IMTAL

The mission of the International Museum Theatre Alliance is to inspire and support the use of theatre and theatrical technique to cultivate emotional connections, provoke action, and add public value to the museum experience.

Interpretation

A communication process designed to reveal to a specific audience the significance of a historic / cultural / natural site or museum and the audience’s relationship with it in a first-hand experience that involves interaction with another person, place, object or artefact. Live interpretation and museum theatre are two, highly effective, forms of interpretative technique.

Current directors

Jack Veldman, Netherlands

Chair

Jack (1957) is director of Museumpark Archeon since 1999. Archeon joint the EU Delphy Culture 2000 project en the 5 years Open Arch – Exarc EU project. We work with 72 FTE’s en more than 130 volenteers. Since 2018 we do the assembling of the six 2000 years old Zwammerdam Roman Ships, total length over 100 meter, excavated in the fifties of the previous century, for the Dutch National Government; the Minister of OC&W (Education, Culture & Science).

Jack’s previous board appointments were Treasurer, six years, of the VMZH (Society of Musea in the province of South Holland), and of EXARC, two years, since 2020 board member of the Destination Viking Association& Follow The Vikings.

To contact Jack, please, use: jack@imtal-europe.com.

Björn M. Buttler Jakobsen, Sweden

Vice chair, Treasurer and webpage

Björn has been Director of the Foteviken museum from 1995 until 2022 when he retired. Under his leadership, the museum has been involved in many European partnership projects. Björn’s previous board appointments have included President of EXARC (European Exchange on Archaeological Research and Communication) and Chairman of NOOAM (Nordic Organization of Open Air Museums).

He has also been the chairman of the Destination Viking Association. He has worked extensively as a tv and film producer on maritime and living archaeology projects. Today he is retired but still works with culture.

Gady Weissbart, Israel

Secretary

I am Gady Weissbart, Project manager of TAMI - The Israeli Museum theater. I am 45 Years old, married + 2 amazing daughters, and live in Jerusalem.

Apart from my work at the theater, I have a murder mystery business, here's a clip of one of my mysteries: Murder mansion - A Zoom Murder mystery

Jerker Fahlström, Sweden

Board Member

The actor Jerker Fahlström is an actor with many years of experience on stage, cinema, radio, TV and has played many main roles with both child and adult theatre. Jerker has worked with many of the big names within Swedish film, and has been involved in film making abroad in e.g. Romania and Poland. Between film and theatre work he travels across the world with his storytelling show: "Of Gods, Heroes and little people".

With his show Jerker invites to a shimmering world of the heroes and gods of the Viking Age. Tales where he cleverly weaves together the tale with facts about clothing, weapons and way of life. It is a show played around the world, for example Texas, St. Petersburg, Iceland, England, Scotland, Greenland, Faroe Islands and the Orkney Islands.

Éva Zöldi-Birkás, Hungary

Board Member

Éva Birkás has an M.A in Classical Philology and in Literature and Linguistics. She worked as a museum educator at the Department of Classical Antiquities in the Museum of Fine Arts Budapest for 20 years. Since 2021 she is the Head of Department of Museum Education and Communication in Szent István Király Múzeum, Székesfehérvár.

She is a drama teacher. She introduced live interpretation programmes to the Museum of Fine Arts Budapest in 2008 where she developed first-person interpretation performances based on mostly Ancient Greek and Roman characters.

Thit Birk Petersen, Denmark

Board Member

Thit has a MA in Prehistoric Archaeology and has worked as the curator of Middelaldercentret (The Medieval Centre) in Denmark since 2016. She has a life long experience with living history and live interpretation as she started as a volunteer at Middelaldercentret in 1997 and now is head of interpretation.

She has worked at several museums as interpreter and guide and she is the founder of a small pop-up living history group in Denmark called Forum Historicum. She also took initiative in 2020 under the first lock down to start a group for re-enacters, living historians and live interpreters in Denmark where they walked in their historical costumes through towns to bring awareness to culture and the importance of museums during, under and after Covid (highly inspired by Izabela Pitcher/Prior Attire).

Foteini Venieri, Greece

Board Member

Foteini is a researcher focusing on museum theatre and the promotion of performing arts in the interpretation of cultural heritage. She has completed her graduate degree in theatre studies, postgraduate studies in cultural management and a doctoral thesis on museum theatre, and has conducted post-doctoral research on the concept of dialogue in museums.

She has designed and performed museum theatre performances as a founding member and co-manager of the company Heterotopia, and has taught modules on museum theory, museum learning, and museum theatre at several universities.

Ibrahim Karl Karabed, Germany

Board Member

Ibrahim has a M.A. in medieval and modern archaeology and has been working as a freelance cultural mediator, history interpreter, living historian and museum theatre performer since 1998. Since founding the agency Theater+Zeit in 2009, he has performed under this label in a wide variety of historical periods throughout Europe.

Theater+Zeit supports institutions of all kinds in theory and practice in the planning, preparation and design of events with historical content. Ibrahim's theatrical roots lie in the late Middle Ages, but now he performs almost 2000 years of human history. In addition to a wide range of different topics, the presentation and communication of Jewish life and other minorities in Europe has increasingly become his personal focus.

Whether in museums, in front of the camera or in publications, he is always concerned with presenting historical content in detail and in a way that is appropriate for the target group, in order to open up a generally understandable and appealing approach to the respective topic and thus make a contribution to political education, which also includes the mediation work for our centuries-old tradition of cultural diversity.

Tony Jackson, UK

Honored Board Member

Tony is now Emeritus Professor of Educational Theatre at the University of Manchester, and was Director of the Performance, Learning and Heritage research project, 2005–8. (The research database, findings and report are available online at www.plh.manchester.ac.uk)

He continues to teach part-time and his research is ongoing. His recent books include Learning through Theatre, 1993 (new edition 2013); Theatre, education and the making of meanings, 2007; and (edited with Jenny Kidd) Performing Heritage: research, practice and innovation in museum theatre and live interpretation.

Read the imtal MAGASIN

https://www.imtal-europe.org/Insights.html

2010-07-31 MANCHESTER WORKSHOP MÖTE