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Waiting for Leaning Tree (Studio Stage - The Royal Danish Opera, 2025, March 8th) © Mehmet Kerem Özel Leaning Tree is a dance piece produced by the Dansk Danseteater (Danish Dance Theatre) and the Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra. It was choreographed by Fernando Melo and its music composed by Signe Lykke. The first performances of Leaning Tree , which took place at the start of the 2023-2024 season in the main hall of the Royal Danish Theatre, were presented to the audience with live music performed by eight groups of musicians placed in different areas of the auditorium as well as in the orchestra pit, creating a feeling of immersiveness. In the 2024-2025 season, Leaning Tree was once again included in the programme of  Dansk Danseteater, this time performed with recorded music at the Danish Royal Opera's small hall, Studio Stage, as well as in various cities across Denmark, and at the Kuopio Dance Festival in Finland. Comprising 13 dancers from around the world and led...

On a cool but sunny late May Saturday, I walk through the crowded and chaotic streets of Boğazkesen into a small courtyard that widens as I move in a funnel shape. This is çakSTÜDYO, the studio of Çıplak Ayaklar Kumpanyası in Çukurcuma. This space and the courtyard in front of it, which the troupe converted from an old car repair shop in 2007, is like an oasis with its benches and plants. I find a shady spot and sit down. Billie Holiday's song ‘ I'll be seeing you ’ is coming out of the open door of the studio, and the softly sung numbers ‘ One, two, three, one two, three... ’. Soon I realise that the workshop is over with the sound of applause. A woman with bushy and dishevelled hair sticks her head out and we greet each other. She is the person I am about to interview: Malou Airaudo.  The students who participated in the workshop leave one by one. Malou also goes out, and finding the courtyard noisy, we go back into the studio. Mihran [Tomasyan] takes us to the studio of phot...

© Housam Mcheimech Lebanese theatre director, actor, visual artist and playwright Rabih Mroué's performances of Taking the Road with a Cloud and Make Me Quit Smoking met with audiences for the first time in Turkey on 24 and 26 April at the Beykoz Kundura Stage. We invited Mroué to our series of conversations in ten questions. What is the essence of performance in your opinion? The essence of art and the theater and performance in my opinion is like to open a platform where artists, performers, theater makers can share their thoughts, their questions, their doubts with audience made of individuals, and to open a discussion maybe after the performance, and dialogue.  Do you believe in the transformative power of art andhow do you think it achieves it?  Yes, I believe with this magic of performing arts and art in the sense that it really can ignite discussions, debates, new ideas, new concepts in this sense. Like it looks like for me like the philosophers role in life, thoughts. ...

The 6th Istanbul Fringe Festival's international guest choreographer, dancer and founder of Compagnie Entity, French-American Thibaut Eiferman completed his classical training at the American Ballet Theatre School in New York and danced with Ballet BC (Vancouver, Canada), Ate9 Dance Company (Los Angeles, USA) and Batsheva Dance Company (Tel Aviv, Israel). Currently dancing in Christian François Ben Aïm Company's Facéties and Oona Doherty/OD Works' Navy Blue , Eiferman created her first choreography HHH in 2018. The short version of HHH won first prize at the Jerusalem Machol Shalem International Choreography Competition in 2018 and the Critics' Prize at the Hannover Choreography Competition in 2019, and was selected for the 2020 edition of the Danse Élargie competition for young choreographers organised by the Paris Theatre de la Ville. HHH (Hand, Heart, Head) , the long version of which we had the opportunity to see at this year's Istanbul Fringe Festival, is de...

We interviewed with Katsumi Sakakura, the creator of the show The Life of HOKUSAI, which will be the guest of the 6th Istanbul Fringe Festival, which will be held between 13-21 September 2024 this year. It will be staged at ENKA Auditorium on 17 September 2024 in collaboration with ENKA Arts and Istanbul Fringe Festival 2024 on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Japan and Turkey. The show's creator, Katsumi Sakakura (1963), himself a composer, director, choreographer and actor, is, as you might expect, a multi-talented artist. Sakakura, who started karate at the age of five and boxing at university, has created a performance art called Geibu, based on the unique "movement, rhythm and spirituality" of the traditional Japanese martial art Budo. He also created Street Nunchaku by combining Nunchaku, a defensive art he learnt alongside karate, with the hip hop dance moves he began performing in his twenties. He then dev...

What is the essence of good play/playwriting in your opinion? Good playwriting is ways of exploring different truths about the world. To find a truth and hold on to it, no matter which form or style. Do you believe in the transformative power of art? How? I do believe art has the ability to change people. And we are, for better or worse, the world. If I did not believe in this, I would find a different job.  When you are working on a text, what sources inspire you? Do dreams play a role in your works?   Although my academic background is very much inspired by both absurdism and surrealism, dreams are not that important to me. I always try to read a lot in periods of intensive writing. Often playwrights, but also other authors. From the assembled mass of inspiration and own thoughts, I often get these images stuck in my head. Images that won’t leave me. It could be the picture of someone sitting in an ice cream truck with blood on their hands, or perhaps someone slipping down i...

In this series of interviews we try to get to know the artists who will perform in Fringe Festival Istanbul 2022. Our fifth guest is Joisy Amorim from Giro 8 Cia. de Dança. Ayse Draz, Art Unlimited Performing Arts Editor & Mehmet Kerem Ozel, Writer What is the essence of performance in your opinion? The performance brings the representation of reality to the stage, recreating it and leading the audience to appreciate life itself, as well as existence itself. Dancing through its art helps to establish a man's connection with his most intimate desires and dreams. In addition, it causes a feeling of happiness and fulfillment, making the desire for change grow, allied to the belief in a better future.  Do you believe in the transformative power of art? How? Yes. I believe that art promotes reflections and allows new meanings to life's actions. Art is intrinsic to the processes of living. Through it, we can transform ideas and, consequently, people and society as a whole. Wh...

In this series of interviews we try to get to know the artists who performed in İstanbul Fringe Festival 2022. Our last guest is Agnieszka Kazimierska from t he former Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards .   Ayse Draz, Art Unlimited Performing Arts Editor & Mehmet Kerem Ozel, Writer  © Nikita Chuntomov What is the essence of theater in your opinion? A deep and meaningful, living - thus necessarily in flesh - nourishing encounter among human beings that is based on craft. It entails mastery of being in relation. A space in which the quality of people’s attention becomes a gentle container for awakening what is hidden, for a common communal journey through ideas, ideals, dreams, desires, which are all rooted and living in the body and often kept dormant. A space of revealing and revelation. A space of generous giving. Of giving up. Do you believe in the transformative power of art? How? Yes, definitely. Not all art, not any “art” has this power, but def...