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Glyn Roberts

What:

In August 2015, investment from the Individuals Fund supported Glyn Roberts to participate in Atelier for Young Festival Managers, in Gwangju, South Korea.

Atelier is an intense and rigorous seven-day training conference, workshop and networking opportunity for emerging arts festival directors run by The Festival Academy.

The 2015 Atelier was the first of its kind to be held in north-east Asia. Approximately 40 people from around the world were invited to travel to Gwangju to discuss the nature and future of arts and cultural festivals under the guidance of highly experienced and internationally-regarded mentors such as Robyn Archer and Nele Hertling.

Participating in Atelier, enabled Glyn to develop new insights into how arts festivals can work, build skills in arts festival programming and management, and develop new international arts industry networks. Glyn also had the unique opportunity of attending the opening festival event of the newly completed Asian Culture Centre.

Asian-Cultural-CentreThe Asian Cultural Centre. Images courtesy of Glyn Roberts.

When:

29 August – 9 September 2015

Where:

Gwangju, South Korea

Arts Queensland contribution:

$2,930 – Individuals Fund

Outcomes

  • Glyn gained skills and insights into new thinking regarding the future of arts festivals. He also learned valuable techniques in how to engage audiences and developed new methods of working with artists. Glyn will use his newly gained skills and knowledge, achieved through his participation in Atelier for Young Festival Managers, in his work with Brisbane Festival and La Boite Theatre Company.

  • Glyn’s participation at Atelier led to an opportunity to be linked to a global network of arts festival managers. Being part of Atelier’s global alumni will offer important and ongoing professional development opportunities for Glyn.

  • Glyn’s attendance at the opening event of the newly completed Asian Culture Centre provided valuable insights into new performance movements in Asia.

  • Glyn will pursue his plan to establish a dance festival in Brisbane with local dancer/producer, Kate Usher.

Sacred-Valley-South-KoreaUnjusa Temple, near Gwangju. Images courtesy of Glyn Roberts.

Learnings and reflections

Through his experiences at Atelier, Glyn had the following observations and advice for the Queensland arts sector:

 “I learnt that we as an industry need to be pushing into Asian markets much more as we are already getting pushed out by European work. I also learned that presenters in the region are open to our work but we are not communicating enough with them. We need to get out there.”

Links:

Blog posts about the Atelier written by those who attended: http://www.festivalbytes.eu/tag/atelier-gwangju-2015/

All images courtesy of Glyn Roberts.

A pdf version of this Case Study - Glyn Roberts (PDF) (451.64 KB)  is available.