Organized by the
\n‘Luceafarul’ Theater for Children and Youth, the festival addresses spectators
\nwith a young spirit, irrespective of their age. The program is very daring and
\ntargets all categories of audience.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Olti\u0163a C\u00eentec is
\nthe artistic director of the ‘Luceafarul’ Theater and the selector of the
\nfestival that took place in early October.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
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\n
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<\/p>\n
Olti\u0163a C\u00eentec: Our festival has a unique identity both in
\nthe region and in the country, and it targets young audiences. Young means
\nyoung spirit, a young cultural age, no matter the people’s biological age.
\nTheir youth consists in their openness towards new, unusual cultural
\nexperiences. We target those audiences who have known and still know how to
\npreserve the young dimension of their personality, which should be fostered all
\nthroughout one’s life, no matter the age.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
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<\/p>\n
A young audience
\nneeds new challenges. This year, the theme of the festival was ‘Otherwise’. <\/p>\n
Olti\u0163a C\u00eentec: Every year we come up with a new theme, a
\nnew motto for our events, which are very diverse. Events start at 9 a.m. every
\nday and end late at night. Mornings are for children while the midday and the
\nafternoon are dedicated to specialists. The evenings are for the audiences over
\n14, whose cultural age is hard to define. We have a very dense, varied
\nschedule. We have daring forms of show – participatory theatre, documentary
\ntheater, reading shows and street shows.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
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\n
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<\/p>\n
The festival
\nalso includes performance art. This year’s program included ‘NOK!NOK!’ a free
\nadaptation of the book ‘The Year of Magical Thinking’ by Joan Didion. The
\nproject is part of the Performing Arts Program of the National Contemporary Art
\nMuseum and the concept belongs to actress Nicoleta Lefter who is also the
\nscriptwriter and director of the show:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
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\n
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<\/p>\n
Nicoleta Lefter:
\nTogether with actress Flavia Giurgiu,
\nwho is playing in the show, with Ioana Bodale, a visual artist, and Alexandru
\nRaptis, the sound engineer, we conceived a performance about the fear of
\nloneliness. About how deep loneliness can penetrate a human being to reduce him
\nor her to numbness and lack of reaction. And we started from the case described
\nin the book, in which a famous writer loses her husband while she is preparing
\ndinner. Everything that follows is a flow of thoughts, like an analysis of each
\nreaction, each gesture, and each heartbeat behind this fear of loneliness.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
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<\/p>\n
Olti\u0163a C\u00eentec
\nbelieves that the times when spectators simply sat in their chairs in
\ncontemplation are long gone and that audience should be ‘jostled’ by the dramatic
\nart. Thus, the program of the International Theater Festival for Young Audience
\nalso included shows that built on direct interaction with the audience. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
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\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
‘The Author’ by
\nTim Crouch directed by Bobi Pricop, a production of the Marin Sorescu National
\nTheater of Craiova is certainly a challenging show. It is the 2nd
\ntext of the British playwright after An Oak Tree staged in Piatra Neamt by
\nthe young director. A playwright who revolutionized the relationship between
\nthe audience and the stage performance, and between the author and the stage
\nperformance Bobi Pricop says. What prompted him to come up with this formula
\nfor his stage performance?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Bobi Pricop: I think that, being a sort of control
\nfreak, these attempts and the encounter with this playwright whom I find
\nfabulous, who proposes such great risk and such an intense unknown, is an
\nexercise of understanding how I work and how I succeed in managing this risk…
\nIn the Author there is no set design at all, there is no acting area, there
\nare only two large benches for spectators facing one another, with no space
\nbetween them whatsoever. The show begins with ten minutes of silence, when
\neventually, people from the audience begin wondering what’s all this about,
\nwhat is going on, whether something is going to start, or not… In the end
\nactors are being recognized by members of the audience…<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
‘I’ve been to
\nlots of stage performances where I had the feeling that the audience, as well
\nas I, get really bored. That theater has become museum-like’, young stage
\ndirector Cristian Ban confessed. At the festival in Iasi, Ban was invited with
\nhis stage performance Let us know each other better, based on a collective
\nscript and produced by the Ioan Slavici Classical Theater in Arad. ‘Have you
\never stolen anything?’, ‘What do you think?’ or ‘Are you happy?’… These are the
\nquestions the four actors in the cast have launched for the audience, in an
\nunusual stage endeavor, a live survey, but for which the answers are anonymous. Speaking about that, here is stage director
\nCristian Ban. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
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\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Cristian Ban: I wanted to put up such a show that the
\naudience never stops thinking about it. So that it may be like an inner stage
\nshow everyone experiences in their own way. I wanted to talk, at the theater,
\nabout things we don’t speak about. Adult
\nthings, or more intimate things, having to do with money, sex, happiness…Things
\nyou get to talk about only with your very close friends. The challenge for us
\nwas to not mince our words and speak about them outright, for one hour, at the
\ntheater.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
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\n
<\/p>\n
The
\nInternational Theater festival for Young Audiences in Iasi this year extended
\nto 18 venues across the city, conventional or non-conventional spaces, indoor
\nor outdoor premises. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
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\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Oltita Cintec: Obviously the focus is the Luceafarul
\nTheater, with its two halls, but we ‘colonized’ the whole city with stage
\nperformances of all sorts. We also wanted to bring theatrical gifts to those
\nwho these days are in the hospital, for instance…because we want our festival,
\njust like any other genuine festival, to be a celebration, we want it to be a
\njoy for everybody. We acted on the street, on the sidewalk; we acted in malls,
\nbecause, in addition to the public coming to the theater on a regular basis, we
\nwere the ones who went out the lookout for an audience that, for various
\nreasons, does not manage to set foot in a theater. And then I said the only
\nthing we could do was to go look for an audience ourselves, in those unconventional
\nareas…I am positive that many of the people in the audience, through those
\nunconventional shows, discovered theater, discovered that it is not a starched
\ncoat, too tight at the neck or waist, quite the contrary, it is a vivid,
\nextraordinary art, which builds emotional bridges with the audience, and that
\nis the most important thing of all. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Iasi International Theater Festival for Young Audience has reached its 11th edition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":129,"featured_media":162226,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44685],"tags":[44951,34200,44950],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-162225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-of-culture","tag-cristian-ban","tag-iasi","tag-luceafarul-theater"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n