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International Theatre Festival Dialog – Wrocław, Poland

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VIII MFT DIALOG - WROCŁAW 2015

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8th INTERNATIONAL THEATRE FESTIVAL DIALOG – WROCŁAW
Festival motto: THE WORLD WITHOUT GOD
Festival dates: 17-24 October 2015

Wandering. In search of oneself. In search of others. A constant strive to understand the sense of one’s own existence. A desperate attempt to satisfy basic emotional and existential needs. A rebellion against limitations. A surrender to the one who is stronger or to the one who, through their domination, relieves us from the need of taking decisions. Endless constructing of one’s own self. Endless constructing of one’s own language. Finally, a quest of happiness, closeness, even at the price of surrendering to Other. A quest which never ends. A desire which never gets fully satisfied. This is the world as described and shown by the directors invited to participate in the 8th edition of the International Theatre Festival Dialog – Wrocław.

When programming this year’s edition of the Dialog – Wrocław Festival, we noticed one strong tendency linking productions created on different continents. It is the longing for higher values, for the calming certainty of the sense and meaning of one’s being in the world: the longing present in all the productions invited to the Festival. The „World Without God” we want to talk about in the 11 productions invited, is one devoid of axioms, a world in which people, having lost any foothold, desperately search for something to substitute the values of the old world, already discredited. And they err in their quest. They love one another. They harm themselves. They harm one another. They search. They constantly search for something which could fill the great emptiness they feel.

Ivo van Hove, one of the most important creators of Dutch theatre, will show at the festival two productions based on the texts and films by Ingmar Bergman.Cries and Whispers and After the Rehearsal / Persona are radical tales of alienation of a human being, living and dying in total emptiness and loneliness. Susanne Kennedy, in her production Warum. Why Does Mr R Run Amok? shows in an extremely precise way how we – ourselves – transform human relationships into an endless sequence of unhappiness and suffering. In Woodcutters Holzfällen, hailed as a masterpiece, Krystian Lupa wonders whether art may be a response to the crisis of values. Radosław Rychcik, in his award-winning Forefathers’ Eve, ridicules our tendency to make our own fate appear as heroic, even when this is not the case. Lemi Ponifasio, using a non-existent language built from tribal songs, desperately screams „I am”, drawing our attention to the loneliness of the human being in the contemporary, globalised world. Given the impossibility of communication with words, Eduardo Guerrero (RE_TURN) and Chevy Muraday (Ashes, or Give Me a Reason Not To Break Up), look for the possibility of expressing themselves in their own physical nature. Roman Paska (Echo in Camera) builds, in his „little theatre of death” an extraordinary tale of passing. In turn, Krzysztof Warlikowski in his production entitled The French, constructs the story of the sources of contemporary European identity. The theatre programme of the festival is completed by daily meetings of artists and intellectuals with the audience; their hosts will include Kazimiera Szczuka, Jacek Żakowski, Adam Michnik and Professor Jan Hartman.

Giorgio Agamben wrote that wandering is contemporary man’s immanent experience. This wandering, although difficult, may be a source of discoveries and important experiences. We do hope that the 8th edition of the Festival Dialog – Wrocław will become a source of these discoveries and experiences and that, in the dialogue maintained during the festival, instead of deviating from one another… we will meet, even for a while.

Yours truly:
Krystyna Meissner
Artistic Director

Tomasz Kireńczuk
Press Spokesman / Programme Consultant

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