With the calendar beginning of summer, on the longest day of the year, La Strada 2021 also began. At sunrise on June 20, a “signal” was set – together with the Dutch sound artists Strijbos & Van Rijswijk, our partner Festival of the Regions of Upper Austria and numerous local participants Let’s keep listening to the Dachstein Glacier – the beginning of a long-term, interdisciplinary collaboration until 2024 with artists, cultural initiatives and experts from the region around the Dachstein.
The Graz Vigil project will enter its second phase on July 24th. In an installation on Karmeliterplatz in Graz, the recordings of the more than 700 vigils that watched over Graz at sunrise and sunset last year are processed and visitors can immerse themselves again in this extraordinary project, which was carried out in cooperation with WLDN / Joanne Leighton and Graz Cultural Year 2020 was implemented.
And in the festival week from July 30th, we will show a program that is dedicated in a diverse, subtle and thoroughly humorous way to the topics in a time of social change and considerable change processes throughout Europe. These are the focal points on which our international network IN SITU will focus in its new, four-year project (UN) COMMON Spaces from 2020-2024. Dealing with social and socio-cultural developments, diversity, social justice, cultural identity or alliances between generations are key themes – as are the serious changes in our environment and our living spaces.
Major crises and the resulting collective fears form the breeding ground for right-wing populism and radicalism. One of the greatest “clowns” of our time proves that fascism grows through the fear it creates and that the best antidote to this fear is a sense of humour – the legendary Leo Bassi opens the La Strada 2021 festival with his extraordinary solo performance Me! Mussolini. On the stage of the Orpheum Graz and parallel to it, the artists of the Compagnie Rhizome will kick off the public space with their sensitive dance-artistic performance “ La Spire ” at the Platz der Versöhnung.
The artistic measurement of urban space and the view of transformation processes in urban core and development zones has been of particular interest to La Strada for many years. The artists of Cie XY, for example, together with local actors and singers, infiltrate the city with wondrous and unexpected encounters – “ Les Voyages ” is a contribution by La Strada to the cultural year that has been extended.
And finally, La Strada will offer space for the long-awaited moments: lingering with friends, laughing, amazement, music, maybe even dancing…
We look forward to these shared moments.
