baz@rt / Europe Learning - Frankfurt meets Krakow
[ Theatre festivals in Krakow and Frankfurt on the Main ]
The young Cracow theatre festival “baz@rt” is well on the way to becoming something of an institution in the Polish cultural scene. Under the artistic direction of stage director Paweł Miśkiewicz, the festival presents productions of renowned companies from Poland and abroad. But “baz@rt” also provides scope for the debuts of young theatre-makers, for workshops, symposia, and smaller experimental forms. The festival, which has its home at Teatr Stary, was a great success with the Cracow audience in 2004. Under the direction of stage director Armin Petras, schmidtstrasse12 (a former rehearsal stage of schauspielfrankfurt) has made a name for itself as a theatre venue in its own right.
Büro Kopernikus initiated cooperation between schmidtstrasse12 and “baz@rt”. As a result of this collaboration, “baz@rt” will – under the artisitc direction of Agata Siwiak and Paweł Miśkiewicz – show productions by Armin Petras (“Der 8. Tag der Woche” after Marek Hłasko) and Andreas Kriegenburg (“Idioten” after Lars von Trier) in November 2005.
On the weekend of 9-11 December 2005, a small festival of contemporary Polish theatre will take place on the stage of schmidtstrasse12. This festival is part of the German-Polish exchange in the course of the “baz@rt” festival, hence its themes and main ideas are guided by those of the latter.
Europe Learning – Frankfurt meets Krakow is a successor to “Learning Europe”, a project developed under the artistic direction of Armin Petras with stage directors from Bratislava, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Ljubljana, Luxemburg, and Vilnius, and presented in those very same cities. This year’s festival in collaboration with Cracow ties in with this examination of different theatre landscapes in Europe. The aim of the festival “Europe Learning” is to provide the Frankfurt audience with an insight into current trends in Polish theatre and to bring together artists from both countries in selected productions.
The project is co-financed by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute from funds provided by the Polish Ministry of Culture in the context of the German-Polish Year 2005/2006.