From Stage to Archive

An international conference on theatre archives organised by the Centre for Theatre Studies and Filmology (CTF) at the Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television at the University of Ljubljana and the Maribor Theatre Festival

The conference From Stage to Archive will strive to answer some of the crucial questions connected to the archiving and documenting of Slovenian theatre heritage:

• What are the concrete professional problems in working with Slovenian theatre heritage occurring on its way "from stage to archive” (e.g., the awareness of theatre managements on the importance of theatre documentation, absence of a unified database, data accessibility, uniform terminology, professional training of collaborators, professionalisation of archival work, spatial storage conditions, technology of conservation, adequate protection of originals when the material is in direct usage, different forms of collaboration between theatres, with local environment, etc.)?
• How to raise to a higher level the work of theatre archives that are operating mostly in the frame of theatres - the National Theatre Museum of Slovenia and the CTF and by rule are not part of the network of Slovenian archives, that is, museum archives?
• Is there a necessity for archives to be "centralised” in the sense of being directed, that is, managed, from a central organisation, perhaps a (still non-existing) theatre institute?
• How to digitise the operating of archives and what problems might occur in that process (compliance with EU standards, copyrights, technological capacities, financing, personnel problems, joining into a collective network connected to similar networks abroad)?
• What might be the role of a theatre archive, which often doesn’t end with the process of "musealisation”, especially in the sense of circulating archive material, which is a live organism and might manifest itself as a construction of a new theatre event?
• How to efficiently contribute to the usage – be it research, pedagogical, artistic, informative, or promotional – of an archive and its material?

The conference will feature foreign and local experts from various fields: Vladislava Fekete (Bratislava Theatre Institute); Martina Petranović, Ph.D. (HAZU, Department of History of Croatian Theatre); Ksenija Radulović, Ph.D. (Museum of Theatre Arts, Serbia); dr. Bojan Himmerleich (Historical Archives Celje); Matjaž Loboda (Ljubljana Puppet Theatre); Simona Ješelnik (CTF UL AGRFT); Samo M. Strelec (Si.gledal.org) and Štefan Vevar (National Theatre Museum of Slovenia).