Organized by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV) and supported by Koç Holding Energy Group Companies the 27th Istanbul Theatre Festival opens its curtains on 25 October with a packed program.
The festival will host 20 theatre and dance performances from Turkey and abroad from 25 October to 25 November during Işıl Kasapoğlu’s final year as curator.
The festival unites directors and choreographers who have made significant contributions to contemporary theatre and the artists who are revolutionizing the future of performing arts. The program showcases 11 productions from Turkey and an additional 9 productions from Germany, England, Denmark, France, Georgia, Ireland, Israel, and Greece.
The festival offers its audience diverse staging styles and genres. Attendees can enjoy various performances, from documentary theatre to classical plays, contemporary dance to mask theatre, puppet cinema to site-specific works, and dance theatre to performative installations. The festival also showcases the works of young-generation writers, directors, and actors, presenting original and new texts in its local productions program. Alongside the upcoming talent, experienced actors such as Ercan Kesal, Nesrin Kazankaya, Bülent Emin Yarar, Çiçek Dilligil, Okan Bayülgen, Deniz Türkali, and Meral Çetinkaya also grace the stage with their presence.
The international dance program features some amazing performances. Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch will present Pina Bausch’s masterpiece, Café Müller, which is a legendary choreography. There is also a thrilling double bill by celebrated choreographer Hofesh Shechter, called Double Murder. Additionally, Uppercut Dance Theater of Denmark will perform Benched, a brutally honest tale about finding one’s place in life through bodily movements.
The upcoming international program will feature renowned writer and director Wajdi Mouawad’s play Soeurs. Mouawad was previously a guest at the festival in 2017 with his play Seuls. Familie Flöz’s Feste, credited with rediscovering mask theatre, will also be presented. Anestis Azas’ Republic of Baklava, which critics have praised as the pioneer of the new generation of Greek theatre, will also be showcased. Additionally, Brokentalkers’ Masterclass, one of Ireland’s bravest and most innovative theatre companies, will be performing.
International productions at the festival
Pina Bausch is widely regarded as the pioneer of 20th-century dance theater, and her influence has been invaluable to both enthusiasts and audiences of this art form. Cafe Müller refers to a performance comprising four pieces that Pina Bausch created in collaboration with three choreographers whom she invited in 1978. The performance named “still staged” was designed by Pina, and it is inspired by her childhood memories of her father working in his own café in Germany during and after World War II. The show is a work that confronts memory with reality in the pursuit of dreams, and it takes place in a simple space consisting only of tables and chairs. The high tones make the audience so captivated that it almost physically affects them.
The festival program includes eight international productions, except for Cafe Müller. Among them, Wajdi Mouawad is a leading star in the festival.
Mouawad is a Lebanese-Canadian artist who previously appeared at the Istanbul Theater Festival in 2017 with Lonely. Mouswa is known for his political works. He wrote, directed, and starred in the play. Since the film adaptation of his play Fires was nominated for an Oscar, Mouawad has become a well-known name in the theater world and among wider audiences.
The writer is also known for his powerful, poetic texts. He has been the artistic director of La Colline Theater in France for some time. His play titled Sisters, written in 2015, will be staged at the festival. The play is the second part of the trilogy that the author calls DomestiK, inspired by Mouawad’s sister Nayla and the actress Annick Bergeron, who plays both women on stage. The play essentially deals with being bilingual and the importance of one’s mother tongue. Mouawad delves deep into the issue of ‘being an exile’ on the axis of these themes.
Israeli-British choreographer Hofesch Shechter is presenting his show, Double Murder, at the festival. Choreographer Hofesh Shechter, combines Clowns and The Fix in the same play and titles it as Double Murder and he is presenting two distinctly contrasting pieces for our times.
One half of the evening is Clowns, a sarcastic nod to our ever-growing indifference to violence; originally created for Nederlands Dans Theater 1 and later produced as a film and broadcast by the BBC to great acclaim. In a macabre comedy of murder and desire, Clowns unleashes a whirlwind of choreographed anarchy, testing how far we are willing to go in the name of entertainment.
As an antidote to Clown’s murderous, poisonous energy, Shechter’s new creation, The Fix, brings a tender, fragile energy to the stage. It offers a raw and compassionate moment to balance the forces of aggression and violence that press on us daily. A shield to protect us from the noise of life outside, and a place that allows the performers to be fragile, be seen for their utmost human qualities. Violence, tenderness and hope are all laid bare through Shechter’s achingly beautiful, cinematic lens. Performed by his inimitable dancers and accompanied by the epic sounds of a Shechter-composed score, Double Murder explores painful truths and delves into our deepest emotions.
The Wedding by Familie Floz, is a mask theater from Berlin and stands as another international highlight of the festival. A wedding is taking take place in a stately house by the sea. In the dimly lit alleyway behind the house, there is great excitement. There are deliveries, cleaning, tidying, guarding and garbage disposal. From the janitor to the cook, from the cleaning lady to the manager, everyone is doing their best to make the celebration in the impressive estate an unforgettable experience. In the shadow of the festive villa, the servants try to secure their place in the strict pecking order. Condemned to stand in the background, they fight for their dignity and the respect of the strong and rich in the hustle and bustle of the hectic wedding preparations.
The Republic of Baklava by Anestis Azaz’splay tells the story of a Greek man and Turkish woman. Azas staged The Republic of Baklava for the Athens Epidauros Festival 2021 to mark the 200th anniversary of Greece’s sovereignty. The fictional plot tells of a bi-national couple, a Greek man and a Turkish woman, who decide to create their nation-state, using their home and private business as headquarters. In a series of absurd and comical situations, the characters are confronted with the contradictions of contemporary Greek society since the revolution, the problem of national identity, and the utopian reality of a future, global, digital nation, taking us on this journey into a special European future.
Turkish Productions at the festival
On the Brink of Lysistrata is an inter-genre play by director, Barış Arman. The play is an interpretation of Aristophanes’ classic text with BBT. In this contemporary adaptation, the director urges both actors and the audience to interrogate identity, sexuality, power, status quo, and their representations.
Freak (Çirkin) is a play that offers the audience a unique and innovative theatrical experience in a different setting. The play is written by Firuze Engin and directed by Güray Dinçol and it delves into the surreal betrayal story inspired by Anatolian traditions and tales, while combining narrative theater and interactive installation.
The play is about a character Shiva (The Freak) and a chicken. Shiva has lived for thousands of years, and the chicken, cursed with him and sentenced to immortality travels through space and time.
Performances will take place for a month in 15 different venues on both sides of the Bosphorus; Alan Kadıköy Theatre, Atlas 1948 Cinema, Büyük Zarifi Apartment, Caddebostan Cultural Centre, DasDas, Fişekhane, Galatasaray High School, Harbiye Muhsin Ertuğrul Stage, Hope Alkazar, İş Towers Hall, Metro Han, Notre Dame de Sion French High School, Saint Benoit French High School, Süreyya Opera, and Zorlu Performing Arts Centre.
