Getting off the beaten track
The summer season is upon us with its wave of events and celebrations that bring laughter and joy to the balmy air. And yet, in the midst of this flood of colour and sound, you might want to take a step aside and let your curiosity be stirred by the excitement of discovery. Every festival is unique, but some get off the beaten track and invite you to take part in an different adventure.
This month, take the opportunity to discover something new before the high season and let us introduce you to some unusual festivals that will arouse the interest of the most curious.
International Performing Arts Festival, Babel XII
7 - 16 June 2024 | Târgoviște, Romania
The focus of this edition will be on connections, both the visible and invisible ones that art is built on. The modern world is dominated by various forms of connections, whether it be through technology, transportation, or social networks. However, there are also emotional and sentimental connections that exist, each with their own unique characteristics. The aim is to explore these intertwined dimensions through a range of performances, exhibitions, and discussions that will connect the audience through a soul communion. Discover the programme.
Picture credits: BabelFast's Facebook Page
Latitudes Contemporaines
7 - 28 June 2024 | Lille, France
Latitudes Contemporaines is a festival that focuses on live performance with the body as a primary component. It offers an open space for artistic approaches, focusing on aesthetic, sensitive, and relational research with audiences. The festival aims to be a quality, inclusive scene festival, allowing everyone to experience an artistic coup de foudre. It aims at encouraging intercultural dialogue and collective reflection. Find the full programme here.
Picture credits: Latitudes Contemporaines' Facebook Page
Altofest Naples – 2024
10 - 23 June 2024 | Napoli, Italy
Altofest is an artistic and political act of resistance that aims to create a community based on 'poetic citizenship'. It involves creating a dialogue between the different social components of the urban fabric, allowing residents to communicate and take risks together. Teatringestazione, the organisation that is behind the festival, aims to combine proposals with domestic spaces and their inhabitants, creating a collective action throughout the city during Altofest. The festival is not just about producing shows, but also about creating experimental social interactions. International artists and writers are invited to question their works in a public and collective manner. Altofest aims to challenge traditional values and roles, redefine relationships, and cross art boundaries. Check out their website.
Picture credits: Altofest's Facebook Page
InsOrti IX
13 - 22 June 2024 | Bologna, Italy
InsOrti is an immersive festival, born in 2015, that welcomes various forms of performing arts (theatre, dance, circus, puppetry), as well as exhibitions, installations and land art. These living and situated arts have to show themselves in research of an open relationship with the space and surroundings and therefore in intimate dialogue, created and imagined for and within the Ai 300 scalini space – where the festival takes place - in Bologna. Artists invited and selected have no limits of content nor artistic language. In addition, you will be able to discover those 11 selected performances for free. Check the calendar and book your ticket.
Picture credits: InsOrti's Open Call Webpage
Migration Matters Festival 2024
15 - 22 June 2024 | Sheffield, England
Building on the theme “Our Home”, Migration Matters Festival (MIGMAT) will bring together all the Sheffielders and invite them to see beyond the labels that divide them. It is a unique place that gives space to talents recognised worldwide and creators who have experienced displacement, detention or asylum and now need to be given a voice. The festival is built around the arts, from music to theatre and story-telling, through performances, exhibitions, and workshops but also through moments of complicity, caring and sharing food. In this global context, when too many people have had no other choice but to flee their country, MIGMAT 2024 strives to be a place where everyone feels at home. Support and join this celebration of identity, culture and roots here.
Picture credits: MIGMAT's Facebook Page
Overview picture credits: BabelFast's Facebook Page
