what we took stock of at the end of each day.

They were long days, usually starting at 8.30am and finishing around 10.30pm, but the Northern hemisphere late setting sun made this feel easy.

I am grateful for the experience as well as the reflection it allowed me in sharing Massive Theatre Company with everyone. It has made me doubly appreciative of Massive in seeing the company through the other directors’ eyes, and understanding our autonomy as a company is glorious.

Sam Scott