class="">Aura Corbeanu: “In cultural management, you measure results through failures”

24 years ago, Aura Corbeanu was “a little girl who’s come to UNITER”, having graduated from ASE (Economics Academy). She hadn’t the nerve to say “hello” to the actors. Meanwhile, she became an expert on cultural management (which she also teaches at the University of Sibiu and Târgu Mureș),executive vice-president of UNITER and executive officer of the National Theatre Festival. 

An interview by Adina Scorțescu

Aura Corbeanu speaks optimistically of failure, believes in teamwork, in the talent of youth and the support of family. For her, the most emotional times in the NTF wasn’t meeting some star director, but the e-mail she sent to her eldest son, with the first press comments on the festival.

Following the Revolution, your destiny took a sudden turn: you got a job at UNITER.

It was chance- I had been invited to UNITER as an economy specialist.For me- as you can imagine- to come into a cultural area as a young ASE (Economics Academy) graduate and to wish to develop a NGO (which was unheard of in the 90’s in Romania) was like being given an invitation to adventure. The first years were for probing around, on both sides.

At first I was effectively involved with the economical department; but I had with me two strong people ,Ion Caramitru and Corina Șuteu(who was the executive officer of UNITER at that time) who taught me what it means to propose a cultural project. Thus, I ended up as the chief financial officer; a few years later, I became chief executive director and so on until today,when I am president.

Meanwhile I took care to get up to speed with regards to the cultural background, by participating to various specialisation courses both in our country and abroad. I had the opportunity to get an European Masters Degree, at Dijon, specialising in Cultural Institutions, with funding from the Ecumest Foundation and a Soros Scholarship.

How was the Masters Degree experience like?

I believe that’s where the true release happened. When somebody young, no matter his professional background- be it a jurist, an economist, a mathematician, it doesn’t matter as long as he has the opening to an area of management- gets a shot at being accepted with scholarships both within and without the country, different sorts of opportunities show up.

One gets the chance to make inter-cultural connexions; no economic or cultural space is like any other. And this means the individual has to learn to adapt, to find partners, to present his project in such a way as to make oneself understood clearly, keeping in mind the priorities of each region. 

This I managed to do by taking part in various meetings, initiating projects and asking questions constantly: I am not a shy person ,or one who would rather avoid questions; I know there are a lot of things I don’t yet know or which I didn’t understand.

What does a cultural project begin with?

From a cultural idea, which comes from the creator. The same happens in UNITER. When we get a cultural proposition which we deem valuable, analysed and justifiable, we try and see how we can best put it in practice.

I have a lot of frustrations: in these 24 years, I’ve read extraordinary projects which we simply couldn’t put into practice because we didn’t get the necessary resources. It eats away at me that public funding won’t cover the necessary expenses for organising a project. Nobody will finance the preparatory period, which seems to be an anomaly to me.

Another worry is that of sponsorship law, which was modified and which doesn’t have much to offer for NGOs today, in 2014.

 

How do you measure the results of cultural management?

Through failures- oh, how many projects we couldn’t do. Such suffering. In theory, you proceed with great enthusiasm. You build the project on a realistic scale. But, when the time comes to apply it, deductions begin to appear. The partners begin to say: “So sorry, your project’s great, but we’re backing out.” What can you do then? You have to keep going…

There’s an optimistic thought flowing about that sounds like this: “The acute lack of money has led to a boom in creativity.” Do you think it so?

Yes. The less money we have, the more wisely we spend it. And the economical department gets creative, because the programme must show the artistic scale it proposed. Financial impotence must not show. Financial creativity means utilising your resources in other areas, which will output a much greater effect.

With enough money, anyone can build a project! But we must test the necessity of money through the scale of the cultural offer. In the case of the National Theatre Festival, which we’re working on at the moment, we have the official selection, we have all the categories, a newspaper, a website, an in-house production. We’re trying to get this festive puzzle to touch the Bucharest audience but also the guests, who are theatre professionals. And, next year, we might get more money.

When you started working with foreign partners, in the ‘90’s ,did you ever have an inferiority complex?

Yes, I first experienced that when meeting an extraordinary French directors. At the time, he was the manager of the Rond-Point Theatre in Paris. He’d come to Romania at the invitation of Mr. Caramitru and stayed with us for two-three days. It just so happened that in those few days, Mr. Caramitru was aways, and as such, I had to deal with this gentleman.

Reading his CV, I got sick, sitting alone in my office; I said to myself “ I won’t be able to put two and two together in French”. This was in ’91-’92.Meanwhile, I had this project with young Englishmen going on in parallel at UNITER and a Bucharest Theatre. They’d drank their coffee and had left behind the dirty mugs. Before speaking with the French guest I took the mugs, washed them (we’re non-governmental, we have no janitors, no doormen, no drivers).

Then, I went and gotten a photo album of Romania and when I came back he was in the kitchen, arranging the mugs I had cleaned, looking through the cupboards. I felt like fainting. “What am I going to say?!” He looked at me and said: “Aura, you and I will have a chat about Romanian theatre,but- before we begin, we’ll make a rulebook for the UNITER guests.”

He drafted me a text which I added to the presentation portfolios. From that day on, the young English actors who would come to UNITER began washing their own mugs after having their coffees. And he never let me feel there was any sort of cultural difference between us.

Shortly after, he invited me to a three-week training period in Paris, at the Rond-Point, on Champs-Elysees. We had lunch with the employees. There were those who said: “Oh, so you’re from Romania? Ah yes, that’s right: you know, we saw a TV show last night, showing some homeless children” Always this French director would stand up for me, saying: “Yes, I also saw some French beggars somewhere.”

Another extraordinary fact: his wife came by the theatre in the evening, dressed in full Romanian traditional costume. She was such a remarkable beauty! At that point I realised we didn’t know how to cherish what we had and also that I never wore a traditional costume to go to a show in Romania.

So the people around us mean well. I never met any situation in which to be cornered for being Romanian. It was an idea I came up with myself: I was the one who was not ready to make contact with the Western world, because I was afraid. These fears, which we carry around with us, are based on the fact that we were never taught to be open.

For me, freedom came at 27. Education, so far, had been very strict- “you’re allowed this, you’re not allowed that”. Now that’s no longer the case. You, the youth, are not tainted with vice, you don’t show up with the worry of not being good enough. You communicate normally and you’re taken as you are.

Is communication with the rest of the world important?

It’s essential to travel. Before there were mobility scholarships from the Ministry of Culture; not anymore.At the level of cultural policies, it’s important to re-establish the necessity of this fact.

Because the young man who learns abroad comes back to Romania, he doesn’t graft any other institution, he opens up his own business in the cultural area. And, firstly, he develops his offer. As an individual he must be continually perfecting himself culturally, he can’t reach a plateau.

In Romania, there are a number of young directors who are applying for finances, while taking care of PR and of logistics. Do you think this is the feature- the jack-of-all-trades artist?

I don’t think so. The creator is the one who manages his creation. It pains me greatly that we are in a situation in which they’re obligated to apply for themselves. I think we must teach them and put together a team of a creator (actor, director, set designer) with a young ASE (Economics Academy) student and another Law student and one in Communication.

They must understand that the cultural project won’t bring in money today, when we begin to think it up. It will bring money when we’ll bring it in front of the audience, if it is well-made.

But this association is important, for this creator to be able to get together with his creating and give his best; the jurist must make the best contract; the economist to make a budget appropriate for the artistic and communication area. We can’t be all-knowing; it’s impossible.

To conclude, I believe in a creation team and an executive one( who covers the other areas of creation- communication and promotion are extraordinarily creative areas!)

What are the myths about the world of theatre that were shattered when you began working with UNITER?

That they are untouchable. The day I stepped inside UNITER was the day I thought I wasn’t hearing myself talk, that’s how nervous I was. Seeing Ion Caramitru, alongside all the other artists, discussing extremely serious theatre trouble…myself, an economist, who scuttled along with my general budgets…For a month or two I had the feeling like I had no business talking with them. I didn’t dare tell them “Good day”.

Then I realised that I’m dealing with extremely energetic and honest folk; they really believed in the things which I’m proposing. That’s what I thought to be extraordinary. “We believe the Festival must be made in this fashion” because there’s always a desire to make oneself one with the event; it’s part of them.

The years passed…now I can no longer distance myself from UNITER. Of course, we’re not eternal, but there are things we can still do and I have very much still to learn from the young ones. It’s a great joy to discover such well-prepared children, who wish to make things that are real and possible; who don’t need resources, but guidance.

The discussion is based on generosity from both sides. That’s what I learned from the artistic world.

What’s an unfulfilled wish, a fantasy you have about the National Theatre Festival?

Not a fantasy, a great regret that we couldn’t bring Preljocaj this year. For me, personally, it’s the greatest failure of the past years- the fact that we couldn’t back up Marina Constantinescu ,who made this proposition.

There were problems with the space, with costs, but my job was finding ways through which to bring them here. There are circumstances I mention but which- really- don’t excuse me. Not me, for me.

And the greatest satisfaction or emotion you lived at the NTF?

It has to do with my eldest son: the joy I felt as I sent him the first links, in which they were talking about the National Theatre Festival. The first links, sent late at night, which congratulations as if I wasn’t his own mother. It impressed me. Yesterday he said: “You were very beautiful at Realitatea TV, mother”.Maybe he said it to encourage me or maybe that’s really how he felt…

The youngest has a much more different approach: “What can I do to be part of the Festival? How can I help?” He wants to volunteer, to give out newspapers and flyers.

So I have the fortune of a supporting family. You can make things happen because the family is generous with you. The boys are shy, they never asked for a ticket they didn’t buy. I had the surprise of meeting my eldest at the Festival, he’d come with his girlfriend; they both bought a ticket.

They didn’t dare say: “Mother, we’d like to get in.” Because this principle, of teaching people to buy a ticket, is obvious. And my children learned. “If we want to go, we’ll buy a ticket.”

 

Photo: Florin Biolan