InlanDimensions International Arts Festival has established itself as Central Europe’s largest multidisciplinary festival that rejects a differentiation between Europe and Asia, building bridges between different countries and cultures. Presenting a kaleidoscope of arts ranging from theatre, performance, dance and cinema to music, literature and visual arts, it brings together artists and audiences from all over the world, launching co-productions and facilitating negotiations between venues and producers through professional language services. Through the central focus of InlanDimensions is on postwar to postmodern art, the festival does not break with tradition, stressing its transformations and influence on contemporary art. It introduces audiences to the concept of Eurasian theatre and film as a marriage of diverse cultures and genres within a piece of art. We invite a spectrum of artists to create another dimension of that vast intercultural empire that stretches inland.
InlanDimensions International Arts Festival 2021 shines a spotlight on contemporary arts, in order to discover commonalities amongst these cultures, under the motto ‘Structure of Icosahedron’. Icosahedron, a polyhedron with twenty faces, one of the five Platonic solids, symbolizes harmony in the process of creation, enhancing freedom of expression, flow of creativity, and connection with the Cosmos. The brainchild of The Bridges Foundation, organized in partnership with The Grotowski Institute, Nicolaus Copernicus University and Praga Centrum / Warszawa, InlanDimensions 2021 showcases a range of theatre pieces by the likes of Zuni Icosahedron, Tang Shu-wing Theatre Studio, Alice Theatre Laboratory, Seinendan Theatre Company, Kamome-za, Koike Hiroshi Bridge Project, Theatre Company KAKUSHINHAN, as well as over thirty films from Japan and Hong Kong, with a retrospective of the Great Japan-Hong Kong Connector – Inoue Umetsugu, closing with a solo live concert by one the most versatile and talented musicians of the indie-folk genre – Aoba Ichiko, as a part of the European tour promoting her new record ‘Windswept Adan’.
Due to the unusual circumstances related to the pandemic, InlanDimensions International Arts Festival 2021, apart from the live concert, will be hosted online via a dedicated VOD platform (vod.inlandimensions.com) and will include a conference on Contemporary Acting Techniques in Eurasian Theatre, Performance and Audiovisual Arts: Intercultural and Intermedia Perspective. The special guests of the Festival are Eugenio Barba, Danny Yung, Tang Shu-wing, Hirata Oriza, Andrew Chan, Koike Hiroshi and many other prominent figures from the Eurasian Contemporary Arts.
Jerzy Grotowski used to point out that the only thing necessary for theatre to function was a core of actor in a space performing to an audience. We certainly do not know what would be his stance in the times of the COVID-19 pandemic when the force majeure compels us to implement online methods. I am, however, ever grateful to the Organizers who put their heart and soul into this project, working incessantly with perseverance in tough and ever-changing conditions, as well as the Sponsors: The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region - Home Affairs Bureau, Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, Hong Kong Arts Development Council, The Japan Foundation, EU–Japan Fest Japan Committee, Inoue & Tsukioka Movie Foundation, Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and – last but not least – the Audience who has been supporting theatre and cinematic venues throughout the two years, helping them survive the storm. You are the Dimensions that live Inland!
Nikodem Karolak
InlanDimensions International Arts Festival Director
