The employee manager is not useful for the theater; Instead of holding a workshop, we should provide a public performance

Mehr News Agency – Art Group – Fariborz Finance; Saeed Najafian, one of the activists in the field of theater and the Holy Defense Theater, who was also the secretary of the Basij theater festival “Sudai Eshgh”, in a meeting in Mehr News Agency, expressed his views on why the downward trend of the Holy Defense Theater was formed compared to its golden era in the 70s. and gave 80 presentations.

In the first part of his conversation, he discussed various points such as the closure of the Holy Defense Theater Festival and the Basij Theater Festival in previous years, the lack of importance of theater in the eyes of managers and officials of various institutions, the lack of managers who are concerned about art and especially theater in different cities. And the advertising use of art and artist by the authorities.

In the second part of this conversation, Najafian talked about other points such as the need to be seen by theater groups living in different cities and the importance of financial support for them to perform their works, as well as the need to plan to increase the theater infrastructure in the provinces of the country.

Below is the second part of this conversation:

* From our point of view, the number of thematic festivals in Tehran is very large and it is not necessary to hold many of them, but in the city, this festival is an opportunity for theater groups to receive funding, produce and perform theater, and it is the only opportunity that they can show themselves. On the other hand, the institutions that are in charge of holding these themed festivals only look at holding the festival and presenting statistics and do not pay attention to doing quality work. In fact, there is no concern and necessary planning in these institutions about theater, otherwise the artists living in the cities will not leave during the year and theater production and activities will continue throughout the year. Why is this important not paid attention to?

Our problem is that we don't have a caring manager. The problem is that when there is a government festival and an occasion, its theater people are also government and occasion. With respect to all the friends who work, but when a person's job is to come and sit in the office in the morning and leave his workplace in the evening and receive his salary at the beginning of the month, nothing significant happens. Saeed Najafian: In any city where a compassionate manager is in charge, it creates a change in cultural and artistic activities. It can be seen that a show is produced from a small town that can shine in national festivals, so a concerned director can be influential. Our problem is that we don't have a caring manager. The problem is that when there is a government festival and an occasion, its theater people are also government and occasion. With respect to all the friends who work, but when a person's job is to come and sit in the office in the morning and leave his workplace in the evening and receive his salary at the beginning of the month, nothing significant happens. At the same time, if there is a person in the same department who is concerned about the field of activity of that department, good things will happen.

Some managers from some cities call artists and say that they intend to hold a certain event Workshop or have an activity, and this makes many artists of Tehran respond positively to cooperation when they see that a manager is concerned about theater and theaters in their city. Planning and supporting the theater depends on the presence of concerned managers, and we lack these managers. Sometimes we saw the presence of directors in the theater who wanted to do basic things. Why do we all mention Ali Montazeri when we talk about good managers? But with respect to all friends, among the 5 or 6 recent directors of the General Directorate of Performing Arts, which name can you mention who had plans for the country's theater?

When a manager talks about deploying drama groups, why do subsequent managers abandon the issue and not continue to implement it? Because no one bothers to support groups because it is expensive. How many people in Iran really have a group and have trained the group members themselves? When the group has no meaning, then the group activity has no meaning either. When this rule does not exist, then other rules will not exist. We can in the cities Workshop to hold, but the effectiveness of this activity requires that there are supplements. How much can you do? Workshop held to be effective? Structure has no meaning in our art. The artists with the history we have are not the product of us and trained by our time. Because in the past, art had a structure and people climbed step by step and had the right training and experience.

The best theater we use belongs to before the revolution, and managers and officials did not worry about building theater spaces and hardware in the post-revolution era. When the structure is destroyed, education, training and building infrastructure will also be destroyed.

Unfortunately, there is no need assessment to do things, and only some managers think by holding Workshop In other cities, they carry out influential activities while It is not like this. The most important thing for theater artists is to experience and perform their work. One of our main awards at the “Soda of Love” festival was to provide public performance conditions for selected groups so that both their work can be seen and they can experience a return on investment.

A film can participate in different festivals and receive awards for decades, but when a theater runs for 2 or 3 times, some people protest. while in the world repertoires There is a theater and a work goes on stage for months and even years and has an audience. Does a popular work have more than 2 or 3 million audience in the best case? Is this number of audience a high number compared to the population of about 85 million people in Iran? Sometimes jealousy and sometimes lack of knowledge make us prevent artists and theater groups from working and being seen.

I believed in the “Sodai Eshgh” festival of Basij Artists organization instead of holding Workshop For the artists living in the cities, we must provide an opportunity for their works to be seen.

* That is, support groups for public performance.

The fact is that only by holding Workshop It is not possible to raise the quality level of the works in the cities, but the necessary training should be given with experience and practical work. Education is appropriate when it can create concern. If this does not happen, I prefer to provide the opportunity to be seen by city groups and performances. yes Once we support the groups to appear in the festival and while their work is seen, they get to know other groups and works and perform their works for the public. Their work should be seen and talked about in front of the audience and artists. Some well-known figures of the theater such as Qutbuddin Sadeghi, Farhad Mohandespour, Farhad Nazerzadeh Kermani, Nader Burhani-Marand and other loved ones, when they watch a work, instead of showing off their knowledge, they talk about the work they have seen and help the group and the director to fix the weak points of the work. With respect to all dear critics, unfortunately, this does not happen in the field of theater criticism. Concerned figures should be used to help the theater groups of the city so that these dear ones can raise the quality level of the works with their advice and suggestions.

The fact is that only by holding Workshop It is not possible to raise the quality level of the works in the cities, but the necessary training should be given with experience and practical work. Education is appropriate when it can cause concern. If this does not happen, I prefer to provide the opportunity for city groups and performances to be seen, we can put value on the production of their works. In one of the southern cities of Iran and in a hot summer, I witnessed that the theater hall of that city did not have an air conditioner, instead of holding Workshop For the artists of that city, it is better to install a cooling system for their theater so that they can work.

We currently have one in the metropolis of Tabriz black box We do not have a suitable standard for the theater groups of Tabriz as one of the most important cultural and artistic cities of Iran. I can say frankly that we don't have even a semi-standard salon as some private salons in Tehran in most other cities of the country. Many provinces do not have at least theater facilities. Currently, our managers are looking to participate in festivals. This shows that our directors are not looking to manage the country's theater, but they have so much time that they attend various festivals for a few days. Our managers do not have an engineering plan for the country's theater and simply do the administrative work that any office worker can do.

Under the pretext of holding a festival, a budget can be received and given to theater groups in cities to produce and perform their work and be seen, but if any institution and organization plan to hold Workshops Provide training, they don't provide you with funds. This is why I am in favor of holding festivals in Iran, because at least it creates motivation, and several city groups produce and perform works, and from these festivals, they find the possibility of being introduced to professional theater. The minimums that the festivals provide to the theater groups of the cities are more than the maximums that are written on the papers. I believe that this course should be for festivals and the cost of the theater should be paid under the pretext of these festivals.

* You organized the theater festival “Sodai Eshgh”. What process did you take to get this festival out of the repetitive mode? The fact that every festival is held under the name of resistance and mobilization is a host of repeated topics and works that have a cultural impact so much They don't have either.

We tried to separate this festival from the theater of resistance, and in the organization of Basij, we have a wider range of topics and views. We came to the conclusion that we should tell the groups that there is no need to have a Basiji figure in their produced works because we believe that if a cultural work is done, it means a Basiji movement, or if something is done for the country, it means that a Basiji movement has been done. We have great people who have done great and heroic things in some situations, we tried to redefine the hero and heroic movement in the festival and create portraits in this regard.

In the festival, we tried to make things hopeful and uplifting, because the whole war was not a struggle. This year, happy and quality works were performed in the festival. During the last 3 years, I did not allow the call of the Soda Eshgh festival to change. Thank God, things moved towards different payments. The wide range of participants in the festival has also become significant.

Our intention in “Sudai Eshgh” theater festival is to avoid slogans and serve the theater.