Crossing the Border: Finding New Audiences
Crossing the Border: Finding New Audiences
- Date
- Feb 10th 2014
- With
- Victoria Broackes, Yoel Gamzou, Chris Torch, Annemie Vanackere
“I enjoy playing the audience like a piano,” Alfred Hitchcock once said. The interconnectedness of audiences with cultural institutions via social media has profoundly changed the platform for the public‘s engagement with culture. Audiences are growing. What strategies do other cultural institutions such as museums, orchestras and theatres employ to rebrand and re-contextualize their art form to attract new audiences? What can the film industry learn from these innovative tactics? Pioneers from various parts of the European cultural sector, including Yoel Gamzou, one of the youngest conductors in the world and head of the International Mahler Orchestra, Victoria Broackes, curator of the “David Bowie Is…“ exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and Annemie Vanackere, artistic director of the multidisciplinary and successful Hebbel Theatre (HAU) in Berlin, share their experiences in broadening and maintaining new audiences.
Victoria Broackes
Head of Exhibitions for the Victoria & Albert Museum Department of Theatre & Performance, and Head of Festival for the London Design Festival at the V&A. In 2013 she co-curated “David Bowie Is”, the fastest selling exhibition in the V&A's history, and co-presented the film of the exhibition, DAVID BOWIE IS HAPPENING NOW, a first for the Museum, created as a Live Event on the last night of the exhibition. Vicky has developed several other popular music displays for the V&A, from “Kylie: The Exhibition” (2007) to “The Story of the Supremes” (2008) and “The House of Annie Lennox” (2011).
Yoel Gamzou
Orchestral conducter, who grew up in New York, London and Tel Aviv. His main mentor was Carlo Maria Giulini, with whom he worked intensively until the maestro’s death. In 2006 hefounded the International Mahler Orchestra, an ensemble which explores new formats of classical music, interdisciplinary exchange and a democratic alternative to the orchestral situatio. In 2007, he was awarded the Special Prize of the International Gustav Mahler Conducting Competition in Bamberg, later on the Berenberg Kulturpreis Hamburg (2012) and the prestigious “Princess Margriet Award" of the European Cultural Foundation (2013). In 2010 he achieved international recognition when his completion of Mahler's unfinished Tenth Symphony was published by Schott Verlag and premiered in Berlin to high acclaim by Mahler experts, the press and the audience. Alongside his position at the IMO and regular guest-conducting with major international orchestras, he is now Vice Music Director of the Kassel State Theatre.
Chris Torch
Founder and Senior Associate at Intercult, a production and resource unit based in Stockholm. Intercult focused on exchange and co-production within Europe, reflected in the project CORNERS (2011) as SEAS (2003-2010). He lectures regularly and currently serves on the Board of Culture Action Europe, Europe’s most important platform for cultural policy development. He has served earlier on the Boards of The European Museum Forum and the Platform for Intercultural Europe.
Annemie Vanackere
Annemie Vanackere is the artistic and managing director of HAU Hebbel am Ufer in Berlin. After studying philosophy, theatre and film in Leuven and Paris, she worked as a production manager for the STUC arts centre and the KLAPSTUK festival, taking over as artistic director of the Nieuwpoorttheater in Ghent in 1993. She worked for the Rotterdamse Schouwburg from 1995 to 2011, acting as artistic co-director from 2001 as well as directing the affiliated Productiehuis Rotterdam.