29. Graz, June 2021
Fence members Andrei Kureichik with his son Gleb, András Gerevich, Kim Komljanec, Henning Bochert. Photo by Henning Bochert
Fence 29
The summer of 2021 was still suffused with COVID and all the exigencies appertaining. Given each country’s different interpretation of guidelines and restrictions this made Fence meetings at full capacity nigh on impossible. Thanks to two festivals run by Fence stalwarts – Edith Draxl and Philippe Le Moine – we managed two mini-meetings, each with 7 people; one in English, one in French.
For the first part of our two-part meeting in 2021, we went to Graz. A lot of Fence members were keen to participate, but COVID-19 restrictions prevented a lot of us from doing so. Among those who did were András Gerevich from Hungary; Kim Komljanec, from Slovenia; Andrei Kureichik from Belarus (currently exiled in Bratislava, Slovakia), and Stijn Devillé and Freek Mariën, both from Belgium. Our member Edith Draxl, who organises the Graz Dramatikerinnenfestival, was our host.
Apart from participating in the festival programme, we were able to discuss, for example, how playwrights associations like the newly founded German VTheA could make international connections, eg to Slovenia, where member and playwright Kim Komljanec is already making attempts to organise playwrights.