Movement Profile
Picture empty, useless theatres divided by labels and target audiences. Massive public budget cuts in the arts. Suspension of public programmes. Strikes by workers in the arts and culture. Petrol taxes used to finance wars rather than cultural activities. Actors without pay or unemployment benefits. Stable theatres with budget shortfalls. Directors chosen by political connections. Respect for copyright but not for knowledge, workers or the audience. Bureaucrats firmly entrenched. Artists without money.
This was the situation when the decision to occupy the Teatro Valle was taken. After six months, on June 14th 2011 – following theatre raids and symbolic occupations – arts and culture workers occupied the theatre, which was to have been turned over to the private sector. The Teatro Valle is Rome’s oldest operating theatre and one of the many cultural institutions that has faced financial difficulties since the financial crisis. For several months diverse groups – workers in film, theatre and dance; technicians, operators and managers; the precarious and intermittently employed – waged a direct and self-organised fight for their rights and against the public budget cuts in arts and culture.
The link between culture, art and politics is created every day. The Teatro Valle occupation became a model that has been replicated in other Italian cities with similar experiences.
About the project
Actors, specialised theatre technicians and other artists decided to occupy the Teatro Valle to save it from an uncertain future and to bring to life an experimental way of running a theatre that is neither public nor private, but as a common good. A community of peers with a common interest wanted to keep the theatre alive and “available to all”.
The occupiers issued an appeal that has been signed by over 8,000 people. Citizens, artists, professionals, workers and cultural leaders from Italy and around the world gave life to the Teatro Valle Occupato. It has emerged as a venue with a strong symbolic value at the national level, a place to share ideas and experiences, a place to critically discuss politics and promote active citizenship.
We have reaffirmed the act of occupation and given it a new meaning. The community gives life to a democratic space that creates a non-hierarchical decision-making process and promotes active citizenship. We are interested in commons, mutualism, co-working and building relationships. We believe in a world built from the bottom up that still includes international collaborations.
We artists believe in continuing education. We have set up artistic residencies in which we invent new forms of education, open up the creative process to audiences, invite other artists and exchange ideas. The theatre promotes multimedia and interdisciplinary art forms and creates opportunities for ensembles through assemblies, informal meetings and international networks.
We organise plays and performances, children’s workshops, independent film screenings, and independent theatre festivals in and outside the theatre building. We reflect together on cultural politics. Since June 14th 2011, we have kept the theatre open and organised cultural programmes. We have promoted meetings and co-working sessions with many theatrical, academic and scientific institutions at the national and international level and supported the fight for a commons at the national level.
Our vision for the future of Teatro Valle
Internationally renowned legal scholars Ugo Mattei and Stefano Rodotà contributed to the Statute of the Foundation Teatro Valle as Commons. The occupants are aware of Italy’s present economic and financial difficulties and, for precisely this reason, we believe that the situation should be faced not with a blind policy of cuts but with forward-looking projects that aim to reduce waste and enhance artistic talents, a key resource for the country.
Our goal is to transform the Teatro Valle into a public foundation. The Foundation Teatro Valle as Commons (Fondazione Teatro Valle Bene Comune) will use an alternative economic and legal model that is based on the self government of art and culture workers and citizens in a direct democratic system. The principal goal of the theatre is to be always open and alive and to serve as a contemporary agora by offering a wide educational programme for professionals and citizens. In addition, Teatro Valle should be a centre devoted to contemporary Italian playwriting and theatre.
A renewed future for the Teatro Valle would be a major success for everybody, ushering in a new season of Italian cultural policy and resettling art, knowledge and creativity as the centre of the social system. Radical reforms capable of ensuring efficiency and autonomy in public management would allow virtuous private action and restore dignity to the professionals in this industry with specific laws recognising their rights.
We are practising new forms of ethical management that provide the possibility of a pluralist artistic direction with the guarantee of turnover. We are including:
– an ecological principle ensuring a balanced distribution of resources between small and large productions, for training and hospitality;
– fairness in pay that reduces the gap between the minimum and maximum;
– a pricing policy that is accessible and progressive;
– boards for independent monitoring, transparency and readability of financial statements published on the web; and
– a code of ethics that is a model for all theatres and companies.
Tags: Movement Profile