The largest multidisciplinary Festival in central Europe that builds a Eurasian bridge between various countries and cultures, presenting the whole kaleidoscope of arts in their full shape, starting with theater, through cinema, performative works, dance, literature, exhibitions, uniting artists and viewers from all over the world, launching co-productions and helping to bolster up negotiations between different facilities and investors by means of professional language support. InlanDimensions focuses on presenting art from postwar to postmodern times, however it is far away from rejecting the classics, it intends to stress its transformations and influence on contemporary art, awaking in the viewer the concept of Eurasian theater and film – marriage of diverse cultures and various genres within a piece of art.
The first edition of InlanDimensions Festival was established to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Polish-Japanese diplomatic relations in 2019. InlanDimensions is being organized in three major Polish cities - Gdansk, Wroclaw and Poznan - by Bridges Foundation in partnership with three major cultural and educational partner institutions: The Gdansk Shakespeare Theatre, The Grotowski Institute in Wroclaw and Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan. We set out to promote Eurasian culture and build connections with various European festivals with a view to fostering further exchange and cooperation. Our aim is not only to strengthen relations and exchange artistic ideas, but also to investigate ties between different lands of the Eurasian output.
Under the motto misemono no fukken (restoration of the spectacles), the programme encompasses theatre performances, film screenings, literary meetings, discussions with creators and researchers of Japanese culture, and an exhibition of Japanese avant-garde posters and abstract painting. During the events, we will be hosting honorary guests from Japan and other parts of the world: film and theatre directors, actors, curators of the largest international festivals, researchers and critics from all around the world. One of the special guests will be J.A Seazer (Ban’yū Inryoku Laboratory of Theatre Play), Nagano Kazufumi (Ikenoshita Theatrical Company), film director Shiota Akihiko, professor Andō Kōhei (Tokyo International Film Festival), professor Alexander Zahlten (Harvard University), professor Komatsu Hiroshi (Waseda University), Jasper Sharp (Midnight Eye), Stephan Holl (Rapid Eye Movies) and many others.
The focal points of the Festival are stage performances of Nuhikun - Directions to Servants and Education for Madmen, the two most important theatrical plays written by Terayama Shūji (1935–1983). Terayama was a leading figure of the 20th century avant-garde Japanese theatre, and the founder of the alternative group Tenjō Sajiki, strongly influenced by the concept of The Theatre of Death and Cruelty. The theatre programme is supplemented by a previously realized film retrospective as a part of the 19th New Horizons International Film Festival.
A new vision is unveiled: a theatre in which there are no actors and a theatre where everyone is an actor; a theatre without a theatre building and a theatre where every place is a theatrical space; a theatre without spectators and a theatre where everyone plays the role of spectator. The audience is immersed in experiencing all forms of disintegration of theatre space. In a cross-media passage, contemporary and deeply intertextual Japanese art emerges as a polyphonic collage of various artistic genres.
Nikodem Karolak – InlanDimensions Festival Director
