10th Theatre Olympics in Budapest

Published: 4 April 2023
Reporter: Vera Liber

Aterballetto - Shoot Me Credit: Christophe Bernard

From Easter to Midsummer’s night, 400 companies from 58 countries will converge on Budapest, Hungary to perform in the 10th International Theatre Olympics. The festival opening ceremony will take place on 15 April with street performances and concerts all over Budapest.

Originally taking place in Greece in 1995, the event is a theatrical gathering in the spirit of the ancient Olympics, with theatre, street theatre, dance, puppetry exhibitions and alternative arts.

Representing the UK will be theatre companies Complicité and Cheek by Jowl. Joining them will be Belgium’s Peeping Tom alongside a Ukrainian Caligula, a Chinese Faust and an Indian Macbeth.

Oscar-winning actress Juliette Binoche will make a special appearance for a reading at the National Theatre. There will be a parade of giant puppets down the streets to open a two-week programme of worldwide puppetry work in May, traditional Hungarian dance alongside ballet and contemporary and a mass, international performance of Hungary’s The Tragedy of Man in dozens of language.

Theodoros Terzopulos, Chairman of the International Committee of the Theatre Olympics, said, “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.”

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