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Impressions from the Steps!

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new foyer of the kurtheater, baden Steps! the contemporary dance festival, a MIGROS-Kulturprozent project in which around 40 theatre institutions from across Switzerland collaborated by opening their venues, celebrated its 20th anniversary this year. Taking place from 5–29 March 2026, the festival featured 10 dance companies, invited by general artistic director Valeria Felder from Switzerland and abroad, who presented 11 different programmes to the audience. These companies represented a wide range of dance forms, not only contemporary dance but also examples of choreography flirting with new circus disciplines and acrobatics.  The festival wasn't just about performances; there were also additional events such as workshops for amateurs and professionals, a hip-hop all-style dance battle, and workshops and performances designed specifically for primary and secondary school students. After each performance, there were also half-hour talks planned in the foyers with dancers, choreogr...
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Conversations in ten questions 96: Rune Antonio Bro

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  What do you think is the essence of performance? We are not sure if we understand the question. If you mean the essence of performing arts or the essence of performing or the essence of our performance.  The essence of the performance To BE is that all human beings are of equal value. We all have the right to a Life in dignity. We all know that many, many people in the world will never get/experience this.  We must deal with this very serious problem. For you, for me, for humanity and peace. Do you believe in the transformative power of art? In what way? Yes.  Art communicates at other channels, has another ‘language’ than everyday life with clean facts, time schedules, money etc. Art speaks to our senses, our inner intelligence and our deepest way of understanding and navigate in the world. To be touched, seen, heard in these layers of your body and soul, can actually change your mind. It’s ancient knowledge and has been used in both politics and individual the...
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Conversations in ten questions 95: Loïse Manuel ve Hugo Marchand (Le Cirque Content Pour Peu)

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Atta, Turkey's first and only international arts festival for babies and children, organized around November 20th, World Children's Rights Day, since 2016, celebrated its ninth anniversary in 2025. Having welcomed numerous international groups to date, the festival unites babies aged 0–3, children and young people aged 3–18, their accompanying adults, and children and young people with disabilities aged 3–18 through theatre, dance, music, film, exhibitions, and interactive activities. This year's programme included a variety of performances, ranging from dance theatre for babies aged 6–18 to a new circus for audiences aged 4 and over, as well as dance and object theatre. Between 20 and 30 November 2025, performances by groups from Turkey, Finland, Denmark, France, Norway, Lithuania and Ireland were staged in Istanbul at the Paribuart, Arter, Barış Manço Cultural Centre and Hisar Schools Cultural Centre.  In the third of our conversations with participants from the latest i...
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Conversations in ten questions 94: Piero Issa & Ole Petter Knarvik

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Atta, Turkey's first and only international arts festival for babies and children, organized around November 20th, World Children's Rights Day, since 2016, celebrated its ninth anniversary in 2025. Having welcomed numerous international groups to date, the festival unites babies aged 0–3, children and young people aged 3–18, their accompanying adults, and children and young people with disabilities aged 3–18 through theatre, dance, music, film, exhibitions, and interactive activities.  This year's programme included a variety of performances, ranging from dance theatre for babies aged 6–18 to a new circus for audiences aged 4 and over, as well as dance and object theatre. Between 20 and 30 November 2025, performances by groups from Turkey, Finland, Denmark, France, Norway, Lithuania and Ireland were staged in Istanbul at the Paribuart, Arter, Barış Manço Cultural Centre and Hisar Schools Cultural Centre.  In the second of our conversations with participants from the latest ...
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Conversations in ten questions 93: Mónica Muñoz

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Atta, Turkey's first and only international arts festival for babies and children, organized around November 20th, World Children's Rights Day, since 2016, celebrated its ninth anniversary in 2025. Having welcomed numerous international groups to date, the festival unites babies aged 0–3, children and young people aged 3–18, their accompanying adults, and children and young people with disabilities aged 3–18 through theatre, dance, music, film, exhibitions, and interactive activities.  This year's programme included a variety of performances, ranging from dance theatre for babies aged 6–18 to a new circus for audiences aged 4 and over, as well as dance and object theatre. Between 20 and 30 November 2025, performances by groups from Turkey, Finland, Denmark, France, Norway, Lithuania and Ireland were staged in Istanbul at the Paribuart, Arter, Barış Manço Cultural Centre and Hisar Schools Cultural Centre.  In the first of our conversations with participants from the latest i...
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A masterpiece on war from FC Bergman: “Guernica Guernica”

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Waiting for "Guernica Guernica" (20 September 2025, Jahrhunderthalle - Bochum) Can war be depicted on stage? The performing arts certainly find a thousand and one ways to tell a story, but can they convey the horrors and devastation of war and the sociology and psychology of the victors and losers without being didactic, informative or descriptive? FC Bergman, the Belgian theatre collective whose work I have followed for many years, successfully answered this question with their wordless performance Guernica Guernica, which premiered in the Bochum Jahrhunderthalle from 19 to 21 September 2025, during the final week of the 2025 Ruhrtriennale, directed by Belgian director Ivo van Hove. I will now attempt to explain how they achieved this through my impressions of the performance.  FC Bergman chose to depict the war using the Guernica incident. It's easy to understand why. Guernica is the name of a Basque town in Spain where a state bombed its own civilian population f...
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Two magnificent open-air opera performances: Der Freischütz and Der fliegende Holländer

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Waiting for Der Freischütz Bregenzer Festspiele, Bregenz (7 August 2025) Waiting for  Der fliegende Holländer   Oper im Steinbruch ,  St. Margarethen  (8 August 2025) If there is another country in the world besides Italy where opera is held in such high esteem today, it must be Austria. Much like in Italy, opera reaches the masses in Austria during the summer months through open-air festivals. Around the same time as the Salzburg Festival — the oldest and arguably the world's most prestigious performing arts organisation — two open-air opera festivals take place in July and August, this year one for the 79th time and the other for the 29th: Bregenzer Festspiele (Bregenz Festival) and Oper im Steinbruch (Opera in the Quarry), formerly known as Opernfestspiele St. Margarethen (St. Margarethen Opera Festival). Both festivals boast exceptional venues: the first is on the water, on the shores of Lake Constance; the second is in the countryside, in a Roman-era quarry at t...
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