Welcoming address by Roger Rennenberg

International Association of Libraries and Museums of the Performing Arts

Société Internationale des Bibliothèques et des Musées des Arts du Spectacle

Welcoming address

by Roger Rennenberg, Chairman of SIBMAS Flanders

Documents et Témoignages des Arts du Spectacle: Pourquoi et Comment? / Collecting and Recording the Performing Arts: Why and How?

Société Internationale des Bibliothèques et des Musées des Arts du Spectacle / International Association of Libraries and Museums of the Performing Arts

20ème Congrès International / 20th International Congress

Antwerp 4-7 September 1994. Acta. Antwerp : 1995, pp. 13-15

Chers collègues, chers amis,
Je vous souhaite la bienvenue au nom du Centre National flamand de la SIBMAS,

Dear colleagues, dear friends,
It is a privilege for me to welcome you here on behalf of the Flemish National SIBMAS Centre,

Geachte Collega's, beste vrienden,
Uit naam van het Nationaal SIBMAS Centrum Vlaanderen heet ik u vanavond hartelijk welkom.

Ladies and Gentlemen, not long after V-E Day, Sir Laurence Olivier performed at the Flemish Theatre (Vlaamsche Schouwburg) in Antwerp which he thought to be one of the finest and most beautiful theatres in Europe. He mentioned this visit in his memoirs ¹ which carried the title Confessions of an Actor: "Apart from its sublime beauty, as Ralph [Richardson] and I agreed, its wooden interior endowed this theatre with the most miraculous acoustic properties. In keeping with the apparent fate of all such priceless relics, it was torn down some years ago", a very true fact. In 1965, the beautiful theatre building dating from 1874 was demolished, only to give way to a soulless, ugly parking lot with the cynical name 'Theatre Building' which still deforms Antwerp's appearance and which is only beaten in ugliness by the terror of the so called Antwerp Tower which was stuck across the Opera Building, instead of the gorgeous Grand Hotel Weber.

This ill fate was luckily not reserved for the Bourla Theatre, Ladies and Gentlemen, although demolishing was never far off and it took 18 years of struggle to prevent this glorious building from ending up under the sledge hammer or from being horribly disfigured by all kinds of renovations.

Luckily, battles occasionally get won on behalf of the building and we can therefore welcome you for the official opening of the 20th SIBMAS conference in this beautiful theatre which was fully restored on the occasion of Antwerp, European Cultural Capital 1993.

The 20th Conference, an anniversary which deserves some clarification.

The "Société Internationale des Bibliothèques et des Musées des Arts du Spectacle", abbreviated SIBMAS, or the "International Association of Libraries and Museums of the Performing Arts" in English, was founded in 1954. The society was founded in the context of UNESCO and its main objective is "to stimulate practical and theoretical research with respect to the documentation of the performing arts;to incite permanent international contact between libraries, specialised museums, specialised centres for information and documentation; to co-ordinate the work between the members and to facilitate international exchange", as stated in article 2 of the statutes.

This is not a simple task. Yet, our birthday child has done a fine job in the past 40 years. No less than 20 conferences were organised between 1954 and 1994 in the following cities : Zagreb, Brussels, Paris, Warsaw, Munich, Amsterdam, Budapest, Genes, Copenhagen, Vienna, Barcelona, Belgrade, New York, London, Mannheim, Stockholm and Lisbon.

A national SIBMAS centre for Flanders was founded in 1989; the City Council granted it permission to be seated in the Library of the City of Antwerp on the Hendrik Conscience square.

During the 18th SIBMAS conference, which took place between September 3rd - 7th in Stockholm, the foundation of the Flemish Centre was officially acknowledged by the Board of Governors and the General Assembly of SIBMAS, presided by Dr. Oscar Pausch of the Austrian Theatre Museum.

The specific action of SIBMAS matters to the Flemish community because it occurs in an ample international context (25 countries are members, with 170 institutions, of which approximately half are united in six national centres, i.e. Great Britain, France, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Flanders), but which also offers sufficient room for cultures of numerically smaller communities to carry some significance.

Summarising, you could say that SIBMAS unites libraries, documentation centres, archives and museums which provide the performing artswith bibliographic, documented, filed and museological support.

Support to whom? Well, obviously to anybody who asks for it. But we could make a crude distinction in users: the scientific research- hence the academic world - the theatre producers - I mainly think of directors and dramaturgs - and to round off, the media, both printed and audio-visual press. We also meet the individual user: ranging from scholar to student and journalist, from publisher to producer and professor.

The conference theme of this 20th meeting connects closely with this objective. SIBMAS will ask itself the following questions during this week, questions which will prove to be essential for survival: Collecting and recording the performing arts, why and how?

I will not answer this question tonight Ladies and Gentlemen. Together with the 60 or so people attending the conference I would like to make a new appointment with you, for instance while reading the minutes of this conference, which, just like the entire conference, can be realised by means of the support of the City of Antwerp and the Ministry of the Flemish Community, institutions which I would like to thank by addressing Alderman Gerard Bergers and Minister of Cultural Affairs Hugo Weckx who greatly regretted not being able to attend this evening. A genuine word of thanks for the director and the technical co-ordinator of the Bourla Theatre as well as for my personal library assistants is well accounted for.

To round off, I would like to introduce the other speakers.

Prof. Dr. Jaak van Schoor, professor at the University of Ghent, who participates in the Inter-university Department of Theatrical Science of the four Flemish universities: Ghent, Brussels, Leuven and Antwerp. Jaak van Schoor is also chairman of the Flemish centre of the International Theatre Institute and Editor of the Flemish Theatre Yearbook of which the latest edition was presented during the Eighth Theatre Festival, organised in the Singel here in Antwerp until September 10th.

After Jaak van Schoor, you will be able to listen to Mrs. Margaret Benton, head of the London Theatre Museum and current chairman of SIBMAS, who will give some more factual information about the conference.

The last speaker will be Alderman Gerard Bergers who, amongst other things, counts the City Libraries and the Archives and Museum of Flemish Culture as part of his qualification; he will open the conference.

I would like to thank all those present for attending tonight and I would like to invite you after the proceedings to join the reception which will be held in the foyer of the Bourla Theatre. I cannot imagine a better place to begin this conference in a festive manner.

And, as a young-deceased Flemish poet once wrote:

"Words are of paper, people of snow, nothing will ever belost" ("Van papier zijn de woorden, van sneeuw de mensen, niets gaat ooit verloren").

Thank you.

1. Laurence Olivier. Confessions of an actor. London,1982, pp. 112-113. (back)

20th Congress

URL: http://www.sibmas.org/congresses/sibmas94/antw_3.html

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