A short report of the fourth day of the council.

The fourth day started by presenting the projects for 2018-2020.

UNIMA will invite children throughout the world to participate in “Cat Parade” by making a puppet of a cat and making a short video. During World Puppetry Day UNIMA will present the result of the action. The idea is coming from Magali Chouinard’s project, which she made with the children in Canada during the Festival de Casteliers in Montréal.

At headquarters at UNESCO in Paris there will be a day dedicated to puppetry with short performances from as many countries as possible. The idea is to celebrate World Puppetry Day in a unique way and make that important organization aware of UNIMA and importance of puppetry.

When Youth Reinvent Heritage is the project of Europe, Youth and Research Commissions. They are applying for ERASMUS plus grant for students and young puppeteers who are not students, but are younger than 30 years, to help them attending four workshops in different countries (the School of Puppetry in Stuttgart, Germany; Sinkoyno cooperative from Thessaloniki, Greece; CDN in Strasbourg, France; TOPIC of Tolosa, Spain), residences (Tolosa and Charleville-Mézières), conferences, meetings and performances. Workshops with traditional puppetry but approached with contemporary means. The project is linked to an Open call to young writers, since the winning script will be put on the stage.

The idea is that there are four performances – four continents: European, African, Asian and “three Americas” performance based on the same winning script that will be selected by the jury and that they would be presented in Bali in 2020.

Exhibition for 90th anniversary of UNIMA with the title “UNIMA TO BELIVE AND TO CREATE”; A common future for puppetry is work in progress. The aim is to present the history of puppetry through the history of UNIMA. The museums which are working together are Musée de l’Ardenne in Charleville-Mézières (France), Chrudim Puppetry Museum (Czech Republic) , Musée International de la Marionnette of Théâtre Royal du Peruchet in Brussels (Belgium), TOPIC Tolosa (Spain), Museu da Marioneta de Lisboa (Portugal) , Museum of Théâtre Obraztsov in Moscow (Rusia), Musée Gadagne de Lyon (France),  and there is possibility for more partners to join the project as they have shown their interest Yekaterinburg Puppet Theatre (Russia) Slovenia and Italian UNIMA, etc. The exhibition will start its journey in France and then travel to other countries.

There we will have also exhibition of 90th anniversary of UNIMA prepared for the national UNIMA centers to print out and present in their country in various museums and theatres.

Nina Malíkova presented the project of Czech UNIMA to celebrate 90th anniversary in Prague – the founding city of UNIMA international. They will prepare an exhibition “Czech Puppet Theatre and UNIMA” which will be opened on 7th June with the celebration. On 8th June there will be an international conference about “The Role of UNIMA for the Puppet Theatre Acknowledgment and Participation in the Development of the Theatre Art in 20th Century.”

Councillors elected new Election committee for next four years. The president of the committee is Paola Busca from Switzerland and the members Kurt Hunter from United States of America and Edmond Debouny from Belgium.

Lucile Bodson presented the estimated budget for 2018 and highlighted the fact that the situation is severe and that we have to think about the ways to raise more money.

Emmanuelle Castang made a call to all the members that we urgently need a pool of voluntary translators and proof-readers (English, French and Spanish).

Idoya Otegui thanks  everybody specially the Commissions and Lucile, Emmanuelle and Cédric for the work done and encourage them to continue working like this in benefit of UNIMA. Finally some flowers were given by Annette Dabs to the translators Helene Ewert, Emmanuelle Castang and Cédric de Mondenard.

The councilors and members gathered for a final group picture.