AMPLIFIER Festival

Banská Štiavnica Will Host a Festival about the Need for Sensitivity and Neighbourly Understanding

The 8th edition of the festival of cabaret, street and engaged art will feature six Slovak premieres
and a novelty, the travelling theatre about rapprochement − HUMAN Caravana (V4+UA)

Banská Štiavnica − On the penultimate weekend of September, Slovak and foreign artists will meet in
Banská Štiavnica for the international festival of cabaret theatre and street art AMPLIFIER. The leitmotif
of the festival’s eighth edition is the renewal of sensitivity, tolerance and mutual understanding between
people. The playwrights of the Ensemble of Irregular Theatre (AND) perceive that society is coarsening,
losing empathy and solidarity with the victims of war, poverty or otherness. In the current crisis of values,
they offer a clue ̶ culture and contemporary art as a suitable tool for sensitization. The idea of understanding
is expressed in the slogan: BEING SENSITIVE IS ART! Carefully selected artistic groups from 7 EU
countries will present their sensitive programmes in the city centre as well as in the surrounding area over
the weekend of 22-24 September 2022.
Festival-goers will enjoy two exceptional headliners. The first is the renowned and world-famous Teatr
KTO from Krakow, Poland, which will make the festival audience feel the universal story of human life
from birth to death in the non-verbal performance ARCADIA. The second headliner, the Hungarian
Firebirds company from Budapest, will light up the audience with their circus cabaret full of acrobatics,
burlesque and humour called FREAK FUSION CONFUSION.
Opening the festival and bringing enthusiasm to the entire city will be the marching 22-member Orkest de
Tegenwind, a street brass band from Utrecht, Netherlands. An emotional yet hilarious experience for the
whole family will be created by the young Spanish acrobat niMú in JACUZZI, a poetic-circus show on
a tightrope. Spanish rhythms and temperament will also be brought to the festival by the highly sensitive
band MiraMundo from Barcelona, who will play unique world music to dance to. World-famous chansons
and hits performed by the charming female trio Cmorejová, Humeňanská, Baarová known as the BONBON
trio will evoke the sentiments of Parisian cafés. A whimsical literary cabaret with original songs will
be performed by the Czech recessional group Krvik Totr from Prague, who will also add a melancholic
after concert as the band Filtr. The magical puppet cabaret of the young Slovak performer Katanari
KABINET ALIVE! will be a musical-visual treat not only for children. The ART PUTIKA series will also
continue. In the first one, named LAUGHING THROUGH TEARS, the Daily N editor Patrik Garaj will
talk about his feelings and the work of Valerij Kupka, translator of the Ukrainian writer Yuri
Andrukhovych. In the second, ICEBREAKING V4+UA, the creators of an international theatre project
about rapprochement will discuss their work, and will present a premiere of a reportage film by Ukrainian
director Sashko Brama portraying the coexistence of V4 countries citizens with the UA expatriates. Current
social and political events taking place in Slovakia will be analysed by commentators Marián Leško,
Martin M. Šimečka and Matúš Kostolný, in a debate moderated by Monika Tódová.
In a significantly upgraded AMPLIFIER Caravana feature of the festival, which in past years had exported
festival productions to the periphery and surrounding villages, an international team of artists from the V4
countries and Ukraine led by the Ensemble of Irregular Theatre (AND) will work together in a three-day
workshop before the festival. An original brand new international non-verbal street-based procession
production HUMAN CARAVANA will be created based on research recently conducted in Prague,
Budapest, Banská Štiavnica and Krakow. The first – work in progress – version of it will be performed by
actors and performers from Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia during the AMPLIFIER
Festival on the periphery of Banská Štiavnica (premiere and two reprises). The event is part of the
international project ICEBREAKING (IVF+CE).
The AND team will also perform the bar cabaret noir GODLIKE about those who feel more like God and
those who resemble him. They will also prepare two composed programs: NO SOFT, NO FUN − modern
artistic performances by the ad hoc group D’sensitive Jenerejšn on the theme of sensitization, complemented
by a musical walk with Marcela Cmorejová. Furthermore, the 5th edition of the annual Czech-
Slovak cabaret sketch competition SKETCH UP, offering entertaining performances of new talents will be
hosted by actor Martin Toman. Cabaret songs will be played along by the BON-BON trio.
The AMPLIFIER Festival will take place on Sep 22-24, 2023 on 12 stages in the centre of Banská Štiavnica.
During these three days, 90 artists from 7 EU countries will ignite the audience with up to 25 productions
performed in the interiors and exteriors of the town. The festival will present 6 Slovak premieres of foreign
artists, 2 exceptional headliners will shine and 2 original discussion formats will enrich the spectators. 3
selected buskers and 1 special happening will add to the unique atmosphere in the streets. The Amplion
Argentum Award for the most inspiring works will be awarded to four laureates. And the tiny yellow Fiat
of Janko Mišík from Kremnica will once again accompany the AMPLION Caravana, artists’ trips from the
centre to the periphery and to the surrounding villages. It pays off to be sensitive at AMPLIFIER!
Pre-sale tickets are available from 1st of September 2023 at https://goout.net/sk/banskastiavnica/
festivaly/lezbkcokkzk/. For complete information and programme, visit www.amplion.eu.
AMPLIFIER Festival − New Cabaret & Street Art® is an international multi-genre festival full of theatre,
music, literature, movement and visual arts. At the end of September, it pours energy into the streets of
charming Banská Štiavnica, filling it with selected pieces of Slovak and international art. The festival is
supported from public funds by the Art Support Fund and the International Visegrad Fund, the main partners
of the event. The main media partners are Radio Expres and Daily N. The eighth AMPLIFIER Festival will
also take place with the financial support of the European Union, the Banská Bystrica Region, the LITA
Fund, and thanks to Zuzka and Peto from Košice.

More information:
Jana Mikitková, datelinova@gmail.com, 0908 801 137
Ján Fakla, amplion@mail.telekom.sk, 0905 258 284
www.amplion.eu
https://www.facebook.com/festivalamplion/