“It wasn’t even a disagreement,” Senkov clarifies to host Ines Vaikule. For us, I think, that management model did not match.” He adds that there are very few artistic directors left in theaters in Latvia, and the very word “artistic director” presupposes leadership.
“If the manager is not given any opportunities to lead or to make some very important decisions that the manager should do and take responsibility for, then I don’t understand why the artistic director is needed. Accordingly, we were not given the authority,” explains Senkov. “I only ask to answer a few things – about the troupe, the repertoire; I think a person who understands something about theater should answer for that. I want to think that I understand something about theater.”
When asked if it was immediately clear with the new management that the responsibilities were separated and it would not be possible to influence the content in any way, the director answered affirmatively that artistic powers were not given: “I agreed to be the artistic director, not a consultant.
At the moment, what I was offered looked more like a consultant, an assistant to a board member. I wasn’t interested.
I can also be a consultant in other theaters. Accordingly, my ambitions were – I saw how to develop this theater for the next ten years, really. Maybe it sounds very ambitious or arrogant of me now, but I really saw it, I believed it. If I see that I’m not given specific tools and I can’t do it, then I don’t do it, that’s all.”
You can listen to the full recording of the program here!
2023-10-10 21:05:22
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