Judith Knight & Ritsaert ten Cate

Judith Knight and Ritsaert ten Cate first met in 1980, when Artsadmin artists Mike Figgis and Hesitate & Demonstrate were invited to the Mickery Theatre in Amsterdam. Ritsaert ten Cate was the creator and director of the Mickery, an extraordinary centre of energy in international theatre, one of the most influential producers and presenters of contemporary theatre of its generation. Judith Knight was setting out, with her colleague Seonaid Stewart, to make a go of their idea, Artsadmin, to produce the work of artists they were passionate about.

'Looking back, it seems like another world,' says Judith Knight. 'LIFT (London International Festival of Theatre) hadn't yet started, there was nothing like BITE at the Barbican and apart from a few international companies coming to the ICA, the link between UK and international contemporary work, or between the 'experimental' and the 'mainstream', was almost non-existent. There were fantastic companies like Joint Stock at the Royal Court and Riverside, and at the Oval and the ICA there were companies like the People Show and Pip Simmons, but the two didn't really mix. The more experimental work was not really taken seriously. Seonaid and I had been working at Oval House, and had come across many of these experimental companies. We loved what they were doing, and decided to work with them to produce their work and to try to increase their profile in the UK.'

The Mickery had been in existence for some 15 years, moved from the farmhouse outside Amsterdam where Ritsaert ten Cate had originally established it, into the converted cinema in Amsterdam which remained its home until 1991, when the Mickery closed after an extraordinary 25 years that had changed the international theatrical landscape for ever. 'I had heard of the Mickery when I was at the Oval House, Pip Simmons' Theatre Group was already legendary, and I knew that much of its success internationally was because the Mickery had programmed the company in its early days. Mickery was a sort of gateway into mainland Europe. Very few international programmers ever came to London to see work; London was just not on the international scene.'

The Mickery introduced Judith to 'what was really going on in Europe'. She realised that 'the work we were producing was "serious" and valued, and that Artsadmin as an organisation - pretty much ignored in the UK - could be an important resource. We saw for the first time that what we were doing might be significant.'

Forged around a shared interest in the artists that Artsadmin had chosen to work with, a close professional alliance and personal friendship developed between Judith and Ritsaert. Many of the UK artists that Ritsaert commissioned and coproduced were managed by Artsadmin, and an extraordinary string of collaborations through to 1991 resulted: among them, Mike Figgis' Redheugh and Slow Fade, Pip Simmons' The Ballista, Impact Theatre Cooperative's Carrier Frequency, Station House Opera's The Bastille Dances, Cuckoo, and Black Works, and Fairground 84, a collaboration between the Mickery, Chapter in Cardiff, the ICA in London and the Traverse in Edinburgh.

At one level, the relationship with Ritsaert proved a means of survival. 'Artsadmin, and of course our artists, were on a knife-edge. The companies paid us tiny fees out of their tiny budgets, and when they earned marginally more abroad, so did we. The Mickery "gateway" led to performances around Europe, paying the artists more than they could ever earn in the UK. It helped us all cling on.'

But more importantly, the Ritsaert connection offered a commitment that the artists received nowhere else, and to Artsadmin a source of inspiration and affirmation. Pip Simmons has said of Ritsaert: 'Ritsaert made it possible for us to experiment. He was learning with us, and he didn't hide it...I did my best work there in Holland, and Ritsaert stimulated it. His stimulation wasn't just for one short period, though. He provided the best stimulation, because he stuck with you through failures as well as successes. He can't be compared with anyone else in Europe.' ¹

Mike Figgis, in his introduction to Man Looking for Words,a collection of writings by Ritsaert published in 1996, describes the impact of Ritsaert's support. The particular instance was Redheugh, 'an ambitious piece of performance cinema' which was Mike Figgis' first outing as a director and also his first attempt at filmmaking: 'I raised a small writing grant from the Arts Council of Great Britain, and I turned to Ritsaert for the money to stage the piece. Included in this was £5,000 to make the film. The money was forthcoming...a decision made in the light of other work I had done in the past, and in the belief that with some help I might become a more interesting artist...For myself and many others, a break like this is a life-changing moment. A moment that gives the courage to continue with a philosophy of life that is less intellectual, less protected, more vulnerable but also more potentially truthful.' ² It was avowedly a turning point in Figgis' work as an artist.

Ritsaert explains: 'If you trust a group, if you hope that a lot will come out of it, then you have to support them, whichever way. We tried to bring groups together to work, or suggested they make productions that would develop their work in a direction I felt it would not otherwise take. I did what I felt was needed because I firmly believed it should happen, or because I needed to know what a project might look like. Sometimes the work was wonderful, other times it was terrible. But I would say to the group: I want the next production. That was our job as producers, and the best kind of confidence you can give.'

For Judith and the emergent Artsadmin, 'Ritsaert offered us an affirmation of everything we were doing. He produced and programmed work at Mickery not because it made a balanced programme or was fashionable, but because he loved it, it would challenge, it was risky, and he loved and respected the artists. In our own small way, we worked with the same ethos. He showed us that what we were trying to do was possible, not crazy.' She knows she is not alone in this: 'Many people have felt more able to follow their stories because of Ritsaert. What Ritsaert did - and who he is - has helped so many people over the years to see what they wanted to do and feel more able to do it. He gave artists status, strength and total support, and many other producers like ourselves inspiration. He had an effect not just in Holland but also internationally - and has made an enormous impact in this country.'

Many individuals active in the international contemporary theatre and performance scene of the 1970s and 1980s will confirm this. In the UK, for example, Rose Fenton and Lucy Neal took real inspiration and confidence from their relationship with Ritsaert as they set off on the path that established LIFT as a festival that would change the perspectives of British theatre for good: 'Ritsaert showed us that experimentation has its own ancestry and traditions and that there is really nothing new under the sun. Working with him meant being open to the unexpected, curious, playful, never standing still, forging unlikely alliances and generously sharing ideas or realising the ideas of others. Ritsaert showed us how the ideas and realities that theatre can express are of the most profound importance. Mischievous and patient by turns, the beams of the lighthouse he threw at us helped to illuminate the road we were on. "Ha!" he would say, "And why not?" It was incredibly comforting.'

In mainland Europe, Hugo de Greef, founder and director of Kaaitheater in Brussels through to 2001, and now Secretary General of the European Association of Festivals, speaks for others in the European producing community of the time: 'I created Kaaitheater in Brussels in 1977, and was part of a community of international promoters and presenters active at the heart of the avant-garde of 1980s and 1990s. It was a key moment in cultural Europe. I would not have been as successful without Ritsaert ten Cate. His way of working, his attitude and his artist-driven actions inspired me from the beginning. And I know that this counts not only for me, but for my whole generation. I am really sure, and with a serene conviction: without Ritsaert's work - and his stimulating personality - the contemporary performing arts scene in the Europe, in the world, would not be the same. And many essential artists would not have achieved the work they did.'

The impact of what Ritsaert has done has always been inseparable from the impact of the person he has been. He has an enigmatic, politically mature, playful and profoundly generous personality. Resolutely uncomfortable when he himself is the object of attention, he was the subject of Gary Schwarz's essay Ritsaert ten Cate now written in 1996 on the occasion of theaward of the Stichting Sphinx Culture Prize to Ritsaert. Testimonies from artist collaborators, producing colleagues, staff, funders and family feed into a wonderful depiction of the man. (Ritsaert describes reading it like 'being put through a grater'.) It is a rich and complex portrait, which is a sensitive and insightful read.

As Mickery's impact quickly established itself during 1970s, Ritsaert equally became a leading figure in the international producing community. The existence of Mickery was far from stable, however, and there were several times of crisis in the theatre's funding and support. Ritsaert is reticent on these areas, believing them to be his responsibility as producer, a necessary back story to his passionate sense of the place of art in our lives. In 1996 Ritsaert spoke in the presence of the Queen at the 50th anniversary of the Federation of the Arts in Holland: 'How other than with trepidation and humility, may I give testimony to the power of art in society? How else can I possibly do this if not with my heart, my soul, and the commitment of my very life? Don't misunderstand me, it is not my life upon which this burden of proof shall fall. Rather it is a matter of the complex way in which art, unbidden and unexpected, emerges from the nooks and crannies of my life. My most basic problem is that I cannot even imagine the absence of art and, along with it, the power of art in present day and future society. Art is in our own interest: art is self-interest.If we can only stumble into the realisation of its organic presence in our lives, our future will be assured.' ²

In 1991 Ritsaert closed Mickery with TouchTime - a season of largely commissioned work presented around Amsterdam. 'I had realised that, after more than 7,000 performances of over 700 productions, I had reached a point where enough was enough. I knew that I could no longer be the cork on which Mickery was floating. What had provided adventure and surprise had become institutionalised, and we were weighted down by our own history and old images with which we no longer wished to work. I felt the world still needed what we were doing at Mickery, but I could no longer be the one to do it.'

It took over three years to work through what this would mean. 'I spoke to the Board, and we discussed at length what to do. We talked with three staff members to see if they wanted to kill me off, to take the Mickery and turn it into something new, but finally it did not work out like that. I decided to do TouchTime, to do what we did til our last breath, and to end Mickery with dignity and festivity. There was a mixed response to the end of Mickery. Some felt it was about time, others felt it was a great loss. For me it was wonderful to be free. It did not feel like a loss, but a chance to live the next thing. Jan Lauwers invited me to perform with Need Company. I said I am not a performer, but if you will take the risk, I will trust you.'

In 1993, Ritsaert accepted the invitation to conceive and direct an international postgraduate theatre school in Amsterdam, which he called Das Arts. 'I decided this was something I hadn't done. I thought it would be truly interesting to create a generation that, whatever they were to make, would know what they were doing and why they were doing it, come hell or thunder. The rest was bluff, because what did I know of education? This time, I told everyone I would do this job for only seven years, and I devised Das Arts with a structure that would make it hard for it to become institutionalised.' Ritsaert created a fluid modular structure with an ever-changing flow of students, mentors and tutors. True to his word, he left Das Arts in 2000.

As Ritsaert prepared for Das Arts, he wrote: 'My experience of Mickery, and my still hungry curiosity, make up most of my knowledge of education. I have always wanted something I didn't yet know, something I couldn't be expected to know before I saw it. This curiosity has largely been expressed by an acute interest in the maker and the creator. Does active and passionate interest stimulate a student? I hope so: that's what I have to offer them.' ²

Now Ritsaert continues to write - as he has always done - and to make his own visual art work. He is based in his studio in Amsterdam where, as he puts it, 'I laugh out loud, and am serious, about my own work and about the young artists who come to see me and are trying to determine what the hell it is they're doing.' He has always been, and remains, future-oriented. 'The past has happened, it's been done. It's wonderful to have something to stand on, and know that you have done it, but let's discuss what we are going to do, let's discuss what's happening now.' As Gary Schwarz writes in the opening sentences of his essay on Ritsaert, 'The biography of Ritsaert ten Cate clamours to be written in the present tense. Few people live as intensely as he.'

Since they first encountered the Mickery in 1980, Judith Knight and Artsadmin have been on a very different journey. At first surviving on a near subsistence budget for many years, Judith's persistent, unyielding though understated advocacy for what she and her colleagues were doing, gradually built support and backing in the UK, and the Arts Council began to fund Artsadmin itself as well as project funding the artists with whom they worked. Things remained very difficult, however. 'The support for what Artsadmin was doing was there to some degree, but the stresses and strains were huge. It was the early 1990s, there was a recession on, and it was pretty tough. I could have been near to the decision that Ritsaert took. I was wondering: how long can I do this? The toll on me and others at Artsadmin - we were such a small organisation - was enormous. I was thinking to myself, actually that's enough, we've done so many things, the artists have produced extraordinary work but it's relentless, endless, always so hard. Is there a stopping place soon that I need to recognise?'

When Artsadmin found Toynbee Studios, however, Judith also personally found a new lease of life. 'Toynbee Studios opened up so many new possibilities for what we could do. I felt re-energised. The challenges were excitingly new. I am really proud of the first years through to 1994; we did amazing things on very little resources, so I wouldn't have stopped with any sense of failure. But finding Toynbee Studios changed everything. The opportunities are so great: the issues we face now are how not to take on too much. And from the outside world's perception it has made us a more important organisation. Bricks and mortar have made a huge difference to how Artsadmin and the significance of what we can do are seen.

'The facilities that Artsadmin are creating at Toynbee Studios are transforming what it is possible to do. At the heart of everything remains the passion for the work and the artists. "We have quite simply chosen to work with artists whose work we love, and this has given us an artistic identity. What I feared might have been a bit idealistic in the early years has paid off in the longer term.'

This clear value system, clarity of artistic judgement, and steadfast commitment to the artist have in the end proved to be the secret to Artsadmin's sustainability, provided the source of its international respect, and created the soul that will ensure Artsadmin's healthy survival once Judith and her other lead collaborator, her co-director Gill Lloyd, have handed the whole story on to a younger generation.

About Judith herself, Ritsaert says: 'What you see is what you get is usually a pretty good deal. With Judith, you get a lot more. Very little you see. So much more you notice once she's part of the deal. A quiet tenacity, great care for details, insight into the bigger picture, patience, a laid-back humour, an easygoing international network that turns out to be impressive. She'll always be there longer than you sometimes think is humanly possible, taking a warm and intelligent interest in what you aim for - whether you are an artist or a presenter. In short: a dream of a creative producer, but beware when she gets tight-lipped!' And of Artsadmin: 'At the earliest point of our collaboration, I asked what else Artsadmin did, other than make the bill higher. As I said: earliest beginnings. But soon I saw that Artsadmin saved us all money and problems, and more importantly supported the artist in their lonely quest to get their thing rolling. This is what was really important, and cannot be stressed strongly enough. Artsadmin is the embodiment of what creative producing can be. Ask the artists they serve.'

Helen Marriage, whose first proper job in 1984 was with Artsadmin to work on a project commissioned by Ritsaert, agrees. 'Judith's a mentor and an inspiration, always working on instinct and a deeply felt sense of principle. She works from an uncompromising inner truth, both serious and delighting in the witty and absurd. I'm sure the stable of artists that she's striven for know that they owe her for her unswerving support over the years.'

Graeme Miller, who visited Mickery in 1985 as an Artsadmin artist and member of Impact Theatre Cooperative, and has remained with Artsadmin to make his own work, concurs. 'There is a culture created by Judith and her colleagues at Artsadmin of being there, both in a wide sense and also in a real sense. To an artist, it's a kind of investment that makes you want to turn in work that will pay that back - work that will make themost of who you are, what you can do in your own village, in your own time. I'd say that Artsadmin has almost led with this tacit ideal of activism, born of the socially-engaged, aesthetically uncompromised work of the 1970s from which it sprang. If it could turn faxing, phoning, booking, finding the cash, into a form of engagement, then we as artists had better get engaged too.'

Artists Leslie Hill and Helen Paris of Curious originally received an Artsadmin bursary, and are now produced fully by Artsadmin, are clear what it is that makes the difference. The building offers 'amazing facilities and first-class support to artists for their ideas, processes and performances. But the support and commitment that Artsadmin gives to artists and arts practice exist with or without a great building. The place existed before the space. Its true foundations lie in the passion and energy of the people who have run it for over 25 years. Judith Knight and Gill Lloyd share an unswerving belief in the necessity of art.'

Bobby Baker values the 'active symbiosis between artist and producer' that she has with Artsadmin. 'Jude and Artsadmin work with artists who chose not to fit into traditional art forms, categories that we chose not to be part of for aesthetic or ethical reasons. That is the very point of our work, to be on the outside. Jude and her team have created a radically new way of working as producers, administrators, managers and collaborators to help us make this work. They offer us vision, intelligence, unconditional support, and an ethical, socially-minded approach. It's about our long-term development, and the endless, relentless hard work. There is a shared sense of never giving up when it's a good idea - one of Jude's strongest characteristics. And she has an unclouded and unsentimental view of artwork, an invigorating ability to speak her mind about what she sees. And she sees a lot. People like her have been battling for years to make others see what is possible, and without posturing and hype. Artsadmin have created something that is a sensational international success. I understand her eruptions of frustration that this could have happened years ago if people had just listened. People should listen more.'

By drawing on the passion for the necessity of art that they share, and a sense of self that puts the need to take responsibility for this first, Ritsaert and Judith have changed their landscapes permanently, through the work they have helped artists to create and through the physical or institutional structures they have created to do so. And they have pursued the need to take action through the real time sweep of their lives. For over 40 years, Ritsaert has been a transformative presence in the theatre world of Europe. Now nearly 30 years after Judith first had the idea of Artsadmin, she and Artsadmin are emerging into a quiet, authoritative kind of leadership that she might have never before imagined.

Ritsaert decided to dematerialise the structure that he created at Mickery, because it was the right thing to do, and in doing so did not detract from what he had achieved. With equal validity, Judith and her colleagues have created a new permanent infrastructure that will remain dynamic far beyond their own contributions. The structures have come, and some of them have gone, but it is the people that have created their purpose and meaning, given them a soul.

At Ritsaert's final Diploma Ceremony for the students at Das Arts in 1999, he gave a speech, saying: 'That's the world we work in. And although we do not at every turn have to be aware of all of its horrors, a sense of it we must have. And when we have it, that sense, we will also be able to note how much love is needed to cope with it. You simply cannot function without it. Without love, we cannot do, we cannot be.' He signed off to his students for the last time: 'A warm embrace, with endless possibilities. Thank you.'

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¹ Quoted from Ritsaert ten Cate now by Gary Schwarz
² Quoted from Man Looking for Words by Ritsaert ten Cate