A wealth of opportunities

I was in Korea as part of a Performing Arts Market tour, and I was part of a delegation of three venues, one from Wales, one from Newcastle and one from the Midlands. I was there really to present the company [National Theatre Wales]. We went to talk about artists development in the UK, from a regional perspective.

I learnt loads of  things! I was particularly stuck by the developments that have taken place in recent years and the level of investment. Off the back of that there are loads of incredible facilities, venues and organisations. There's been a real drive in recent years, and the breadth of work that's going on is really impressive. There's lots of work going on reinvigorating traditional texts, things like Chekhov and Shakespeare, but there's also interesting work being done supporting emerging artforms and new approaches. My understanding is that's why we were asked to go out there, to offer our point of view on how we've approached similar work and shifts in the UK, bookending where we are at the moment and where we're going.

We spent a week meeting lots of people and watching lots of presentations. The context wasn't always directly comparable, so I would say it was more of an exchange than a teaching environment. I think what we were able to show them is that there are so many different ways of doing things and they don't necessarily have to be venue-based. It also doesn't always need to be about long-term relationships, with the constraints that come with that, with an associated company relationship, for example. Support can be much more free and fluid than that, which I think was interesting.

Of course, the multi-disciplinary, cross-artform approach that NWT has taken was interesting to talk about, too, as it seems to be a real growth area. We also had a round table discussion between a number of venues, organisations and managers about the practical issues they're facing - and that was heavily attended by people working outside Seoul. That was really interesting because here there are direct comparables for me working in Wales – there were lots of conversations about dealing with rural touring and touring networks.

Lots of things are really relevant, actually. I cover the major points in my blog for the NTW site. What I really want to make clear is what's going on in the industry over there: there's a wealth of opportunities and the level of interest is so evident. People want to work internationally, not just take work from Korea out but also wanting to bring fantastic work into the country.

Simon Coates was talking to Eleanor Turney.