Radio România Internațional

Tag: International Theatre Festival

  • 2021 Sibiu International Theatre Festival

    2021 Sibiu International Theatre Festival

    Starting Friday, Sibiu, the
    Transylvanian city with the most visible Saxon legacy on Romania’s territory,
    is for ten days an international capital of performing arts. More than 2000
    artists from 38 countries will create hundreds of events at the 28th
    International Theatre Festival. The program is rich and diverse, including
    theatre, dance, music and circus performances, which bring together famous
    names and world premieres.




    The festival, whose theme this year
    is We build hope together, is a
    celebration of performing arts and enjoys the participation of famous names,
    such as Charlotte Rampling, Israel Galvan, Denis O’Hare, Helmut Sturmer and
    Yoshi Oida. I don’t want to use big words, but this year’s edition is close to
    heroic, because we’ve organized it with extreme joy, but also with huge efforts,
    actor Constantin Chiriac, the president of the Festival, told us. The fact
    that we can think together of a different type of normality, through which we
    can carry on our dreams and hopes, the power to create, to believe, and the joy
    of seeing beauty in so many forms is the motivation for all that we do, the
    actor also said. He thanked all those who participated in this effort and
    understood what commitment to such a
    project entailed.




    The 600 events that make up the
    festival program will be hosted by
    historical sites, which are quite a plenty in Transylvania in general, and in
    the Sibiu area in particular. The festival will be held both onsite and online,
    as well as in hybrid format.






    Here is Constantin Chiriac with more:


    The halls will be 70% occupied. We will
    also use a hybrid format, already used by many theatres around the world, which
    means that some guests will be playing for us from their own home. I’m talking
    here about Tokyo Metropolitan, Batsheva, Deutsche Theatre, Israel Galvan, etc.
    We will also have online events, which will give the audience the possibility
    to watch more than 100 performances from anywhere in the world, provided there
    is internet connection. So, in total, there will be more than 600 events, and
    2000 artists from 38 countries coming to Sibiu.




    The festival will be attended by big
    Romanian directors, such as Silviu Purcărete, Alexandru Dabija or Eugen
    Jebelean and will enjoy the participation of major Romanian artistic institutions,
    including the National Opera of Timisoara, the Little Theatre, the Drama
    Theatre in Galati and the local Radu Stanca Theatre. The international theatre
    festival played a major role in designating Sibiu a European Capital of Culture
    in 2007, the year when Romania joined the European Union. (MI)





  • The International Theatre Festival in Sibiu

    The International Theatre Festival in Sibiu

    The International Theatre Festival in Sibiu is perhaps the most complex annual festival taking place in Romania and the third largest of its kind in Europe after Edinburgh and Avignon. For ten days this year, the old Saxon settlement in central Transylvania becomes a huge open-air stage, with artists coming from all corners of the world and events taking place in 60 different locations across the city, including public squares, churches, historical sites and conventional performance spaces.



    Now in its 21st year, the festival unfolds between the 6th and the 15th of June and brings together 2,500 artists from 70 different countries, as well as 350 theatre performances, dance and music shows, street performances, circus shows, exhibitions, readings and conferences, all of which are held under the motto Uniqueness in Diversity. Apart from theatre, the programme of the festival this year also includes film screenings and book launches.



    One of the highlights of the festival is the presence of the Lebanese writer, actor and director Wajdi Mouawad, whose film “Incendies” received an Oscar nomination in 2011 in the best foreign film category. He will have an open dialogue with Romanian theatre critic George Banu. Another attraction this year is a sculpture entitled Luminarium Mirazozo based on the interplay between light and shadow. Inspired by Islamic and Gothic architecture, this is an inflatable structure providing visitors with a multisensorial experience created by the light shining coloured or transparent geometric surfaces.



    Last but not least, new stars will be added to Celebrity Walk, modelled after Hollywood’s Walk of Fame: British theatre director Peter Brook, Romanian choreographer Gigi Caciuleanu, Martin Hochmeister, the founder of the first theatre in Sibiu, Romanian theatre director and set designer Krystian Lupa, Romanian playwright and theatre director Radu Stanca and German theatre director Peter Stein. In the words of Constantin Chiriac, the director of the Sibiu Theatre Festival, this year’s events are organised according to the principle of communicating vessels. It is to be expected, therefore, that they will reconfirm the humanist vocation of a city which in 2007 received the title of European Capital of Culture.