Minutes from the Adeleide Conference: Click here to join the network I. ITYARN CONFERENCE: Overview: The inaugural ITYARN conference in Adelaide Australia was in many ways successful. With the support of Assitej International, Drama Australia, and the University of South Australia, which hosted and funded the conference, the conference first of all exceeded expectations in interest. About 100 people attended the morning session, which consisted of a keynote by Susanne Osten and Ann Sophie Barany, introduced by Wolfgang Schneider, president of Assitej International, and a plenary session with papers by Geesche Wartemann, Cheela Chilala, and Manon van de Water. The plenary session was moderated by Roger Bedard, professor at Arizona State University. 40 people who were on the Assitej waiting list were informed they could not attend due to lack of space. The afternoon was split in two seminar groups, Aesthetics and Reception Processes in TYA and Theories and Cultural Constructions in TYA convened by Geesche Wartemann and Manon van de Water respectively. These seminars attracted 33 and 24 additional participants. Discussion was lively and there was an overall sentiment that it would have been nice to have more time to fully address the issues, which will be taken into consideration in the future. The facilities, tech support, transport, refreshments and lunch provided by the University of South Australia and coordinated by Jeff Meiners deserve special mention and contributed highly to a smooth run of the conference. Seminars and Papers: The seminar groups circulated papers to the members of their respective groups, who all read the papers beforehand and formulated topics for discussion based on the papers. The seminar participants were then paired up to comment on each other’s paper in an attempt to give each paper maximal attention and to avoid dominance in discussion. While the observers had only access to abstracts, the discussion solicited numerous requests for the full papers. The board (see below) will look into the possibility of soliciting and publishing part of the papers in book or journal format. Due to copyright issues the papers cannot be posted on the web without explicit permission. As a university research network, however, we have to be very careful with web publication and make sure that publications are reviewed and carry weight for the respective institutions the authors are affiliated with (many of whom do not accept web publishing). The rights for the papers at this point lay solely with the authors. II. ITYARN NETWORK MEETING The network committee and other network members met for a 2-hour business meeting to discuss the future on May 13, 2008. After evaluation of the first conference it was decided that ITYARN would like to stay under the umbrella of Assitej International (see III below) to highlight the link between research and practice, researchers and practitioners. We envision to meet with the Assitej World Congress and Festival every three years, while meeting at different international locations in between. A number of members have expressed interest in inviting ITYARN to their respective institutions. The board will follow up and make a decision based on time (ideally the meetings will be spread out over three years) and affordability for participants. The general structure of these meetings will be solely seminar/working group format where the participants’ papers will be discussed extensively with the purpose of exchanging research and offering constructive feedback on how to prepare these papers for scholarly publication. Meetings will typically last 3-4 days. The network committee itself was solidified into a board of seven members, including the chair, from seven different countries. This board agreed to serve for 3 years until the next Assitej World Congress and Festival. The board will meet during the conferences, which will also include a business meeting for all. The mission of the network remained as is with an emphasis on research related to professional TYA. Since ITYARN is a collaboration between Universities, University logs can be added to the website. Mission and Board ITYARN is a collaboration between universities and ASSITEJ international to further research on professional theatre for young audiences (TYA) coordinated by Agder University (Norway), the University of Hildesheim (Germany), Arizona State University (USA) and the College of Letters and Science (University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA) ITYARN Board (2008-2011) Siemke Böhnisch Agder University Kristiansand, Norway University of Århus, Denmark Cheela Chilala University of Zambia, Zambia Young Ai Choi The Korean National University of Arts, Seoul, Korea, Member of the Executive Committee of ASSITEJ international Yuriko Kobayashi Kawamura Gakuen Women’s University, Japan, Tülin Saglam University of Ankara, Turkey Geesche Wartemann University of Hildesheim, Germany Manon van de Water (CHAIR) University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA III. ASSITEJ INTERNATIONAL The executive committee election results: President: Wolfgang Schneider of Germany, for his third-three year term Secretary General: Ivica Simic, Croatia Vice Presidents: Maria Ines Falconi, Argentina; Young Ai Choi, Korea; Kim Peter Kovac, USA Treasurer: Yvette Hardie, South Africa Other members of the EC: Noel Jordan, Australia; Stephan Rabl, Austria; Soren Ovensen, Denmark; Katariina Metsalampi, Finland; Razi Amitai, Israel; Marisa Jimenez Cacho, Mexico; Hope Azeda, Rwanda; Paul Harmon, UK. Office of the secretary general For the past 15 years, the Nordic Council of Ministers and the Swedish government fully funded the office of the Secretary General. That funding has disappeared, and newly-elected SG Ivica Simic of Croatia has introduced a new model. The SG will be a volunteer, and $85,000US per year from the Croatian and local governments will support a professional office to drive the association for the next three years. Simic has been on the Executive Committee for the past 9 years, and won the election for the SG over Paul Harmon of the UK. The Secretary General is the primary working position of the organization, even while the President sets the agenda. Location of the next congress There were three strong bids to host the next Congress, from Copenhagen, Denmark/Malmo, Sweden; Linz, Austria; and London. London was eliminated in the first vote, and in the runoff, Copenhagen-Malmo won the 17th Congress. With a long and distinguished track record of work in Africa, South American, the Middle East, etc., the Nordic countries are seen as welcoming geographic representation from around the world - an important issue on the floor of the General Assembly. The Congress will be held in May 2011. Respectfully submitted, Manon van de Water Chair, ITYARN Board May 27, 2008  ITYARN is a collaboration between universities and ASSITEJ international to further research on theatre for young audiences (TYA) coordinated by Agder University (Norway), the University of Hildesheim (Germany), Arizona State University (USA) and the College of Letters and Science (University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA). Home