19th FETA International Open Air and Street Theatre Festival

If you want to submerge yourself in a world of day-dreams and see characters from Bosch come alive … If you want to see Jesus face to face while trying to keep a straight face … If you’ve never seen an invasion of pink aliens … that means that you can’t miss the 19th FETA International Open Air and Street Theatre Festival.

This year’s festival starts on the evening of Thursday, 9 July, in the park on the grounds of the Centrum Hewelianum in Gdańsk. For four days it will host 18 theatres from 8 countries, who together will put on 38 events. For the first time we will be able to see groups like Compagnie Kumulus from France, Cia. Estampades from Spain, Kud Ljud from Slovenia, Het Houten Huis and Nieuw Lef from Holland, or the Portuguese-German Teatro SÓ. Great open-air performers, famous for extended performances, the German group Theater Titanick (familiar from previous years) and the French giants Générik Vapuer will also be appearing! There will be no shortage of smaller, more intimate events, with perhaps a more limited budget but with no less emotion.

The subjects to be presented at his year’s festival are exceptionally varied. Teatro SÓ takes up the question of transience, when an ordinary park bench will be transformed into a tale on the passing of time. Compagnie Kumulus and Kud Ljud set their sights on diversity, even if treated in completely different ways – one very serious, the other tongue-in-cheek. There is plenty to please those who like theatre which makes you think and which poses difficult questions without providing simple solutions. The Czech group Continuo, or the Poznań-based Cirrus Ferus, amongst others, have also taken these people into account. Besides, FETA will present another, more optimistic face. Fans of fun will definitely appreciate the group La Tal with their hilarious story of the clumsycontinuator of afailing circus, and performances by the Dutch groups.

The Gdańsk group Teatr Pinezka, and its creator Przemysław Grządziela – dancer, mime artist and choreographer, is also celebrating a 35-year artistic career. This small project which Grządziela started in a local club in the Gdańsk district of Przymorze in the 1980s, has been awarded prizes over the years at many theatre festivals, national and international alike. The jubilee special to be presented at this year’s FETA is called “Clown Pinezka’sPuppetarium” and features a host of puppet stars, who accompany the hero on his wanderings through the world of the last 35 years of performances.

This year’s festival is being held at the Centrum Hewelianum as well as the Plac Zebrań Ludowych. The majority of events will be held in the park, while all of the evening performances will take place at the latter venue. One exception is the final, which will be held at the Plac Zebrań Ludowych, against a backdrop of a gigantic installation of containers with shipyard cranes. After its move, FETA has made the Hail Mountain its own, bringing alive the idea of a travelling festival which presents the residents of the city with a host of undiscovered places, off-the-beaten track but with great potential, just asit did years ago in the Gdańsk districts of Stare Przedmieście and DolneMiasto.

Organiser: The City of Gdańsk, The “Plama” Gdańsk Archipelago of Culture

Partners: “Scena Muzyczna” Gdańsk Archipelago of Culture, Centrum Hewelianum

Funded by the National Cultural Centre as part of the programme Culture  Intervention 2015.

Translation: Magda Moran and Sean Moran