Sfântu Gheorghe pulsates for the eighth time

pulzArt Contemporary Arts Festival will be organized between 13-16 October

The eighth edition of the pulzArt Contemporary Arts Festival, which will take place in Sfântu Gheorghe from 13-16 October, will have reinvent as its theme. The programme of the event was presented at a joint press conference by the deputy mayor of Sfântu Gheorghe, Fruzsina Vargha, the coordinator of the festival, Ildikó Knop, and the deputy director of the “Kónya Ádám” Cultural House, Anita Erdei.

“The event looks at contemporary arts in a unified way, provides a space for new encounters and has been missed not only by the city but by the whole region since it was last held in 2019. This year, we have organised five festivals in the city, pulzArt will be the sixth festival to close the season, addressing the active art-loving community, which had few dedicated meeting opportunities this year,” emphasised Deputy Mayor Fruzsina Vargha.

This year’s festival will have a colourful programme, with artists, performers and works from the UK, France, Germany, Belgium, Hungary, Croatia and Iran, among others, coming to Sfântu Gheorghe, targeting a wide audience, from children to the professional community.

“The impact of the two-year break is palpable, time has given us space to reflect and redefine ourselves as a festival and as people, trying to bring a sense of well-being to the audience. The motto of this year’s festival is reinvent, a reinterpretation that provides a framework for such thinking, and we sought out works from the international scene that interpret their genre in a new way,” said Ildikó Knop, programme coordinator.

music

Fazer, a jazz band from Munich, will open the festival, while Noya Rao, a British electronic soul band, will play the closing concert. The music programme will be complemented by live electronic performances in the evening at Zamat Café. Hugo Kant from France and Egoless from Croatia will perform a live act, supported by local artists.

public space

In line with tradition, the festival will also be present in the city’s public spaces, with a mural and an asphalt painting in the city centre: new designs will decorate the façade of the Csipike kindergarten and an asphalt painting will be created at the entrance to Elizabeth Park. A large-scale light installation is also planned, and after dark the centre will become an interactive playground where visitors can experience different visual elements.

literature

This year’s literary guests will be Hungarian and Romanian authors: writer Szvoren Edina will visit the school classes, war correspondent Jászberényi Sándor and writer Vasile Ernu.

theatre

The theatre experience will include puppet shows and performances for children and adults. For example, “Spaced”, a half-hour micro-show for children, will be presented by the British Strangeface Theatre Company and will be performed several times. “After All Springville” is a reimagining of Belgian artist Miet Warlop’s show about a society’s ridiculously absurd but very real everyday life.

Workshops

This year, four workshops will offer unique knowledge and experiences to all who actively participate. While the Worbla Mask Making Workshop is for theatre professionals, the other workshops will address the theme of reinventing from a community perspective and invite the audience to experiment and recycle. The reInvent Symbols textile workshop, led by Jánosi Ágnes Anikó, clothing designer, prints symbols on different linen-based textiles using linocut prints. In the Lego Challenge – a creative Lego workshop run by Young Engineers Afterschool, children and adults are invited to create different objects from Lego elements. The Reborn Plastic workshop will create art from locally recycled plastic. 

Tickets for these performances will go on sale Monday, September 26, at the Municipal Ticket Office and online at www.eventim.ro. Volunteers are also invited to sign up for the festival by October 2 at this link.

The pulzArt Contemporary Arts Festival is organised this year by a partnership between Sfântu Gheorghe City Hall, the “Kónya Ádám” Cultural House and the Prospero Cultural and Youth Association.