In the editorial of the December 2009 Magdalena Aotearoa newsletter, Helen Varley Jamieson reflects on what’s happened since 1999 - what the 1999 Magdalena Aotearoa International Festival of Performance inspired and the ways our lives were changed by it.

A Decade of Consequences

At Easter this year we were so busy with our third Gathering and the launch of our new web site, that the fact that it was a decade since the 1999 Magdalena Aotearoa International Festival of Performance slipped by almost unmarked. When I look back to 1999, the festival seems unreal - an ambitious, risky, mad endeavour - yet we did it!

Could we do it again?

We’ve thought about it and discussed it, but ... the financial barriers seem huge even without the shadow of the current economic crisis; the time commitment seems too much to ask of people when everyone is already more than busy; and the distances to bring international guests seem obscene in the face of imminent environmental collapse. But the fact that we did it once stands as a challenge to do it again ... or at least to dream about it.

While we dream, it’s worth reflecting on what’s happened since 1999 - what the festival inspired and the ways our lives were changed by it. For me, the festival was a huge catalyst: a few months later I left on a one-way ticket to the UK and, after the Edinburgh Fringe, I boldly made my way to Jill Greenhalgh’s house in rural Wales. We had barely met in New Zealand but I proposed to build the fi rst web site for the Magdalena Project, and Jill happily accepted.

Coincidentally, I was at Jill’s house when I began to write this editorial some weeks ago, once again sitting at her big kitchen table by a roaring fire and working on things Magdalena. And six weeks before that, I had been in Istanbul where I finally had the pleasure of meeting Jale Karabekir of Tiyatro Boyalı Kuş, a Turkish feminist theatre company. Isay finally because Jale and I have communicated by email since late 1999; she was the first person to contact the magdalena project after finding the web site that I’d built. As a result of that contact, Jale went to the INFANT Festival in Novi Sad in 2000 and met Jill; she returned to Istanbul determined to start the feminist theatre group which has now grown into a strong company. Just after we met this year, she went to Norway for the Ibsen Prize, and then the company toured to Armenia.

Jale thanked me profusely for making the web site which made it possible for her to meet the people who gave her the courage to start her theatre company. Without our festival, this wouldn’t have happened - at least, not like this. And our festival wouldn’t have happened if Sally, Madeline and others hadn’t attended Magdalena ‘94; which they wouldn’t have known about if Alan Brunton hadn’t stumbled across the Magdalena Project book in the Wellington Public Library and brought it home for Sally to read. That book wouldn’t have been there if Susan Basnett hadn’t written it, and she would have had nothing to write about if Jill and the others hadn’t initiated the Magdalena Project in 1983, kept it going for all these years and allowed it to evolve into something that we all needed.

I’m not saying that Tiyatro Boyalı Kuş wouldn’t have happened at all if we hadn’t had our festival, but we can honestly say that our festival in 1999 directly contributed to the establishment of a feminist theatre company in Istanbul. It’s also directly led to many other things, and some of those who were present at the festival in 1999 have commented on this in the pages of this newsletter. Miff Moore, who ran the exhibition at Shed 11, writes from Norway. Natalia Marcet (a.k.a. MISS CAPITAL LETTERS), who came from Argentina to participate in our festival, writes about the culmination of her dream to present her solo performance at the Transit Festival. Jale writes from Istanbul about her company and the importance of the Magdalena network for her work. And the festival’s technical director, Lisa Maule, reflects back to those exciting and crazy days in 1999.

I continued writing this editorial in New York where, amongst other things, I attended the final season of Dominicanish by Josefina Baez, after a decade of performances. Josefina wasn’t at our festival in 1999 but I met her at Transit in 2001 and toured her around New Zealand in 2002. Once again this was a tour with many consequences, for people here and for Josefina.

Back home at last, and finishing this newsletter, I am struck by the strength of those ripples from 1999 that continue to spiral outwards...

Helen Varley Jamieson
- from the December 09 newsletter, page 1
Read the full newsletter on the website