OCTOBER 17-26 | „I.L. Caragiale” National Theatre Bucharest, Marble Foyer
FREE ADMISSION
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Participants: Anna Baar, Bettina Balàka, Raphaela Edelbauer, Olga Flor, Valerie Fritsch, Susanne Gregor, Reinhard Kaiser-Mühlecker, Barbi Marković, Mieze Medusa, Karin Peschka, Robert Prosser, Ferdinand Schmalz.
Producers Forumul Cultural Austriac, ORF, Austrian Society for Literature
The installation will be open to visitors for the entire duration ot the 35th Romanian National Theatre Festival (October 17–26).
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#implicAT – Three Performative Projects for the Austrian Micro-Section of the Romanian National Theatre Festival #35
#implicAT înseamnă o expoziție, un „artist talk” despre o viitoare coproducție ambițioasă între România și Austria, dar și impactul unei instalații-performance internaționale în România, care confirmă paleta de semnificații a temei „Te privește!” Forumul Cultural Austriac și UNITER își dezvoltă astfel colaborarea dinamică și variată, începută în 2022, care urmărește strângerea și diversificarea relațiilor dintre artiștii din domeniul teatral și al performance-ului din cele două țări.
From the stage to everyday life – ideas for a society that pays more attention to people. At the invitation of UNITER – the Romanian Theatre Union, the Austrian Cultural Forum responds once again in 2025 to the theme of the 35th National Theatre Festival – „Te privește!”* – with three original projects that bring Austrian and Romanian performing arts into dialogue, under the title and theme #implicAT.
At the intersection of theatre with photography, literature, video, performance, and other artistic forms, these three proposals bring to the foreground socially engaged artists who encourage audiences to move beyond conformism, sharpen their critical gaze, and embrace civic spirit.
Developed in Romania, in Austria, and across the two countries, the series of initiatives #implicAT is in illustration ot the curatorial statement of the artistic directors of the RNTF35: theatre critics Raluca Cîrciumaru and Alina Epîngeac, cultural journalist and playwright Ionuț Sociu, and its associate artist, director Radu Afrim: “a call to solidarity and civic responsibility at a turning point for society as a whole, as well as an affirmation of the aesthetic and dialogic flow between artist and audiences.”
#implicAT comprises an exhibition, an artist talk about an ambitious forthcoming Romanian–Austrian co-production, and the Romanian presentation of an international performance-installation. Together, these projects enrich the spectrum of meanings evoked by the festival theme, Te privește!: „the reflexivity of the gaze that mirrors reality through the artistic act, the taking on of responsibility and conscious engagement, the act of looking as an active bridge between stage and audience, the interdependent relationship of past–present–future with emphasis on the tradition–innovation binomial”.
Through #implicAT, the Austrian Cultural Forum and UNITER further expand their dynamic collaboration begun in 2022, aiming to deepen and diversify the connections between theatre and performance artists from both countries.
*We chose not to translate the motto Te privește! as it carries a wide spectrum of meanings in this context and encompasses multiple dimensions: the reflexivity of the gaze that mirrors reality through the artistic act, the taking on of resposibility and conscious engagement, the act of looking as an active bridge between stage and audience, the interdependent relationship of past–present–future with emphasis on the tradition–innovation binomial. Te privește! means equally: it concers you! and it looks at you/ it beholds you! and even – in a poetic, archaic romanian – look at yourself/ behold thyself!
Words acting as light projectors. Twelve major voices of contemporary Austrian literature reflect on what it means to be socially engaged through the exercise of writing, and on the ways they choose to present their texts to the public. In a series of portraits going beyond the limits of an interview and turning into small performances, carefully avoiding autofiction, the authors reveal the social, communal, identity-based, and personal stakes that sharpened their writing. Prose writers and playwrights (writing for stage or radio) discuss the evolution of their relationship with readers, the transformation of the written text into spoken text (in readings, performances, slam poetry sessions, etc.), and its democratic relevance.
This series of portraits offers insight into the current state of Austrian and European society at multiple levels. Conceived in a distinctive aesthetic format, each episode is accompanied by music selected by the authors themselves. The series was produced by ORF – the Austrian public broadcaster – in collaboration with the Austrian Society for Literature.