Audience Development-Workshop for the Deutscher Bühnenverein

In the face of visitor numbers that still haven’t reached pre-pandemic levels and of less than boisterous audience trends already before COVID the IKMW on 10 June 2022 gave a workshop on Audience Development at the annual meeting of the Deutscher Bühnenvereins (DBV) at the Oldenburg State Theater – it was the most frequented out of seven workshops offered to the member theatres.

In a facilitated inventory Achim Müller collected and structured the experiences and knowledge of participating theatres. The research followed three guiding questions: Who comes, whom do we know? Whom do we miss, whom do we want to come? How and where do we want to seek, find, motivate and bind them?

To complement this experience-based kowledge Achim Müller and Klaus Siebenhaar introduced basic results from scientific research on visitor structure, motivation, behaviour and development.

The core findings were humbling, but not very surprising: significant decrease of visits, specifically among frequent visitors; both encouraging and disappointing expereinces both with measures to regain former and with those to attract new audiences visitors – and, lingering above, the insight already formulated by Bourdieu in the 1960s: Programming that is truly visitor-oriented  – including innovative participatory formats and new venues – together with adequate, if possible personalised communications remain remain the core of all successful audience development.

The results made it clear: For the future theatres don’t really need additional general research projects without reference to concrete measures. For audience development to be at the same time art-oriented and evidence-based they should instead invest in a process of research & development focussing on developing and testing specific activities, formats and strategies. The IKMW already has entered talks with the DBV to start such a project with selected theatres.

Audience Development-Workshop für den Deutschen Bühnenverein

Angesichts von Besuchszahlen, die bei weitem noch nicht das Niveau vor der Corona-Pandemie erreicht haben, und von bereits vor der Pandemie Besorgnis erregenden Trends hat das IKMW auf Einladung des Deutsche Bühnenvereins (DBV) auf dessen Jahreshauptversammlung am Oldenburgischen Staatstheater am 10. Juni 2022 einen Workshop zum Thema „Audience Development“ durchgeführt – es war der meistbesuchte Workshop des siebenteiligen Workshop-Programms.

In einer moderierten Bestandsaufnahme sammelte und strukturierte Achim Müller die ungeschönten Erfahrungen und Kenntnissen der teilnehmenden Häuser entlang von drei Fragestellungen: „Wer kommt, wen kennen wir? Wen vermissen wir, wen wünschen wir uns? Wie und wo wollen wir sie suchen, finden, motivieren und binden?

Dem Erfahrungswissen aus den Häusern stellten Achim Müller und Klaus Siebenhaar Forschungsergebnissen über Besucherzusammensetzung, -motivation, -verhalten und -entwicklung gegenüber.

Die Befunde waren ernüchternd, wenn auch wenig überraschend: deutliche Rückgänge von Besuchen, gerade auch unter ehemaligem Stammpublikum; teils ermutigende, teils ernüchternde Erfahrungen sowohl bei der Rückgewinnung früherer Besucher als auch beim Erschließen neuer Publika – und die schon von Bourdieu in den 1960ern formulierte Erkenntnis, dass der Kern von Audience Development tatsächlich pubikumsorientierte Programmpolitik – inklusive innovativer partizipativer Formate und neuer Spielorte – verbunden mit einer adäquaten, möglichst personalisierte Kommunikation bilden.

Bei diesen eindeutigen Ergebnissen war klar: Für die Zukunft braucht es weniger zusätzliche übergeordnete Forschungsprojekte, sondern einen auf konkrete Maßnahmen ausgerichteten Recherche-, Forschungs- und Entwicklungsprozess für zugleich kunstorientiertes und evidenzbasiertes Audience Development. Das IKMW ist in Gesprächen mit dem Deutschen Bühnenverein, mit ausgewählten Theatern ein entsprechendes Projekt auf den Weg zu bringen.

Successful Exhibitions in Shanghai and Chengdu after first Stop in Guangzhou/Canton

For three weeks the two documentary exhibitions „Joseph Beuys and the documenta“ and „Cosmos Beuys: About Art and Life in 20th century Avantgarde“ will be open to a broad public in Guangzhou/Canton. Both exhibitions are shown in a private cultural center under the partonage of the General Consulate after their opening the residency of the German Embassy in Beijing.

Subsequently „Joseph Beuys und die documenta“ was opened in the Urbancross Gallery in Shanghai on 25 February 2022, only to have to close because of COVID a few days later. After the end of the lockdown the exhibition was on show in Shanghai until mid of July.

On the other hand the exhibition „Cosmos Beuys“ could be presented as scheduled in the XLY MoMa Museum in Chengdu from 2 April until 15 May 2022 and found a vividly interested audience.

Ausstellungen nach Guangzhou auch in Chengdu und Shanghai erfolgreich

Für drei Monate werden die beiden Dokumentarausstellungen „Joseph Beuys und die documenta“ sowie „Kosmos Beuys: About Art and Life in 20th century Avantgarde“ in Guangzhou/Kanton einer breiteren Öffentlichkeit zugänglich sein. Nach der Premiere in der Residenz der Deutschen Botschaft in Peking sind beide Ausstellungen unter dem Patronat des Generalkonsulat in einem privaten Kulturzentrum zu sehen.

Am 25. Februar 2022 wurde „Joseph Beuys und die documenta“ dann in der Urbancross Gallery in Shanghai eröffnet, um nach wenigen Tagen pandemiebedingt wieder schließen zu müssen. Nach der Aufhebung des Lockdowns wurde die Ausstellung noch bis Mitte Juli in Shanghai gezeigt.

Planmäßig konnte dagegen die Ausstellung „Cosmos Beuys“ vom 2. April bis 15. Mai 2022 im XLY MoMa Museum in Chengdu einer interessierten Öffentlichkeit präsentiert werden.

Präsenzseminare an FU Berlin und Popakademie Baden-Württemberg

Neben den Online-Veranstaltungen für die Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in Peking, China, setzten Klaus Siebenhaar und Achim Müller ihre Lehre an deutschen Hochschulen im Sommersemester 2022 erstmals seit der Corona-Pandemie in Präsenz fort:

Klaus Siebenhaar lehrt im Seminar „German Pop“ an der Freien Universität die popkulturelle Basis unserer Lebenswelt: Die Pop-Kultur hat als erste allumfassende künstlerisch-kulturelle Transformation der Gesellschaft von „unten“ alle gesamten Alltagssphären und Lebensbereiche erfasst und ästhetisch durchdrungen – von der Sprache bis zu den Bildwelten. Das Seminar geht den nationalen, ja regionalen Formatierungen und Facettierungen dieses globalen Phänomens nach – musikalisch, bildkünstlerisch, medial und literarisch. Pop ist nur transdisziplinär zu erfassen, deshalb werden die literarischen Exkurse von Brinkmann bis Wondratschek mit stilprägenden Musik- und Kunstrichtungen wie Krautrock, NDW, Mannheim Blues, Sound of Munich oder Kapitalistischer Realismus, Fluxus/Aktionskunst, Konzeptkunst, Neue Wilde sowie filmischen Beispielen verbunden.

Derweil vermittelt Achim Müller angehenden Musikmanagern an der Popakademie Baden-Württemberg in einem praxisorientierten Seminar die Grundlagen von Audience Development. Die Studierenden lernen dabei zentrale Konzepte und Strategien von ganzheitlich besucherorientierter Arbeit von Kulturinstitutionen und -unternehmen kennen und wenden sie in selbstgewählte Fallstudien direkt auf verschiedene Bereichen des Musik-Business an.

Live Seminars at Freie Universität Berlin and Popakademie Baden-Württemberg

Along with the Online-Courses for the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in Beijing, China, Prof. Dr. Klaus Siebenhaar and Achim Müller are continuing their courses in German universities and academies – in Summer 2022 with live seminars for the first time since the COVID pandemic.

In the seminar „German Pop“ at the Freie Universität Berlin, Klaus Siebenhaar teaches the pop-cultural foundations of our life. Pop culture was the first all-encompassing, bottom-up artistic/cultural transformation of society. From language to imagery it affected at infiltrated all areas of everyday life. The seminar traces the national or even regional formats and nuances of this global phenomenon in music, visual arts, media and literature. On “Pop” can only apprehended appropriately with an interdisciplinary approach. Thus the excurses in literature from Brinkmann to Wondratschek will be linked to iconic trends in music and arts like Krautrock, NDW, Mannheim Blues, Sound of Munich or capitalistic realism, Fluxus/Action art, concept art, new wilds (“Neue Wilde”) as well as to examples from film.

Meanwhile Achim Müller is training the foundations of audience development with future professionals in music business at the Popakademie Baden-Württemberg. The students get to know basic concepts and strategies of integrated audience-orientation of cultural organizations and enterprises and directly apply them to different areas of music business in self-selected case studies.

Hungarian-Chinese-German „Art Clinic“ opened in Budapest

On the weekend 13/14 May 2022 the „First Aid-Art Clinic” was opened in Budapest’s Bartok-Distrikt (11. District) as a part of the Budapest “Sprig Festival”. The art project was developed over the course of almost five months in a cooperation between the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) Beijing, the Eleven Blokk Art Foundation, Budapest, and the IKMW Berlin, a cooperation that was unconventional both organizationally and in the manner of curating. As a hybrid format with “distance curating”, diglog field research and a concrete physical realization in five real sites in Budapest, the “Art Clinic developed into a successful, very well frequented art event. At the same time it proved an exemplary creative model for international cooperation under times of the pandemic. There will be further projects of this kind in the constellation Budapest-Berlin-Beijing following this encouraging experiences and outcomes.

Building on the core idea that art heals the ten upcoming curators from China and Hungary developed a narration comprising five stations: „Show Your Wound“, „Land of Demons“, „Cross the Boarder, Ferryman“, „Wonderland Cythera“ and „Paradise: Arcadia“. A path from hurt toward eventual healing is represented and told with different artistic formats from Hungarian and Chinese artists.

Second Open Space-Workshop at the Landestheater Tübingen

Under the header “Together! The LTT after Corona!” Achim Müller has facilitated the second Open Space-workshop for the Landestheater Tübingen (LTT) on 14 May 2022. The first Open Space took place in 2019, just before the beginning of the COVID pandemic. The Open Space-workshops are part of the LTT’s organizational development strategy: In order to meet current and upcoming challenges the LTT wants to continuously develop everyday work and its artistic profile with the participation of all interested employees.

To ensure that the input and initiatives find their way into the practice of the LTT the results and their feasibility were evaluated with a steering workgroup comprising representatives from all areas of the theatre. First activities are already under way, for example a whole day with artistic program reflecting the war in Ukraine, entirely planned and organized by employees. And the process continues: the core elements of the next development workshop projected for the next season are already set.

German-as-a-Foreign-Language (‚DaF‘) documentary theatre performance and new contributions to VR exhibition

With different creative tasks school chilren from the PASCH school Millenium i Treti (MIT) in Pristina, Kosovo, have been sent on a „fantastic“ time travel from year 2220. On their journey they collected impressions and materials that might seem peculiar to someone 200 years from now – the same way the sight of a handcar would seem today. A 360° VR exhibition that presents the contributions in different theme and country rooms marked the end of the first project stage.

From the very start all participants – the Goethe Institut, lecturers, teachers, school children – were keen on enlarging the project with an analog stage as soon as the COVID pandemia would end or when numbers of infections in Kosovo would diminish. Building on a precursor project in 2020, the present continuation picked up the youths‘ ideas from the previous year, deepened them and enlarged them with new topics. In numerous contributions presented in the VR exhibition the youths in 2020 had approached the challenges of the present time together with possibilities for change. Starting from these materials the on-site workshops with Stephan Reischl and Matthias Baumann took on developing a theatre performance and bringing it to stage.

Having been implemented successfully in several international projects (among them with school children from MIT in Kosovo) the format of German-as-a-Foreign-Language (‚DaF‘) documentary theatre provided a host of linguistic and motivating impulses, an ideal basis for integrating the school childrens‘ contributions in different media formats.

The final performance at the ODA theater in Pristina was recorded and made available in excerpts together with the youths‘ contributions in the rooms of the VR exhibition.

Duration: November – December 2021

Responsible: Stephan Reischl (projekt lead/theatre), Matthias Baumann (multimedia)

The IKMW participates in shaping the change process „TUP of the Future“ of the Theater and Philharmonics (TUP) Essen. Already in the season 2020/21 members of TUP Essen from all departments developed proposals for ten areas where TUP should reposition and reorganize. With assistence from IKMW these proposals will be cast into concrete measures and plans that will feed into the further development of TUP Essen and into applications for funding in programs of North Rhine-Westphalia until Summer 2022.

Through facilitation and consulting in work processes and decision-making as well through contributing to an application for funding in North Rhine-Westphalia the IKMW supports TUP Essen on its mission to become a model for a theater of the future.