Delegates choose one of the four parallel sessions detailed below. Full information on speakers can be found underneath details of schedule. 

 I Venues
 Panellists: Alan Rivett
Facilitated by: Claudia Woolgar 

What are the benefits for audiences, production companies, and venues in collaborative working? When is a co-production more than just vanity 'badging' for a venue? Using case studies from Warwick Arts Centre, Director, Alan Rivett - in conversation with Claudia Woolgar, Artistic Director, The Source Arts Centre - explores positive reasons for collaborative working between venues and production companies. 

 Time & location: 14:00 Friday 16 June in Irish World Music Centre 

 II International Touring
 Panellists: Andrew Collier & Micheál Ó’Súilleabháin
Facilitated by: Brian Jackson 

Last year the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism established a new agency called Culture Ireland charged with promoting Irish arts abroad (www.cultureireland.gov.ie). Micheál Ó Súilleabháin is the Chairman of the Board and he will introduce the agency’s new strategic plan to 2010, particularly as it applies to theatre and dance. 

He will be followed by Andrew Collier, an experienced international theatre producer who will address some of the perennial questions when it comes to touring internationally: what kind of show works and what doesn’t work, the touring circuit (large and small-scale), common pitfalls when it comes to currency, freight etc. 

 Time & location: 14:00 Friday 16 June in Irish World Music Centre 

 III A New Direction for New Writing
 Panellist: Richard Bean
Facilitated by: Thomas Conway 

 The Monsterists are fighting for the right to be able to stage big work, addressing big issues with big casts. 

A playwrights’ campaign, Monsterism was formed by writers who felt constrained by the conventions of the studio. Frustrated at the tendency of theatres to allocate small spaces and small budgets for new plays, the movement aims to promote the elevation of new theatre writing from the studio to the main stage. 

 Playwright and founder member of the Monsterists, Richard Bean explains their manifesto. 

 Time & location: 14:00 Friday 16 June in Irish World Music Centre 

 IV Dance in conversation
Lloyd Newson in conversation with Paul Keogan 

Acclaimed choreographer and director of world-renowned DV8 Physical Theatre, Lloyd Newson discusses his approach to making work and DV8’s philosophy of risk taking and innovation with designer and Abbey associate artist Paul Keogan. 

Lloyd Newson’s work has had a dynamic impact on contemporary dance, challenging our preconceptions of what dance can, and should, address. DV8’s work is about taking risks and challenging traditional forms - breaking down the barriers between dance, theatre and personal politics. 
A rare opportunity to gain an insight into the methods and motivations of one of today’s most inspiring and sought after artists. 

 Time & location: 14:00 Friday 16 June in Irish World Music Centre 

 Speakers listed by session: 

 Alan Rivett is Director of the award winning Warwick Arts Centre at the University of Warwick, Coventry, England. He leads a multi disciplinary team delivering a programme of contemporary performance, visual arts and film with a strong international dimension, to an audience of over 250,000 annually. Warwick Arts Centre has recently produced successful touring co-productions of Thatcher The Musical with Foursight Theatre and Street Trilogy with Theatre Absolute and regularly hosts productions by Peter Brook and the Maly Theatre of St. Petersburgh among others. 

 Claudia Woolgar is Artistic Director of The Source Arts Centre, a new arts centre in Thurles, County Tipperary with a 250 seater theatre and gallery space. In 2003 and 2004 she was Director of Kilkenny Arts Festival, during which the festival commissioned and produced site specific work and initiated an innovative community outreach programme. Prior to her move to Ireland she worked in the Netherlands as an international theatre producer. She ran two producing companies, Offshore Cultural Projects and (i)tex, presenting the work of such directors as Rimas Tuminas (Lithunania), Silviu Purcarete (Romania), Lev Dodin (Russia) and Declan Donnellan (UK). 

From 1994-1997, based in London, (with a seven month stint living in Romania), she ran a British-Romanian theatre exchange programme called Noroc. This sought to work bi-laterally between the two countries, and involved touring the work of Romanian directors in the UK, and producing collaborative projects. Woolgar also ran a three year training placement programme with the Caucasus region for young arts managers from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. Her first professional job was a theatre critic, specialising in Eastern European theatre. She is a member of the board of Theatre Forum. 

 Andrew Collier has worked in theatre production for over ten years, and has toured shows of every size in both the commercial and the subsidised sectors. From 1999 to 2002 he ran his own production company, Fat Bloke Productions, where his credits as a producer included Resident Alien (Edinburgh, London, UK tour, US tour, Australian tour) and Tim Fountain Sex Addict (Edinburgh, Royal Court London, Schaub?hne Berlin) as well as over 100 shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival some of which toured, others of which were never seen again. Currently based in London, he now works as a freelance producer and is retained both by the Barbican Theatre and by Fiery Angel, a commercial West End and touring production company. Current projects include producing the Barbican’s first ever pantomime, a UK tour for the Maly Drama Theatre of St Petersburg and a UK and Ireland tour of Fimbles Live. 

 Micheál Ó Súilleabháin is well known internationally for his unique Irish piano style. His very first recording issued by Gael Linn in 1975 boldly experimented with Irish traditional music played on five keyboard instruments (including mini-moog synthesiser!). The piano won out, and several albums later his classic recording The Dolphin’s Way (Virgin Records 1987) established him and his style as an unmistakeable voice in Irish music. The next stage revealed itself in 1989 with the release of Oileán /Island (Virgin Records) – his first of many collaborations with the Irish Chamber Orchestra. His most recent albums are Becoming (Virgin 1998) and Templum (Virgin 2001). New work includes a masque entitled Madison’s Descent, commissioned by Montclair State University, New York, due to be first performed in New York and Dublin in May 2006. 

He was appointed the first Professor of Music at the University of Limerick in 1994 where he established the Irish World Music Centre. Ten years on, this has now become the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance. 

In March 2005 he was appointed by Minister John O’Donoghue at the Department of Arts, Sports and Tourism as the first Chair of Culture Ireland, a new body set up by the Irish government to promote Irish arts internationally. 

 Brian Jackson is the Director of the Global Irish Institute at University College Dublin. He was Managing Director of the Abbey Theatre until 2005. Previously he ran an IT company in London, a division of the BUPA group of companies. Before this he worked in the corporate tax division of PWC. He is a member of the board of Theatre Forum.
 
Richard Bean was born in East Hull in 1956. After school, he worked in a bread plant before leaving to study psychology at Loughborough University. Richard has worked as a psychologist, model and stand-up comedian. His play The God Botherers was mounted at Synapse Theatre in New York in 2004. 

Harvest opened at the Royal Court Theatre in September 2005 and was nominated for the 2005 Evening Standard Award for Best Play as well as Best Play in the 2006 Olivier Awards. It won the 2006 Critics' Circle Award for Best Play. 

 His most recent play Up On Roof premiered this year at the Hull Truck Theatre. 

 Thomas Conway includes among his directing credits Beowulf translated and performed by Felix Nobis, Closer by Patrick Marber, Catastrophe, Rockaby and What Where by Samuel Beckett. He has been script reader for Corcadorca and the Abbey. As co-director of the Everyman Palace Studio, he adjudicated the ‘05 Commission, administered New Voices and was producer for the NT Shell Connections Festival 2005. He recently worked with Raymond Keane and Judy Hegarty Lovett on … tanks a lot! He is New Writing Manager with Druid. 

 Lloyd Newson's work since 1986 as the Director of London-based DV8 Physical Theatre has had a dynamic impact on contemporary dance by challenging the traditional aesthetics and forms which pervade most modern and classical dance. Newson’s work concentrates on connecting meaning to movement and addressing social issues. 

Newson has created 15 works for stage, and four films, consistently receiving major British and international awards, including 2 Prix Italia and an international Emmy. His latest film, The Cost of Living, loosely based on the stage production of the same name, has been shown at festivals worldwide. 

After studying psychology at university, Newson won a full scholarship to London Contemporary Dance School. He went on to dance with many notable choreographers of the era before founding DV8. His work has included commissions from the Sydney 2000 Olympic Arts Festivals and Tate Modern, and films for the BBC and Channel 4. 

 Paul Keogan studied Drama at the Samuel Beckett Centre, TCD and at Glasgow University. After graduating he worked as Production Manager for Project Arts Centre. On leaving Project, Paul worked on a freelance basis as a lighting designer. His recent designs include; Titus Andronicus, La Musica and Shutter (Siren Productions); Homeland (also set design/Abbey Theatre); Smaller (West End); The Sugar Wife (also set design/for Rough Magic, Project and Soho); Blue/Orange (Crucible Theatre Sheffield); Harvest (Royal Court Theatre); Trad (also set design/for Galway Arts Festival); Born Bad and In Arabia We’d All Be Kings (Hampstead Theatre); Too Late for Logic (Edinburgh International Festival); Shimmer and Olga (Traverse Edinburgh); The Silver Tassie (Almeida); The Tempest (Theatre Royal Plymouth & UK Tour); Family Stories and Tejas Verdes (also set design for B*Spoke); Quay West, Blasted, Far Away and Beckett’s Ghosts (Bedrock Productions); Here Lies,Angel Babel and Chair (also set design/ Operating Theatre); Pénélope and Susannah (Wexford Opera); Der Fliegende Holländer, Un Ballo in Maschera and The Makropulos Case (Opera Zuid, Netherlands); The Queen of Spades, Lady Macbeth of Mtensk, The Silver Tassie, and Jenufa (Opera Ireland); and The Lighthouse (Opera Theatre Company); Ballads and The Rite of Spring (also set design/ for Cois Céim); SAMO (Block & Steel, Netherlands) and Catalyst (a collaboration between Rex Levitates and The National Ballet of China in Beijing). 

Paul also designed The Wishing Well, a large-scale outdoor projection piece for Kilkenny Arts Festival 1999, and the lighting for the Irish Pavilion at the Architectural Biennale in Venice 2004. Paul is an associate artist of the Abbey Theatre, Dublin.