Calling for Proposals for the Location of the 2012 WPI Conference
An expression of interest should cover the following:
1) Proposed Dates – when?
The conference has been held every three years since 1988, on dates chosen by the conference hosts. It may last from 5 to 10 days.
Year. The next two conferences will be held in 2012 and 2015.
Would you like to host the conference in 2012?
Or 2015?
Or would either year be possible for you?
Month. Past conferences have been held in mid-year (June or July) or late in the year (October or November). The conferences have most frequently been held late in the year
(Oct-Nov). However, conferences in mid-year (June-July) allow more university-based artists and critics to attend. Since these delegates often have better access to travel
funding, they may help support the conference through registration fees.
2) Location- where?
Country? City/Region?
What are the strongest reasons for choosing this location? These might include: The theatre and cultural traditions of your country. Theatres, arts and cultural
centers—which may provide performance or conference facilities. Convenient means of international and (possibly) local transportation. Hotels and/or other accommodations.
Active interest and support among local or regional cultural organizations, women’s groups, etc. Potential funding sources.
3) Means of providing administrative structures, and conference funding?
The WPI organization cannot, unfortunately, provide funding or administrative support for the conference. So it is crucial that the host country be able to provide funding
and other support for administration and basic conference infrastructure.
In the past, the conference has usually been linked to a major regional or national arts centre or a university which has helped to provide administrative support, and may
even facilitate a program of local and/or international theatrical work by or about women.
Previous conference hosts have also relied on government funding, NGOs, corporate grants, etc. All have relied on volunteer labor.
WPI can provide communication with a large international community of women who will do everything possible to get to the conference. Many of these can draw on government,
university, local or regional grants, or other resources for getting to the conference. And their conference registration can help to cover the total conference expenses.
Malou Jacob wrote the following about the Philippines conference: ‘The Philippines hosted The 6th WPI Conference. And in our experience, if you make the conference as simple
as possible, you can the run the conference (with the program brochures, copies of plays to be dramatized etc.) on the registration fees ( US$200-230 or 250? for each
playwright. Target 80 to 100 participants) and be on black at the end of the event. Luckily, our partner organization, Cultural Centre of the Philippines provided the venues
for the Opening and Closing Dinners and the performances + equipment, + the personnel who helped us run the Conference. Additionally, thru Japan Foundation, we had
playwrights from East/SouthEast Asia who were given airfare grants. All the delegates paid for their hotel; except the speakers who were hosted, provided with airtickets and
honoraria ( through grants from Asian Council and the USA) We were also able to take care of the hotel of some Asian delegates (room sharing).’
Julie Holledge wrote: ‘The Australian experience is over ten years old and I’m not sure how relevant it is, but we got a large number of small grants, many to fund individual
playwrights. The list of funding agencies included all the State arts departments, and the federal government arts council in Australia, the Australian Department of Foreign
Affairs and Trade, The British Council, the Goethe Institute, the Japan Foundation, private foundations based in Australia, we also got sponsorship form Australian
universities and theatre companies. I think we got funds from about twenty different sources. Once a formula had been worked out for the applications, it was just a
question of re-wording in accordance with the criteria of the specific funding agency.’
When you put together your expression of interest, we suggest that you think through your local strategy to fund and staff your infrastructure.
4) The Conference Program – do you have any ideas about themes or content? If not, how will you decide these issues?
Every Conference committee creates its own program, and it can be as inventive and experimental as the conference hosts wish. There are no fixed rules about how the
Conference is to be run. Australia, in 1994, decided to develop an over arching theme and sub themes for each of the five days. This model was adopted and adapted into new
forms by the Philippines and Indonesia. Greece and Ireland developed a totally different approach that worked through the submission of scripts from writers. In Jakarta,
playwrights expressed an interest in the possibility of a future conference that was smaller with more emphasis on craft rather than content. But it is up to the next
conference organizers to use their creativity in designing the event.
5) Will you program keynote speakers? If yes, how will you fund them?
In the past, the conference organizers have chosen keynote speaker for the conference. Participants and sponsors may, of course, be drawn to the event by ‘star’ names.
Again this is a choice for the conference organizers. There are national government bodies that will fund individual artists with international reputations to take part in
the conference. The key organizations that have funded speakers in the past include: Goethe Institute, British Council, Australia Arts Council, Canada Council, Japan
Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation. Conference organizers can anticipate that the WPI membership in the countries with appropriate funding bodies will assist in preparing
the funding applications for keynote speakers.
6) How many participants do you imagine will attend your conference?
The size and scale of the event is in your hands. In Jakarta there were about sixty overseas participants, but this has varied in every conference and reflects the costs of
travel to the conference site, the interest from local theatre practitioners, and the design of the event. There is nothing to stop the organizers from contracting or
expanding the size of the event.
7) What plans do you have for dealing with the needs of the participants – including accommodation, transport etc?
Recent conferences have used local professional conference organizing or tourist companies to assist with needs for accommodation, etc. This is a major expense, but the
registration fees can be set at a suitable level to pay for such professional assistance. It is hard for volunteers to deal with the requests and demands of widely diverse
international participants.
8) Are you planning a conference, or a women’s arts festival, or both?
This is always a difficult issue: is the conference a site for discussion by playwrights, and the reading of scripts? Or is it a site for the performance of women’s theatre?
This decision is in the hands of the organizers. It is possible to build a women’s theatre festival around the event, or an introduction of regional or national theatre, or
to create a retreat for the reading of plays where no performances are included. This is the decision of the local organizational committee.
9) Who will be in your conference management team?
Past experience indicates that it’s best for at least one member of the conference management team to have access to an academic or arts institution. If you are all
free-lance artists, we suggest that you recruit a management team that can access the resources of a university or a major arts centre. Australia had the Adelaide Festival
Centre, the Philippines had the Cultural Centre of the Philippines, the Buffalo conference was supported by the State University of NY at Buffalo, and Ratna Sarumpaet was the
CEO of the Arts Council in Jakarta. I think all these conferences were dependent on the support of these organizations and the networks they could access.
10) Is there anything further you wish to add?
