Other Topics of Interest… Meetings of the OISTAT Commissions, OISTAT bulletin bij Zichtlijnen 67, november 199

Other Topics of Interest… Meetings of the OISTAT Commissions

Commission for History and Theory in Toronto, Canada from March 24 – 27, 1999
The Institute invited the commission to Toronto on the occasion of the USITT Annual Conference and Expo. The meeting’s working themes included the list of historic theatre buildings in Europe compiled by Per Edström. This documentation will be expanded and published on CD-Rom. In Israel there are plans for a lighting museum. Ben-Tzion Munitz initiated a discussion on concepts for the museum: should it be interactive or historical, an audio-visual exhibition or a site for demonstrations? Lectures dealt with the Teatron Project (Bob Logger) on the virtual reconstruction of historic theatres, the reconstructed change of sets in Baroque theatre (Frank Mohler), and the problem of data accessibility in the extensive theatre library in Budapest (Hedwig Belitzka-Scholtz).

Elections were held for new leaders: Bob Logger (Netherlands) was elected as new chair, Arnold Aronson, the former chair, and Ben-Tzion Munitz will be vice-chairs of the commission.

Meeting of the Education Commission in Antwerp, Belgium from April 22 – 25, 1999
Owing to financial difficulties, Denmark could not host the meeting as scheduled. Jerome Maeckelbergh graciously offered his home as both the meeting place and place of accommodation. Jerome and his wife Krista organized a wonderful meeting, and the Commission hereby expresses its gratitude!

Frits van den Haspel presented a report on the DCU project and Gustav Kull provited information about the website. Chris van Goethem and teachers from the major schools in and around Antwerp gave presentations on their teaching methods and organizations. The major topic was the PQ and the student activities related to it.

Tomas Zizka provided information about the plans for the Light Lab in the student division of PQ. The Commission members reiterated their intention to organize programmes for the PQ. To this end, the Commission chairman Michael Ramsaur was put in charge of organizing sessions for students and, in particular, finding a place where students and others could meet for discussion. For a full description of the activities planned please see the Education Commission website (under http://www.oistat.nl).

Meeting of the Publication and Communication Commission in Toronto, from March 24 -27, 1999
The PCC was also invited to Toronto. An important point of discussion was the presence of OISTAT on the Internet. Our webmaster, Gustav Kull, has begun the actualization of the OISTAT info. All the information he receives is immediately put on the web. The various commissions should make extensive use of this possibility to disseminate information! The commission’s new project is co0mpiling a list of the titles of plays and operas that are performed internationally, which will serve as a basis for a dictionary of titles, containing the original title with translations into English, French, and German. The coordinator of this project is Eric Fielding. The commission will contract other commissions to enlist their support in the possible publication of their documentation. The long-time chair, Eric Fielding, did not stand for re-election. His successor will be John Faulkner of Great Britain.

After the meeting, the delegates, as well as the members of the Commission for History and Theory, took part in the USITT Conference and were given the opportunity to visit theatres in Toronto.

Meeting of the Technology Commission in Helsinki, Finland, from August 19 – 22, 1999
The Technology Commission had a pleasant but strenuous meeting in Helsinki, at which elections were held to choose the commission’s new leadership. The new chair is John Mayberry of Canada, the two vice-chairs are Bruno Groesel of Austia and Louis Janssen of the Netherlands. The topics discussed included the ongoing work on the theatre atlas; compiling regulations for wireless radio microphones; the standardization of safety rules on stage; a project on theatre guidelines in Hong Kong; the organization of an auxiliary programme at the OISTAT congress in Berlin in 2001, and the improvement of the commission’s homepage on the OISTAT website. This meeting was organized very well indeed by Maija Pekkanen, Anne Caven, Keijo Koli, Timo Tuovila and Matti Uovinen of the Finish OISTAT centre.

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