Interview with Dominique Serrand

by MinnesotaPlaylist • Jan. 21

Management | Vision

0:00.00 – 1. Will you miss your bulding? Peter Brook, Ariane Mnouchkine, and using old spaces to say something new.

3:41.29 – 2. Why couldn’t Jeune Lune survive? Artist-driven work, financial management, and patterns of charitable support from Minnesota’s family dynasties.

7:45.05 – 3. What good and bad do you see in the arts right now? The legacy amendment, the migrant nature of artists, creating new ensembles, the Guthrie’s Kushner festival, health care, and more.

12:07.27 – 4. Is the state of the arts in Minnesota healthy? Healthy institutions versus healthy artists, the United States Artists Foundation, and theater companies in Soviet-bloc Hungary.

16:58.03 – 5. Why does theater matter? Religion and the value of questioning.

19:39.22 – 6. What should we do? Public education, how Dominique discovered theater as a child, and exporting Robert Wilson and Robert Lepage to rural areas.

24:10.06 – 7. What will you do in the near future? Getting used to life without Jeune Lune, risk-taking, and developing a new work with four playwrights.

28:33.23 – 8. What if you were asked to run a new theater? A three-step plan including engaging with public schools, putting artists on salary, and bringing out illuminating, new visions of old work.

Comments

Dominique Serrand and Jeune Lune

Submitted by Gary Peterson on February 17, 2009 - 3:28pm.

Gary Peterson, http://minnesotamist.blogspot.com

Leah, thanks very much for the time and effort it took to create and to post this. As one who has been (and remains) very critical of Jeune Lune's slide toward demise, I appreciated hearing Serrand's perspective, particularly his response to the opportunity of a new theater and the question -- "Why are we doing this?" -- that should be asked way more often than it is. It really is very sad: he had the makings of a major theater and, after 30 years, he and his colleagues collectively blew it. It did not have to end that way, and it is not the fault of Minnesota's dynastic families.

I do agree wholeheartedly with his view that the arts in Minnesota are not very healthy. This should be of great concern to all.

The Legacy Amendment will not be the panacea that many assume, and it would behoove all in the arts milieu to concern themselves for several months with the many layers of discussion, debate, and horse-trading that will do much to define the next 25 years and beyond.

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