Shooting Stars in the New Sky
This meeting’s theme of “Eastern Promises” was kicked off with our opening Plenary Session “Shooting Stars in the New Sky”, through which our competent and knowledgeable panel raised questions, shared personal experiences, and brought to light specific circumstances, both past and present concerning the East-West partnership dilemma. What defines East and West? How and where are those lines drawn? What are the problems, inequalities, obstacles in the broad playing field of EastWest cultural and artistic exchange? What can and should be done so that we may recognize, understand, and accept each other?

Dragan’s Point: Sustainability of Cultural NGO’s in the Current Economic Crisis
This Learning Session focused on particular risks and difficulties thrust upon cultural NGO’s as a result of the current economic recession. “I did not study economy”, opened Dragan Klaic, the very active Amsterdam based theater scholar and cultural analyst, and the leader of our session. “I studied theater. But who here did study economy?” The rhetorical question was left, of course, unanswered. Yet the point is, it is now in our hands, as leaders of the cultural sector, to learn to think in new ways, and find solutions for the difficult situation we are in, using our pulled resources of experience