Albert - Botbol - University of the Theatre of Nations

UTN - Background information

The University of the Theatre of Nations (UTN) was set up in Paris in 1961 by those in charge of the «Theatre of Nations» to cater for the many young performing arts professionals of all disciplines from all over the world attracted by this annual festival. It was not a university in the usual sense, nor was it a school, colloquium or symposium. The UTN was basically a structure of exchanges. A dynamic process which, existing as it did at the right time at the right place, facilitated encounter with others and deepened mutual understanding.

Over 13 years more than 1000 participants from 54 different countries took part in the sessions of the UTN in Paris, which varied from one to six months. The directors in charge were Albert Botbol from 1961 to 1966, and later André-Louis Perinetti until 1973.

In 1984, the International Theatre Institute of which A.L. Perinetti had just been elected Secretary general, took up the project once more and re-created the UTN on a new basis. No longer based in one place, the UTN became an itinerant event. Each year a session is organized in a different country with the support of UNESCO. These sessions are shorter, the themes are more precise and in relation with the culture of the country hosting the UTN.

Recent sessions :

• 1991 in KINGSTON (Jamaica) Ritual and the Contemporary Theatre ,
• 1993 in TUNIS, (Tunisia) Body, Music, orality, rhythm and image
• 1995 in CARACAS (Venezuela) «Blood Wedding» by Federico Garcia Lorca (1st regional session of the AB-UTN (also International Meeting of Higher level theatre schools).

The 1997 session was held from 15 - 29 June in POCHUN/SEOUL (Korea) on the theme « Asian methodology of acting »

A second 1997 session of the UTN was held in Tunis from 22nd to 31st October in the framework of the festival "Journées Théàtrales de Carthage". The session theme : "Roads of Theatre, Roads of Freedom" (Les routes de théàtre, routes de la liberté), focused on the issue of free circulation of artists and their works.

The goal of ITI with regard to the UTN is to develop and to increase the number of sessions on all continents so as to satisfy the pressing demand from young professionals from all over the world. The basic principles are still those which were worked out in 1961 with the addition of the mobility of activities :

• Interdisciplinarity
• International exchange
• Encounter of cultures
• Development of a project in common
• Presentation of work
• Mobility of activities

In homage to Albert BOTBOL, director-founder of the University of the Theatre of Nations, the General Assembly of the 25th ITI World Congress in Munich (Germany) in June 1993 decided that henceforth the event would bear his name and be entitled : «Albert BOTBOL - University of the Theatre of Nations»