The International Theatre Festival in Sibiu
One of the largest theatre festivals in Europe gets under way in the central Romanian city of Sibiu.
Valentin Țigău, 06.06.2014, 13:17
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.
