Festivals and The Time They Offer

Vincent de Repentigny’s text WHAT TIME IS IT?  brought to light five key ideas on the notion of time:

1. How “the concrete experiences of our lived times often seem out of sync with the abstract character of our clock-based social time regime” and how this can perhaps lead to alienation.
2. Time on digital and online platforms as opposed to the lived experience of time.
3. The idea of being able to invent new time structures.
4. The notion of time as varying from one society and culture to the next.
5. And time experienced differently as an individual and collective.

As co-director of performing arts festival Kyoto Experiment, all five of these ideas are very timely (!) when thinking about the present and future of a contemporary international performing arts festival, especially under the current circumstances we now find ourselves in. The performing arts sector, as well as the wider arts world and beyond, is experiencing numerous cancellations and postponements. At the same time, however, theatres and festivals offering online streamings of performances are more accessible than ever. Of course, the situation has had devastating effects, but viewed in a positive light, it has also forced many to reflect on current practices and brought to the fore a number of questions. One such question concerns the timescales and frames in which we organise and produce contemporary international performing arts festivals, as well as the timescales and frames in which audiences encounter these festivals.

In a world increasingly governed by productivity and an “obsession with saving, measuring and organizing time,” Repentigny’s imaginings of “safe time” or perhaps “non-productive” or “experimental” time is no doubt more essential than ever. Perhaps a way of achieving this “non-productive” time is by first delineating the boundaries of a “safe, non-productive space” in which one by definition spends their time being non-productive. Examples of this are perhaps public spaces such as libraries and parks, but we could also extend this idea to include public theatres and festivals. When there is increasing pressure to be productive, it is essential to advocate for as much freedom as possible in terms of the space and time in which work is produced and presented. This is, of course, important for the artist as well as the audience that encounters the work. In the future, we should increasingly think about how the festival as a platform can create and offer “non-productive” space in which not only artists but also audiences can spend “non-productive” time.

Performing arts certainly has the power to teach us new ways of discerning and experiencing space and time — in this sense, the power to invent new time structures. The “traditional” format for a performing arts festival consists of the presentation of a line-up of various artists’ works. The audience buys tickets, enters the theatre at 7pm, sits down, and “watches” the work. Perhaps, however, it is the responsibility of the festival, and not only the artist, to increasingly challenge these boundaries of space and time. A performing arts festival should not merely be about offering audiences performances to passively “watch” at a certain time, but also about creating time and space for artists and audiences, as well as the wider community in which the festival situates itself, to gather, and encounter and challenge one another. A festival, unlike a theatre tied to an actual immovable space, is perhaps fertile soil for experimenting with these ideas.

With regard to time as experienced in digital or virtual spaces, the increasing number of online streamings of performances has provided space for experimentation as well as a rise for concern about how the arts sector should protect the time- and space-bound “liveness” of the performing arts. Perhaps what is needed in the future is neither a full embrace nor a rejection of the digital in the performing arts sector, but rather a recognition and experimentation with the ways that the digital can give us more access to physical reality. This would not be a substitute for the experience of watching a live performance work, but instead a kind of second platform that could be provided by the festival. As Robert Hassan proposes, the mass of information online often seems like a “digital prison of constant distraction.” However, what if festivals could offer a well curated, independent online space, not to simply stream performances, but to invite and connect audiences internationally, giving an insight into the local scene, context, community, and processes that not only surround but sustain a contemporary performing arts festival?

The future of international performing arts festivals, as well as the performing arts sector more widely, certainly has much to consider when responding to contemporary notions of time and productivity. For festivals, providing a platform that can offer time for freedom in creation, encountering, and sharing between a community of people, artists, and audiences alike is essential.