Festival Charleville-Mézières 2021

The program of the activities of the Unima at the head office of our international organisation was part of this will of celebration and reunion. For more than a year and a half, with the beginning of this pandemic, we were all confined and we lived this lack and desire for theatre. The Happy Apéros meetings, whether they were digital or physical, were a great opportunity to share moments with members from all over the world, from the United States, Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary, Germany, France, Canada, Venezuela, Spain, Slovenia, Togo, Senegal, Ivory Coast, the Czech Republic, Belgium, the Netherlands, Afghanistan, Australia, Portugal, Ireland, Kenya, Poland and Romania.

Even if travel was not yet free of constraints and even if the festival required strict sanitary rules, a renewal blew over this edition, and the headquarters experienced through these meetings relaxed moments of both international representativeness and proposals in our projects discussed and in the conversations developed. Let us not deny ourselves pleasure (our success), even if limited by the still present reality of Covid, our activities as well as our meetings, and the world premiere of the European creation of Customs by the team, and the American and African projects, have shown our vitality and our desire to go beyond borders and to strengthen the links of our organisation.

Commissions

There are several surveys and projects before us now, in the wake of our new teams in our commissions to prepare for the full range of issues. The UNIMA general survey will be sent to you in mid-November.

The Education, Development and Therapy Commission's survey wishes to connect members and centres around the world. The Professional Training Commission's survey wants to list all the training courses around the world to create an up-to-date directory. The sub-commission Publication (PPO) wishes to ask for information on all the magazines dedicated to the puppetry arts around the world.

On Thursday 21 October at 16:00 (CET), don't forget the launch of the Professional Training Commission's project and the presentation of the Margareta Niculescu School (Ecole Supérieure Nationale des Arts de la Marionnette (ESNAM) de Charleville-Mézières) about these trainings. To be able to participate in this Zoom meeting, please register on puppetraining1@gmail.com. These meetings will be available on youtube in several languages (Spanish, English, Portuguese).

Other projects

There are other projects, such as the Passport programme of the International Festivals commission, which provides grants for young professionals, who wish to participate in international festivals.

On 3 November 2021, continental creations of the Customs project (Africa, USA and Europe) will be present at the Topic Tolosa festival in Spain.

As planned, the month of December will feature new Open Sessions in 3 languages. Stay tuned!

World Puppetry Day

Don't forget! The World Puppet Day on 21 March 2022 is coming! The proposed topic for workshops, videos and projects around the world is "aquatic life" and the marine worlds.