TNTm 2010/2011

Is there a way to regard The Timişoara National Theatre other than as a cultural institution in no way different than any of its kind? There is; by seeing it as it is today: the generator of a young, contemporary and active type of theatre, full of dynamism and open-mindedness. We break through the limits of the commonplaceness. We overcome conventionalism. Even more, we surpass the boundaries of theatrical creation proper and plan to “invade” the city. Literally. If abandonment is equal to a potential ”dangerous memory” (a peril against the harmonizing of the individual with the place it inhabits), the theatre understands it’s duty to get involved and, as a result of that, launches a program for the rehabilitation of abandoned historic monument buildings as theatre spaces. The theatre itself must be an ex-centric space, and we manage to do just that: beside the main theatre hall (a monument building lying at the kilometer zero of the city, on the very spot where the fed-up people started the anti-Communist Revolution that changed the face of Romanian modern history forever), theatre goers in Timişoara may choose to see a play either in the former imperial manège, now Sala 2 (Theatre Hall no.2) – the most modern alternative theatre hall in Romania, either in Studio 5, an “under the roof” perfomance space. And even, soon enough, in a circus tent destined for the extreme forms of performance and syncretic art. With the same goal in mind, we chose to lay the foundations of the first European Center for Theatrical Anthropology in Romania precisely in one of the abandoned monument buildings we made reference to earlier – the former Synagogue in one of Timişoara’s historical districts, the Fabric district. This is one of our programs that is now under way and due to begin activity in 2011.

Everything that the The Timişoara National Theatre manages to do and, at the same time, to be – its constant preoccupation with the latest technology in stage equipment, the organizing of an international festival dedicated to performing arts, the editing of theatre books and the theatre magazine “atent”, the partnership with the European dramaturgy translation network “Atelier Européen de la Traduction”, its presence in Romanian and international festivals, its theatre tours, the Europe Cultural Award offered to our theatre by KulturForum Europa (2009), the fact that one of its productions was included in the 2008-2009 theatre season by the Odeon Theatre in Paris – stands for a constant desire for dialogue, for encounter. The Timişoara National Theatre has established an open dialogue with its public and its partners and responds with an offer of extremely diverse cultural activities, whose purpose is to articulate a structure that participates, with everything that is particular to it, in the creation of a common and coherent European language that is functional at any level.