AMPLIFIER festival

Banská Štiavnica Will Host a Festival about the Need for Sensitivity and Neighbourly Understanding

The 8th edition of the festival of cabaret, street and engaged art will feature six Slovak premieres and a novelty, the travelling theatre about rapprochement − HUMAN Caravana (V4+UA)

Banská Štiavnica − On the penultimate weekend of September, Slovak and foreign artists will meet in Banská Štiavnica for the international festival of cabaret theatre and street art AMPLIFIER.

The leitmotif of the festival’s eighth edition is the renewal of sensitivity, tolerance and mutual understanding between
people.

The playwrights of the Ensemble of Irregular Theatre (AND) perceive that society is coarsening, losing empathy and solidarity with the victims of war, poverty or otherness. In the current crisis of values, they offer a clue ̶ culture and contemporary art as a suitable tool for sensitization. The idea of understanding is expressed in the slogan:

BEING SENSITIVE IS ART! Carefully selected artistic groups from 7 EU countries will present their sensitive programmes in the city centre as well as in the surrounding area over the weekend of 22-24 September 2022.

Festival-goers will enjoy two exceptional headliners. The first is the renowned and world-famous Teatr KTO from Krakow, Poland, which will make the festival audience feel the universal story of human life from birth to death in the non-verbal performance ARCADIA. The second headliner, the Hungarian Firebirds company from Budapest, will light up the audience with their circus cabaret full of acrobatics, burlesque and humour called FREAK FUSION CONFUSION.

Opening the festival and bringing enthusiasm to the entire city will be the marching 22-member Orkest de Tegenwind, a street brass band from Utrecht, Netherlands. An emotional yet hilarious experience for the whole family will be created by the young Spanish acrobat niMú in JACUZZI, a poetic-circus show on a tightrope. Spanish rhythms and temperament will also be brought to the festival by the highly sensitive band MiraMundo from Barcelona, who will play unique world music to dance to. World-famous chansons and hits performed by the charming female trio Cmorejová, Humeňanská, Baarová known as the BONBON trio will evoke the sentiments of Parisian cafés. A whimsical literary cabaret with original songs will be performed by the Czech recessional group Krvik Totr from Prague, who will also add a melancholic after concert as the band Filtr.

The magical puppet cabaret of the young Slovak performer Katanari KABINET ALIVE! will be a musical-visual treat not only for children. The ART PUTIKA series will also continue. In the first one, named LAUGHING THROUGH TEARS, the Daily N editor Patrik Garaj will talk about his feelings and the work of Valerij Kupka, translator of the Ukrainian writer Yuri Andrukhovych. In the second, ICEBREAKING V4+UA, the creators of an international theatre project about rapprochement will discuss their work, and will present a premiere of a reportage film by Ukrainian director Sashko Brama portraying the coexistence of V4 countries citizens with the UA expatriates. Current social and political events taking place in Slovakia will be analysed by commentators Marián Leško, Martin M. Šimečka and Matúš Kostolný, in a debate moderated by Monika Tódová.

In a significantly upgraded AMPLIFIER Caravana feature of the festival, which in past years had exported festival productions to the periphery and surrounding villages, an international team of artists from the V4 countries and Ukraine led by the Ensemble of Irregular Theatre (AND) will work together in a three-day workshop before the festival. An original brand new international non-verbal street-based procession production HUMAN CARAVANA will be created based on research recently conducted in Prague, Budapest, Banská Štiavnica and Krakow. The first – work in progress – version of it will be performed by actors and performers from Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia during the AMPLIFIER Festival on the periphery of Banská Štiavnica (premiere and two reprises). The event is part of the international project ICEBREAKING (IVF+CE).

The AND team will also perform the bar cabaret noir GODLIKE about those who feel more like God and those who resemble him. They will also prepare two composed programs: NO SOFT, NO FUN − modern artistic performances by the ad hoc group D’sensitive Jenerejšn on the theme of sensitization, complemented by a musical walk with Marcela Cmorejová. Furthermore, the 5th edition of the annual Czech- Slovak cabaret sketch competition SKETCH UP, offering entertaining performances of new talents will be hosted by actor Martin Toman. Cabaret songs will be played along by the BON-BON trio.

The AMPLIFIER Festival will take place on Sep 22-24, 2023 on 12 stages in the centre of Banská Štiavnica. During these three days, 90 artists from 7 EU countries will ignite the audience with up to 25 productions performed in the interiors and exteriors of the town. The festival will present 6 Slovak premieres of foreign artists, 2 exceptional headliners will shine and 2 original discussion formats will enrich the spectators. 3 selected buskers and 1 special happening will add to the unique atmosphere in the streets. The Amplion Argentum Award for the most inspiring works will be awarded to four laureates. And the tiny yellow Fiat of Janko Mišík from Kremnica will once again accompany the AMPLION Caravana, artists’ trips from the centre to the periphery and to the surrounding villages. It pays off to be sensitive at AMPLIFIER!

Pre-sale tickets are available from 1st of September 2023 at [GoOut](https://goout.net/sk/banskastiavnica/ festivaly/lezbkcokkzk/).

For complete information and programme, visit www.amplion.eu. AMPLIFIER Festival − New Cabaret & Street Art® is an international multi-genre festival full of theatre, music, literature, movement and visual arts. At the end of September, it pours energy into the streets of charming Banská Štiavnica, filling it with selected pieces of Slovak and international art. The festival is supported from public funds by the Art Support Fund and the International Visegrad Fund, the main partners of the event. The main media partners are Radio Expres and Daily N. The eighth AMPLIFIER Festival will also take place with the financial support of the European Union, the Banská Bystrica Region, the LITA Fund, and thanks to Zuzka and Peto from Košice.

More information:
Jana Mikitková, [email protected], 0908 801 137
Ján Fakla, [email protected], 0905 258 284

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