The Sibiu International Theatre Festival kicks off
5,000 artists from 82 countries will organize 840 events over the course of 10 days
Leyla Cheamil, 20.06.2025, 13:50
The 32nd edition of the Sibiu International Theatre Festival is taking place over June 20-29. The festival will turn Sibiu, a former European capital of culture, into a huge stage for large-scale productions, impressive installations, parades, theatre performances, fire shows, live music, aerial dances and street performances. Exhibitions, workshops and conferences are other events that await the public. It is one of the most important theatre and performing arts festivals in the world and the third largest in Europe, after the Avignon Festival and the Edinburgh International Festival. Founded in 1993 by Constantin Chiriac, the festival brings together important names from international theatre, offering spectators a wide range of sections that annually include the presence of dozens of countries and hundreds of events. In this year’s edition, over 5,000 artists from 82 countries will be organizing over 840 events for ten days. Over half of the performances take place outdoors, where public access is free. The theme chosen for this edition is “Thank You”.
In addition to well-established artists such as Bill Murray, Kathleen Turner, Kuranosuke Sasaki or Alexandru Tomescu, the festival program also includes an extensive presence of Romanian artists, such as Teatrul pe Roţi, Circ Discret, Şcoala de Circ din Timişoara, the PulsaR band or the Cozmeşti band. “The outdoor shows are the audience’s first contact with the Sibiu International Theatre Festival. They are the starting point for discovering the Festival and the miracle of art. We have built this mechanism over the course of 32 years and we are perfecting it each year”, the festival’s president, Constantin Chiriac, has said, also underlining the unprecedented scale of the festival this year, despite the difficulties, turbulences and problems at global level. “The Sibiu audience is increasingly demanding, which makes us happy and responsible. Through constant efforts and our membership in the Circostrada network, we have managed to bring some of the most spectacular street theatre companies and artistic installations to the festival”, the coordinator of street events, Dan Bartha-Lazăr, said in turn.
The Large Square in Sibiu will host remarkable shows, such as “Ymir’s Dream”, a performance featuring a 12-meter-high stylized human figure and a 60-meter-long metallic spiral suspended by a 200-ton crane, part of a show prepared by the French group Transe Express. In the Small Square, spectators will be able to interact with installations made from recyclable materials by the Catalan company Tombs Creatius, circus performances and an immersive Spanish installation in the shape of a glass globe. The Bălcescu pedestrian street will be animated by musical parades, African dances on stilts, batucada, samba and reenactments of pre-Christian rituals. (VP)
