With the opening event of the festival, the 10th Theatre Olympics started in Budapest, Hungary mid of April: number of programs, artist productions, concerts and street theater performances were happening in several venues. The Theatre Olympics 2023 will bring together 400 companies from 58 countries, 750 productions and 7500 performers. The programs will take place in almost 100 venues across the country until 1 July.
On the banks of the Danube, at the National Theatre, the event’s flag was raised. At the ceremony, Attila Vidnyánszky, the artistic director of the event, the theater’s CEO, said that the 10th International Theatre Olympics would now begin as a result of four years of preparatory work. „My dream and the dream of many of us is now coming true”, said the Director of the National Theatre.
In his speech, he thanked all those who helped to make the event possible: the Organizing Committee of the Theatre Olympics for winning the right to hold the event, the Hungarian Government for its support. He said that, as partners, more than 100 institutions are working together to make this dream a reality. He stressed that their aim was to ensure that the event was not just a celebration of a narrow theater elite.
Theodoros Terzopulos, the man beind the idea of the Theatre Olympics, founding president of the International Committee of the festival, also gave a speech at the evening opening alongside Attila Vidnyánszky.
Highlight of the opening ceremony was when László Simet Jr. walked across a wire 40 meters above the Danube without safety measures, on the stretch of the river between the Elisabeth and Liberty bridges. Between Pest and Buda he walked 300 meters. „The fact that I can do it in my hometown, Budapest, is a great feeling, a great honor. No matter how many places I have been in the world, no matter where I have worked… this will be the crowning glory of my career,” said artist László Simet Jr. Simet carried the traditional Greek tragedy mask above the Danube: the mask was gifted to the National Theatre by Theodoros Terzopoulos on the World Theatre Day in Epidauros. Following the handover, the mask "set off" on a European tour and visited a few of the artists participating in the Theatre Olympics, such as Romeo Castellucci, Heiner Goebbels or Olivier Py. The road movie of the tour, titled The Journey of the Mask, will be released in the Hungarian Television and online too.
The Final Program In Numbers
The event series which lasts from Easter to Midsummer's Night is not only international in its name: 400 companies and 7500 performers from 58 countries are coming to participate in the event, with theatres from Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and the UK, as well as companies from the Republic of South Africa, China, Japan, and Mexico. The three-month programme will include 750 performances in almost 100 venues, all over Hungary. More than 20 festivals have also joined the 10th Theatre Olympics, including the jubilating VéNégy Festival, the Danube Theatre Festival in Győr, the Karinthy Theatre's Storytelling Festival, and, of course, the 9th Madách International Theatre Meeting (MITEM), organised by the National Theatre, which is the main event of the Olympics. Special performances, theater, dance, puppetry, children’s and youth festivals, amateur and student theater gatherings, exhibitions and professional programs will also take place across the country.
Festivals Within The Festival
The main events of the Olympics will take place at the 9th Madách International Theatre Meeting, MITEM, at the National Theatre in Budapest. The success of MITEM led the International Theatre Olympics Committee to entrust the National Theatre and Attila Vidnyánszky with the organisation of the 2023 Olympics. At Hungary's largest theatre festival, Hungarian audiences will be able to experience the work of such theatre giants as Theodoros Terzopoulos, Suzuki Tadashi, Romeo Castellucci, Slava Polunin, Heiner Goebbels, Eugenio Barba, Alessandro Serra, Liu Libin and Declan Donnellan. „Since its foundation in 2014, MITEM has been organised in the spirit of dialogue, openness and curiosity. These times of crisis make it even more important to save our values via the imaginary ark of the theatre. Culture helps maintain the bridges of dialogue that politics destroys.” – said Attila Vidnyánszky, director of National Theatre, Budapest. There will also be puppetry and dance festivals, and the Budapest Operetta Theatre, which is 100 years old this year, will also host a festival. The alternative arts scene is represented, among others, by the Jurányi House and the Bethlen Square Theatre. The National Theatre of Győr brings together theatres across the Danube. There will also be festivals for amateur artists and student actors.
Focus on the MADÁCH IMRE’S Bicentenary
The focus of the Olympics will be on Imre Madách, one of the greatest Hungarian dramatists, born 200 years ago in 1823, whose major work, The Tragedy of Man, a masterpiece comparable to Goethe’s Faust, premièred 140 years ago. Madách’s work will be presented not only through conferences and new books, but also in a unique performance. Theatre school teams from all over the world will perform excerpts from The Tragedy of Man, and then put them together in a large joint production. The slogan of the 2023 Theatre Olympics comes from The Tragedy of Man: “O Man, strive on, strive on, have faith; and trust!”
Madách Project 2023 - 10th Theatre Olympics (szinhaz.org)
On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Imre Madách, at the same timeframe with the Theatre Olympics, the University of Theatre and Film Arts is organizing the Madách Project, a series of events in the framework of which 'The Tragedy of Man' directed by Attila Vidnyánszky will be staged again with the participation of foreign and Hungarian theatre students.
With respect to this grand anniversary, the work will be staged in a completely new concept. In line with the high international standards of the Theatre Olympics, the University of Theatre and Film Arts has invited several foreign theatre universities to participate in the Madách Project. The concept is that each scene will be performed by theatre students from a different country, with their own imagined set decorations, costumes and, to crown it all, in their native language.
The University of Theatre and Film Arts will give each of the participating institutions the opportunity to present their own version of their scenes, as part of a two-day Madách conference in early June.
This will give us a close-up look at what each nation sees in Madách's masterpiece.
Following the conference, Attila Vidnyánszky will spend two weeks working intensively with the students, and by the end of June he will have turned the scenes brought by the universities into a unified whole. The fruit of the cooperation, the unified piece will be premiered on 23rd June 2023.
The students of participating universities from France, England, Poland, Greece, Turkey, Georgia, Canada and other countries will come to our country to take part in this major international collaboration with students from the University of Theatre and Film Arts.
The project will provide a unique opportunity for students from both home and partner universities to showcase their talents and start building international professional relationships.
Juliette Binoche At MITEM
On 7th June, Juliette Binoche will give a special reading performance entitled The Matter of Light at the National Theatre in Budapest. The French artist's production is a 'dress rehearsal' for a play in progress, based on the book called Talking with Angels. At the turn of 1943-44, amidst the inhumanity of the Second World War, four young artists hungry for truth begin to talk and ask each other questions to which they receive unexpected answers; they are given teachings over seventeen months in Budaliget (Budapest), then in Garay Street and the military sewing workshop converted from the Katalin Home for Girls. Gitta Mallasz, the sole survivor of the group, transcribes these dialogues, which turn into the book Talking with Angels, now available in 25 languages. Juliette Binoche is a long-time fan of the book, and after many readings, she now presents it to us on stage. The evening session will also feature actor-director Wajdi Mouawad and Nelli Szűcs of the National Theatre.
Ukrainian Performances
Spring 2023 is a historic time when it is not certain that a theatre company from a neighbouring country will be able to join the international programme. In this light, it is a special pleasure to welcome two productions by the Ivan Franko Ukrainian National Drama Theatre of Kyiv to the 9th MITEM: Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, directed by Dmitro Bogomazov, on 12th May on the main stage of the National Theatre, and Camus' Caligula on 14th May on the Gobbi Hilda Stage, directed by Ivan Urivsky. Both artists are outstanding and prominent directors of their generation. The young talent, Ivan Urivsky will also be the director of the closing performance of the 10th Theatre Olympics: Shakespeare's eternal classic A Midsummer Night's Dream will be performed by the company of the National Theatre in Budapest and will be presented on 24th June at the Margaret Island Open-Air Stage.
What Is The Theatre Olympics?
A theatrical gathering created in Greece in 1995 in the spirit of tradition, modernity, and the ancient Olympics. The founders were renowned directors and playwrights from Greece, Japan, the USA, Spain, the UK, Russia, Germany and Brazil. From time to time, one of the largest and most prestigious events in world theatre finds a home in a particular city or country. The 2023 Olympics in Budapest will be the10th in the history of Theatre Olympics.
Olympic cities and messages:
1995 – Delphoi (Greece)
Crossing Millennia
1999 – Shizuoka (Japan)
Creating Hope
2001 – Moscow (Russia)
Theatre for the People
2006 – Istanbul (Turkey)
Beyond Borders
2010 – Seoul (South Korea)
Love and Humanity
2014 – Beijing (China)
Dream
2016 – Wrocław (Poland)
The World as a Place of Truth
2018 – New Delhi (India)
Flag of Friendship
2019 – Saint Petersburg (Russia) – Toga (Japan)
Creating Bridges
2023 – Budapest (Hungary)
O Man, strive on, strive on, have faith; and trust!
Why Hungary?
Because Hungary, with its great and far-reaching theatrical traditions, has been taking an active part in the global developments in the field of theatre practice and theory. Budapest, a beautiful and unique monument of the world’s cultural heritage, is an international cultural metropolis ready to build bridges connecting other theatrical traditions. Well-staffed with talented and experienced artistic, technical and administrative experts, the National Theatre is the institutional hub of Hungarian theatre that is as open to avant-garde international theatrical proposals as it is to upholding the principles of tradition. Thus it is well-placed to build new bridges between different schools and stage languages. In this day and age when homogenization of the theatre is the prevailing trend, the National Theatre, whose motto is reconciliation and New Humanism, embraces diversity, tolerance and multiculturalism.”
(THEODOROS TERZOPULOS, CHAIRMAN OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE THEATRE OLYMPICS)
Detailed program, latest news, and information:
NEWS: https://szinhaz.org/en/category/news/
PROGRAM CALENDAR: https://szinhaz.org/en/program-calendar/
PERFORMANCES: https://szinhaz.org/en/program/performance/
FESTIVALS: https://szinhaz.org/en/festivals/
OFFICIAL YOUTUBE CHANNEL: https://www.youtube.com/@10ththeatreolympics