News

2013 CULTURESCAPES edition to focus on the Balkans

4 October 2013

CULTURESCAPES as a multidisciplinary festival of culture is committed to the promotion of cross-cultural dialogue, cooperation and networking. Based in Basel, its influence extends far beyond. It sets out to explore how a region can be experienced and how its cultural aspects can be addressed in a way that is both deeply serious and entertaining. For the first time the festival will focus on a whole region: the Balkans. It will run from 19 October until 13 December 2013.

CULTURESCAPES Balkans wants visitors to broaden and re-examine their image of the Balkans. It seeks to maximise the impact and experience of art by opening the door to other “culturescapes” and providing its audiences with an opportunity to see the world as if with new eyes.

The eleventh edition of the festival - CULTURESCAPES Balkans - will take place in 9 countries in total (in Switzerland in more than 10 cities), with altogether more than 300 events in 8 disciplines – concerts, theatre/dance productions, exhibitions and artists in residence programmes, film presentations, readings and discussions with authors and lecture series at universities.

The cooperation with the Arts Council of Switzerland Pro Helvetia has allowed the festival to stage “return events” by artists from Switzerland in each year’s focus region. Local institutions and festivals have become partners, formed networks among themselves and included Swiss projects in their programmes. Such return events are a great opportunity to raise awareness of CULTURESCAPES and intensify partnerships. Such a give and take allows the festival to forge direct ties between artists and institutions in both places.

The full programme is available at www.culturescapes.ch.

PR contact: Alexa Tepen, atepen@culturescapes.ch

(Photo: EnKnapGroup "OTTETTO. 8 Swings for His Highness" © Andrej Lamut)