by Esra Kaymak
ISTANBUL
The 19th Istanbul Theatre Festival will take place between May 9 and June 5 with a hundred performances announced on Monday in Istanbul’s Rahmi Koc Museum, Turkey.
Under the title 'New Wave', the Istanbul Theatre Festival will be staging six young theatre and dance companies' performances at one of the cities' alternative venues, Ikincikat-Karakoy. Venues such as at Haldun Taner Stage and Sainte Pulcherie French High School will also host performances by seven foreign and thirty five Turkish theatre and dance companies.
As part of 2014 cultural programme between Turkey and Poland, the Baltic Dance Theatre, founded by the initiative of dancer and choreographer Izadora Weiss alongside young and talented dancers will be presenting Shakespeare's 'timeless' comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream, using the language of dance and music to illustrate a flowing example without the use of much technology.
Also, the famous German director Thomas Ostermeier's Henrik Ibsen piece 'An Enemy of the People' will be one of the anticipated plays of the festival.
Local productions will also stage performances, inspired by famous writer's pieces like Boris Vian's 'The Empire Builders' and Shakespeare's 'Hamlet'.
Theatre lovers will be able to attend the festival's events at thirteeen different venues throughout the city. Thirty three of the local productions in the festival’s programme will have their Turkish premieres, three of which will be co-produced by the Istanbul Theatre Festival.
The Chairman of IKSV Bulent Eczacibasi in his welcome speech stated that, “Forty two events, consisting of seven from abroad and thirty five from Turkey will perform. We are pleased to present such a colorful selection to the festival audience.”
Organized by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV) since 2004 under the sponsorship of Koc Holding Energy Group Companies Aygaz, Opet and Tupras, the first Honorary Award of the festival was presented to Dikmen Gurun, who was the director of the festival from 1993 to 2013.
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