5th NTNG International Forest Festival
26 May—15 June
Next Page on Stage
The 5th International Forest Festival returns to the NTNG stages from 26 May to 15 June.
This year, the city will be hosting productions from the UK, Austria, Belgium, France, Switzerland and Italy in a wide-ranging programme of performances accompanied by parallel activities, discussions and workshops led by international theatre theorists and artists. The artists' work reveals their ongoing preoccupation with issues such as the relationship between reality and technology, historical reality and the concept of progress, gender issues, issues relating to human relationships, participation and loneliness, as well as political concerns centred on the necessity of active participation and democratic practice.
The artistic committee of the 5th International Forest Festival, which consists of Savvas Patsalidis (professor emeritus, Theatre Studies, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), Prodromos Tsinikoris (director, dramatist, actor) and Nikos Kapelios (actor at the NTNG), opted for a programme of performances that are "small and flexible in form but contain big ideas"; a programme which, in Patsalidis' words, includes "productions that are contemporary, restless, refreshing and interactive" which "record society's seismic vibrations with immediacy". As a result, Thessaloniki's theatre-loving public will have the opportunity to acquaint itself with new names from the international scene, with artists who are engaged in a dialogue with their era, who face the same concerns and impasses which confront us all—in the theatre and society at large—at this historical turning moment between an old world and a new. The programme includes inter alia live and online performances, activities in public space, discussions, presentations and lectures.
Kim Noble, the award-winning artist from the UK, will be presenting Lullaby for Scavengers, a provocative and unconventional production that explores social boundaries by testing our endurance. He creates a multi-media performance which talks about loneliness, the difficulty of living as a non-participant in life, and the need for connection. Lullaby for Scavengers is an original and unique work; viewed through the prism of Noble's humour, imagination and oblique world view, it is far removed from conventional theatre.