Kia ora friends, It's been a while since we've updated this blog! To see all of the projects we've presented since our last post see our archive You might be interested in the blog posts created for one of these projects which was an exploration into Samuel Butler's novel Erewhon, where we went on some adventures in search of an 'Erewhon' of today. You can view these posts on our project website here Erewhon Project. 
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The letter below left was sent to the Arts Centre Trust Board on June 19 asking them to return to the partnership they had proposed with Free Theatre to maintain the company in The Gym. It was shared for signing on June 13 and as people are continuing to ask for their names to be added on Facebook and by sending notes to our email address [email protected], we are updating the letter as we go. So let us know your thoughts. Alternatively, you can contact the acting Arts Centre Chief Executive directly: Jane Parfitt - [email protected] or incoming Chief Executive Philip Aldridge: [email protected] or acting chair of the board Erin Jackson: [email protected]. 

As much as it is an argument about Free Theatre, it is a debate over the arts in the city and the Arts Centre as a key site for this. To see the restoration of this special site becoming more about buildings and using retail and corporate hires to make it work, it loses its reason for being and the very reason it was gifted to the city by the university for “arts, education and culture” (see Trust Deed here). And it loses the key point of difference that will inspire key stakeholder investment in the site and see it continue.
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​The Arts Centre management responded almost immediately when the letter was sent on June 19 (NB their letter has a typo/incorrect year), "expecting" us to present a letter via our social media to present its point of view. We've also provided our responses in red as there are quite different points of view that speak to wider issues regarding the Arts in the Arts Centre. ​

A huge amount of time, passion and energy has gone into making Free Theatre at The Gym a place that is special to Christchurch and unique in the wider theatre context. We would like to thank all the artists that have committed to making our time at the Arts Centre such a creative success. There are many projects and collaborations that have been initiated here that will grow and continue to be of significant benefit to Christchurch.

However, this is not the end of Free Theatre. The full Free Theatre programme will continue, so watch out for our next Ubu Nights inspired by the Grimm brothers!

We appreciate all the warm support the company has received, most recently with our New Zealand première of Tom Wait’s Alice, and we’re excited about the unique experiences we have planned for our 40th-year next year and beyond.
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​An article in The Press recently ['Free fees and changing degrees: The changing face of higher education' Philip Matthews 05:00, Dec 16 2017] acknowledged the destruction of nine years of neoliberal governance on education and the arts in particular and an awareness of the desperate need for the analytical, contextual approach of arts education in what will be a vastly different society and economy in the 21st century:

A recent piece from UC senior management ['A city and its university: Is UC ready to be a creative force in Christchurch's future?' John McCrone05:00, Feb 03 2018] seemed an attempt to rewrite history and reposition management as saviours of the university rather than henchmen for the previous neoliberal regime. But the attempted spin and assertions simply don't stand up to even brief scrutiny.

In 2012, a colleague at UC described "TAFS people" as cockroaches - as the university looked to once again shut us down (eventually with success). He offered a back-handed mark of respect by using the same term that then US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton used to describe former PM Helen Clark (who, incidentally, once saved the department) as the ultimate survivor. But our erstwhile colleague was pointing towards something that perhaps just doesn't make sense in university these days... or arts organisations... Free Theatre and the department it spawned just don't make sense in a market-driven culture, continuing to function as a critic and conscience against the commercial odds. It is this kind of focus on collective creative thinking that is the future. 

As a new Minister for the Arts, who just happens to be the PM, steps up, she brings with her an unprecedented two Associate Ministers for the Arts that are, respectively, the Minister for Finance (and Sport) and the Minister for Social Development and Disability issues. For those that care, we all have to contribute to make sure this symbolism marks real change and not more of the same neoliberal posturing. 

With that in mind, it may be of interest to read Falkenberg's keynote for a conference on 'theatre and resilience' in Australia last year. Among other things, the article reflects on the experience of the department, Free Theatre and Christchurch as they battled through the worst excesses of neoliberalism that were pushed to extremes by the National government of the last nine years. ​

Tonight, on the first day of spring and the last night of The Black Rider, we have something to celebrate: Free Theatre's birthday in The Gym. On 1 September 2014 we officially began working in The Gym towards our very first Ubu Night on 5 September. Our tenure in The Gym was only to be two years, with the original plan for the space to be a restaurant and for Free Theatre to take up other residence in the Arts Centre. With original collaborators Arts Circus, we pitched the idea of a flexible contemporary performance space to the Arts Centre and set about implementing a light-touch fit-out with support from Christchurch City Council, Rata Foundation and Creative New Zealand. While the support for the fit-out was relatively modest, Stuart Lloyd-Harris designed and implemented an exemplary 'black box' that has allowed for a diversity of events to take place in the Arts Centre, from Free Theatre's central New Works and Education Programme that is designed specifically to exploit and showcase what is possible in this beautiful space, to festivals such as the Christchurch Arts Festival and the Jazz and Blues Festival, as well as a diversity of arts, community, corporate and private events. It is inevitable (especially with limited funding) that there are limitations to the space. However, this also leads to innovative ways of developing new work and unusual experiences for audiences. Over the three years we've been operating, local, national and international artists who don't necessarily know our situation, rave about The Gym, it's ambience and acoustics, it's sense of place in a city struggling to remember, and its inspiration for work of the future. We are proud of what has been achieved and even more so about what is on the cards in the next few years given the collaborations we have initiated thus far.

It can be frustrating as we struggle to survive to hear the constant wrangling over big building projects like the proposed performing arts precinct ($45 mil for the Court; $18mil for a 'black box') and other spaces emerging that we are being asked to contribute to as presenters even though we have stated our preferred situation - an inspiring space to develop and present new work. It is not that we wouldn't present elsewhere - obviously this is something we have done a lot over the years - but often the planners and funders look at it from the conventional venue manager's point of view that assumes pre-existing work based around conventional commercial returns. Consider, for example, the vitally important Christchurch Arts Festival, which currently directs its funding towards importing work from elsewhere with little to no support towards fostering local artists - this is a model that desperately needs to change, if we're serious about developing an exciting, engaging city that encourages talent to stay and contribute, and attracts high quality contemporary artists to come here and work with us. Festival directors need to foster artists to take risks towards distinctive new work. Currently, they shape and direct what work is produced with exponentially shrinking ideas of what they think will please their established audience - this breeds mediocrity, at best. As this established audience gets tired of the same old festival fare, visionary new ideas are required to nurture new work that energises established audiences and builds new ones. There are ample examples of great festivals already doing this and others that have transitioned in response to social, economic, political and environmental change. They build their foundations around local artists as well as curating international artists to collaborate with locals.

Despite the frustration and fatigue that sets in as we fight endlessly for an artist-led space that has more than proven its value despite chronic underfunding and attempts to dismiss it on the way to big, new shiny venues of yesteryear, we are extremely grateful and inspired by the support we have received. There is the support already mentioned from CCC, CNZ and the ever-consistent Rata Foundation, as well as champions that got us started and have kept us going, including ZNO (Jason Mill), Duncan Cotterill (Paul Calder), Kendons (Lance Edmonds and Kate Bennett) and Steel and Tube. We've developed wonderful friendships with Cassels and Sons and Black Estate Wines and we're pleased to be in a neighbourhood with businesses that include Zen Sushi, The Curator's Deli, Bunsen and our earliest, dearest pioneer friends at Canterbury Cheesemongers and Cookin with Gas/Astro Lounge. There are many others that have supported particular projects (for example Phantom have been incredible with The Black Rider), and of course, there are the audiences, old and new, that come to experience the work, expecting to be challenged with something different, and take the time to let us know that this is valued - this kind of support is valued beyond measure. 

Most of all, we're driven by the artists that come to work with Free Theatre and an Arts Centre management that supports this work to continue. Christchurch is blessed with remarkable artists across a range of disciplines that continue to produce work that fuels a distinctive New Zealand culture. These are people driven not by money nor fame (if they are, then FT is a terrible choice) but the need to create work that speaks to the time and place - a desire to engage with the community we live in out of a dissatisfaction with the world as it is. Our aim is to keep providing outlets for this dissatisfaction to be expressed in conversation with the community towards hope and change. We know this desire is shared by the Arts Centre who signalled bold aims when they signed us up as the first arts-practice tenancy in 2014 and have continued to make it possible for us to work in this important, vital site that straddles the city's past and future. To everyone at the Arts Centre, and especially the inspirational André Lovatt: we continue to build programmes, collaborations and networks towards new work that supports your aims for the Arts Centre to be a special place for the city. With your support, friendship and partnership, we look forward to the future. ​

​In 1994, Falkenberg continued his fruitful collaboration with visual artist Graham Bennett to develop a new interpretation of Oscar Wilde's Salome. The production was praised for its nuanced performances, beautifully playing in and around the striking design, a series of turning iron glass/mirror structures on stage.

The production again involved students from the now firmly established and successful Drama Programme along with Free Theatre stalwarts such as Robin Bond as King Herod. While Free Theatre continued as an independent entity, a professional theatre producing high quality experimental work, its collaboration with the University meant that students were able to work in an environment that allowed them to grow as artists through experimentation and a rare combination (in New Zealand) of theory and practice. This paved the way for the emergence of a new dedicated department at the University, growing out of the extraordinary work of Free Theatre artists over the previous decade. ​

​If the 1980s had been about establishing a youthful, energetic presence in Christchurch, the 1990s saw exciting developments in Free Theatre's aims and growing influence. This included engaging with international contemporary performance artists and the founding of a dedicated Theatre and Film Studies Department (est. 1997) that unfettered the theory and practice of theatre and film from the traditional, marginalised existence in the literary dominated realm of English Departments. Canterbury University was the first in the country to do so and its Theatre and Film Studies Department quickly became successful with a rapidly growing postgraduate culture. This ultimately culminated in the emergence of the groundbreaking Te Puna Toi Performance Res Te Puna Toi Performance Research Project in 2001.

While the company had engaged with past and current avant garde in the 1980s, it was perhaps a collaboration with Free Theatre Munich (est. 1970) in 1991 that really established the company as a noted presence in the international contemporary theatre scene. Falkenberg initiated the collaboration with this theatre company from his home town, inviting directors George Froscher and Kurt Bildstein to come to Christchurch to present a reimagined production of a Heiner Mueller work, HamletMachine. They had presented the work previously in Germany and the US. Mueller's work, considered the most important in Germany since Brecht, had never been staged in New Zealand, let alone Christchurch, and this offered the opportunity for local artists and the students of the growing Theatre Programme at Canterbury University to have access to international contemporary theatre through the making of it with established international theatre artists. On the strength of the international exchange, Free Theatre Christchurch secured an Arts Grant from the QE II Arts Council of New Zealand (later CreativeNZ). Remarkably, the company would not receive another CNZ grant until 2012 despite many years of trying with an extraordinary array of high profile, high quality work with a diversity of collaborators. 

HamletMachine is typical of Mueller's work in that it is based around a collaging of texts and monologue's, rather than conventional narrative or plot. In this instance, the work is concerned with what it means to be an actor - a concern that Falkenberg would return to in different social, historical contexts, including current project How Not To Be Hamlet? A combination of professional actors and students worked on the HamletMachine production, which took place around the Arts Centre, in Rutherford's Den and the Great Hall. It was a hugely successful production both in popular and critical reviews and paved the way for a series of dynamic projects through the 1990s. 

Below are some stills from a Nightline (TV3) piece on the production. The full clip itself can be found on the HamletMachine page.

Note on above comment by 2022 Website Editor Marian - Many thanks for your comment Trevor! It has been included as a screenshot as we were unable to transfer comments over to this new account.