'Before and After the Show', an international seminar focusing on collaboration curated by Bojana Cvejic, was the first activity of stage 3. The decision to support this seminar was made soon after Mark Deputter contacted ALMOSTREAL in November 2005 with the idea to create an occassion between artists and public that would stimulate an in-depth reflection upon the good and bad experiences of artistic collaboration encountered during the Encounters project. Mark in cooperation with Bojana Cvejic proposed a semi-public talk and feedback session. This seminar would be devoted to discussing and sharing with an audience, the anticipations and actualities stemming from the experiences of collaboration between the Encounters artists. Not only would this be interesting for the artists involved, but also for Alkantara, as it would certainly feed into Alkantara’s own concepts and habits of international/intercultural collaboration that they have been developing in the past seven or eight years. Reflecting on the concept of collaboration woud also be invaluable for ALMOSTREAL and the ECF. ‘Before and After the Show’ marked a first instance in a series of reflections and research of art and collaboration for the third stage.