The IX International Theatre Forum “TEART” will be held in Minsk from 20th September to 8th October. In three crowded theatrical weeks Minskers will get a sight of four performances within the International Program and will visit eleven events as the part of the “Belarus Open” showcase. This year the educational platform “School of TEART” will be launched under the slogan “Concentrate. Personality — director”. Tickets for the most remarkable theatre event of this fall are out now!
In the previous years Forum’s theatre-goers investigated “Theatre in your head” and took part in “Decapsulation”. This year the IX International Theatre Forum “TEART” про will take place with the slogan “Concentrate”. “TEART” allows to experience the highest presence of theatre in the life of the city and its residents. Concentrate of ambitious directing decisions, provocative ideas, topical issues, vivid performances and fresh emotions. All theatre alchemy is concentrated in the hands of people able to create magic.
The organizers of the International Theatre Forum “TEART”: Visual and Performing Arts Centre “Art Corporation”, OJSC “Belgazprombank”, “Gazprom Transgaz Belarus” with the assistance of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Belarus and of the Minsk City Executive Committee.
“Concentrate” starts with “Belarus Open”
“TEART” will commence on the evening of 20 September staging Concentrate. Opening.
Performances of the “Belarus Open” program showcase start on 21st of September. Mentor of the program and theatre critic Ludmila Gromyko has chosen eight of thirty two brightest Belarusian plays of recent years. “Here a new Belarusian theatre rises and this year we were focused on such qualities as: exclusivity of directing idea, talented performance, reflections on the world and human in it and most importantly — on Belarus”.
On 21st of September in the act in one scene Song Of Songs by “ART Corporation” be ready to see how modern understanding of old testament doctrines will open the doors to the world of passionate, tender, languishing and fierce feelings. Director Yura Divakov, “National Theatre Award 2018” winner, offers to look at the fleshliness as one of the main components of modern romantic love.
Song Of Songs. Photo by Anna Sharko
Theatrical performance based on the cult play “Duck Hunting” by Alexander Vampilov will be shown on 21st of September. “Not a comedy” of the Republican Theatre of Belarusian Drama Hunting For Yourself will tell at first sight a simple story about typical Belarusian family that suddenly gets an apartment. But the adaptation of Ukrainian director Stas Zhirkov is about people, who consider themselves adult, but in fact turn out to be children, who for the first time appear in such a quest-room of their own lives.
Within the framework of Belarus Open there are two best performances of 2018/2019 season under TUT.BY version. On 22nd of September Visual and Performing Arts Centre “ART Corporation” will present Guards At The Taj by Alexander Yanushkevich. In theatrical show, based on the play of an American playwright and Pulitzer-prize winner Rajiv Joseph, two best friends Babur and Humayun guard the brilliant masterpiece and mystery — Indian Taj Mahal. By chance it is they who become heroes of legendary “night of forty thousand hands”. In the project Air by dancer, choreographer and performer Olga Labovkina and KARAKULI dance theatre creators play with the idea of air, considering it in different semantic concepts. What remains if the air is running out? How far we are ready to go in extreme situations for the sake of one more breath? Dance performance is able to be seen on 25th and 26th of September.
Guards Of the Taj. Photo by Alexey Pivovarchik
“This is US, not someone else” — one of the main Belarusian literary best-sellers in past years, “Radio ‘Prudok“ by Andrus Horvat, was taken as the basis of play THISISUS which will be shown on 22nd of September. “THISISUS” by Stas Zhirkov tells about the author himself, who once worked in Minsk, but after the disappointment in the big city life moved to the village of Prudok in Polesie region to restore his grandfather’s house and get back to his roots.
260 years ago the great humanist Voltaire finished a portrait of his era – the novel called Candide, Or The Optimism. It turned out to be a satiric masterpiece. Interpretation of picaresque romance in the same-name performance by Igor Kazakov can be seen on 23rd of September within Belarus Open program.
Candide, Or the Optimism. Photo by Denis Vasilkov
For the first time in Belarusian showcase will be presented the projects of The Social Theater Lab. Exclusive for Belarus projects – The Social Theatre Lab of ECLAB, HUNCHtheatre, “Kryly Khalopa” – consider theatre as the social expression and mechanism of changing society.
The Social Theatre Lab of ECLAB opens the set of presentations with the performance Close People? We hear so often: “every third Belarusian woman lives in a situation of physical, psychological or economic violence”, “one third of all serious crimes taking place in Belarus are murders committed in the family”. What in fact hides behind these numbers? What can each of us do to change things? These and other questions will highlight the play by director Valentina Moroz on 21st of September.
“TEART” offers theatre-goers to visit on 21st of September theatrical play Left Dissidents. Director Vladimir Shcherban who opened a new project of HUNCHtheatre, addressed modern Belarusian play by Alena Shpak and Andrey Dichenko. Giving our power to another person in exchange for safety and comfort, we become objects, losing the ability to create, and this emptiness is filled by those to whom we have transferred this ability. Is it happening voluntarily? How can you remain yourself, becoming a part of the system, and how can you change the system without being a part of it?
By presentation and audiovisual installation of “Kryly Khalopa” theatre will be finished “Social Theatre Lab” project. The audio performance Brest Stories Guide is focused on anti-Semitism and the destruction of Brest Jewish community in 1941–1942. Before the outbreak of the war, there lived approximately 24 000 Jews in Brest. Almost all of these people were annihilated. The story about a “nonexistent” Brest and installation, devoted to the project, will take place on 22nd of September.
Brest Stories Guide
International program will be opened with the performance on Homer
Within the International program “TEART” will present the concentrate of advanced foreign theatre. This year “TEART. Concentrate” gathered four outstanding performances from Lithuania, France, Georgia and Germany.
A wandering journey based on Homer’s Odyssey opens the International program. Characters of the German play directed by Antu Romero Nunes – Telemachus and Telegonus — are waiting together the return of their multi-faceted father, who has so frequently wandered since the destroying of Troy. The performance on non-existing language “Odyssey” by Thalia Theatre (Hamburg) — one of the Germany’s oldest theatres, will be shown on 28th of September. The staging will be held as part of the honouring 25-years anniversary of Goethe-Institut Belarus.
Odyssey. Photo by Smailovic
Pixel by choreographer Mourad Merzouki is a dialogue between two worlds – the world of dance and the world of visual art. With the help of 3D image the real and the unreal become completely intertwined, and the classical stage conflict between partners is transformed into a confrontation between the abilities of human body and digital reality. The performance by the National choreography centre of Créteil and Val-de-Marne / Käfig Company is based on a principle of optic illusion where it is impossible to understand how dancers get off the ground. The show will take place on 1st of September.
Pixel. Photo by Patrick Berger
Why does the greatest Austrian dramatist Thomas Bernhard believe that modern Viena “is worse than fifty years ago”? The author of the play chooses one of his favourite entry points: death of a protagonist and the investigation of the details that have led to it. Bernhard’s plot is realized in theatrical performance Heroes’ Square by Polish director Krystian Lupa. “Heroes’ square” – political drama and psychological research of nationalism and fascism which were not actually over with the Nuremberg trials. The performance by the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre will be shown on 5th of October.
Heroes’ Square. Photo by D. Matvejevasи
Closing performance for the Forum “TEART” will be theatrical play by director, scenarist, artist and sculptor Rezo Gabriadze. Scenarist of legendary Soviet films “Mimino” and “Kin-dza-dza” will bring to Minsk a puppet performance Stalingrad by Rezo Gabriadze Theatre (Tbilisi, Georgia). The best by version of “New-Yorker” magazine (2010), performance-requiem, performance-elegy is made of Rezo Gabriadze’s memories about the Stalingrad battle consequences. Far images of forgotten childhood, widows in black, invalids and disabled, tears and grief of director’s grandmother — all these historical events will come alive on stage on 7th and 8th of October.
Stalingrad
Tickets for «TEART» events are now available on teart.by and soon will go on sale at the booking office and bycard.by, kupalauski.by, smsbilet.by, bezkassira.by.
More information about events of “TEART” and “TEART School” program will be covered in the nearest run. Follow the updates on teart.by and on our Facebook, Instagram, Vkontakte (@teartfest).