Village dramaturgy
The countryside is an ambiguous area undergoing rapid development. Right-wing politics are widening the divide between urban and rural areas, the conflict between agriculture and nature is being played out in nitrogen dossiers, and village architecture is the subject of progressive research. At the same time, there is a very nostalgic view of this increasingly complex rural area, and cultural participation remains too limited to the cities. What do artists and organisations need in order to tackle these kinds of issues on the ground?
To this end, the PLAN B arts platform will launch the 'Village Dramaturgy' development project in 2023. Over a period of two years, we will investigate what it means to be a village dramaturg on the outskirts of three cities: Aalst, Genk and Brussels.
What questions can/should/will the village dramaturg ask, and what tools does he or she have at their disposal to explore these questions? And how can PLAN B not only take on this role itself, but also advocate for it and involve other artists and organisations? A first attempt to answer these questions took shape in a text that appeared in rekto:verso.
"A village dramaturg tries to read and interpret the village and its surroundings as a text and to link that personal reading to broader phenomena. In this way, village dramaturgs succeed in representing themes, dynamics and perspectives from the countryside in their artistic projects, which are currently lacking in the arts." (PLAN B in rekto:verso)
To explore these questions, Leontien Allemeersch, Vincent Focquet and Ewoud Vermote from PLAN B are working in pairs with Martha Balthazar in Genk, Elien Ronse in Aalst and Aulona Fetahaj in Brussels. This is supported by C-Mine, Netwerk Aalst and CIFAS.
More information about the three different projects can be found on the project pages:
