SPECIAL WEEKENDS AND EVENTS European Capital of Culture Wroclaw 2016

SPECIAL WEEKENDS AND EVENTS European Capital of Culture Wroclaw 2016
The celebration of European Capital of Culture in Wroclaw is woven around four large projects: Bridges (held in June 2015), Awakening (the official opening of ECoC celebrations on 17 January, 2016), Flow (halfway mark on 11 June, 2016), and Sky Web (the closing ceremony on 17 December, 2016).

Each weekend will comprise interdisciplinary events intended for the general audience. The actions are arranged in a way that will make it possible to immerse in culture and art for the whole day from visiting galleries to participating in concerts and spectacles to having fun during animated workshops. The visitors can choose their own unique paths by selecting the most interesting events from the rich programme offerings.

22-24.04.2016: Wroclaw as the Capital of Literature

The inauguration of Wroclaw as UNESCOs World Book Capital, the opening of Pan Tadeusz Museum, which will display Adam Mickiewiczs manuscript of one of the most important books in the Polish literature, the special edition of European Literature Night, and exceptional Poland-wide literary actions.
On 23 April, 2016, literature will reign Poland as such and Wroclaw in particular. The city will begin its term as UNESCOs World Book Capital. On this day, all the texts in the Gazeta Wyborcza daily will be created by writers, and Polands largest newspaper will thus become The Writers Newspaper. In a specially adapted tenement building in the Market Square, the Ossolineum will officially open an innovative educational institution Pan Tadeusz Museum. In the evening, as part of European Literature Night, readers will set out on a literary journey in the footsteps of the worlds best contemporary writers, whose books will be read out by well-known personalities inside Wroclaws churches and temples. The city will be teeming with the energy of contemporary Ukrainian literature, presented within the Lviv Month. Most important writers, translators and literary critics will take part in meetings with the readers. Wroclaw will transform into Bibliopolis a city-library where reading is ubiquitous.

27.04-1.05.2016: Wroclaw as European Capital of Jazz and the Guitar

The World Jazz Day, celebrated on 30 April, and the Guitar Festival in the Market Square in Wroclaw on 1 May provide a pretext to focus on music during this weekend.
Jazz on the Odra, one of the oldest jazz festivals in the world, and the newest edition of Melting Pot Made in Wroclaw will prepare us for an extremely intensive weekend at the beginning of May. On the World Jazz Day, the entire city will turn into a huge jazz stage: concerts in the National Forum of Music and Impart, on ships and barges, a jazz parade, a picnic on the Pergola with the Battle of Big Bands, night jam sessions in clubs and pubs, and much more. The final concert in the Centennial Hall will smoothly carry us into the atmosphere of the Guitar Guinness Record, which has belonged to Wroclaw for many years. Thanks to the title of European Capital of Culture, on 1 May we will be simultaneously present in several European cities and we will try to achieve our dream of exceeding the number of 10,000 guitarists performing together the song Hey Joe.

10-12.06.2016: Halfway Point and Flow: A giant urban performance on the Odra and riverbanks

Flow is an event exploring the history of the building, destruction and re-building of the city in the 20th century. The central point here is the Odra River, the citys liquid spine which has flowed through its history, sometimes friendly, sometimes angrily. The river and its surrounding parks, buildings and spanning bridges will be the centre of focus for a series of events and performances telling the story of 20th-century Breslau/Wroclaw. The activities will be based on creative reflections of local and European artists on themes of diasporas, migrations, immigrations and the Cother. During the day, dozens of performances, happenings and cultural encounters will take place along the riverbanks, in parks and gardens, on bridges and courtyards between the Cathedral Island, the Library and the University. On Sodowa Island, a rocket sculpture will be built where the city dwellers will place pieces of paper with their wishes written out these will later be screened during the closing ceremony in December 2016. The Odra, the Cathedral Island and Wroclaw University will become the set for a major evening performance. The audience will be invited to take up positions all around the river, the bridges and buildings to witness a concert by a specially formed orchestra of musicians from the Czech Republic, Germany, Poland and Israel, performing a new symphony composed by four young composers from these countries. Flotillas of boats will navigate the river. The event will be complemented with video-mapping and hundreds of other actions in the heart of the city, intended for viewers from all over Europe as well as those who will co-create it.
At the same time, the European Convention of Wroclaws Partner Schools will be held. It will gather the representatives of more than 200 schools, who will meet up to create and experience culture together. Last but not least, The Art of Improvisation Creative Festival will take place, which will present the most
noteworthy phenomena and trends in Polish and foreign improvised art, both in music and other performing arts.

18.06.2016: Culture and sport %u2013 fine traditions of Wroclaw

In June 2015, the programme of European Capital of Culture was unveiled in the Municipal Stadium, which was accompanied by Andrea Bocellis concert broadcast by TVP2. This unusual cultural event took place at the same time as the Night Half-Marathon and the largest performance in Europe Bridges, held on 27 bridges which the runners crossed. The success of this unusual juxtaposition of sport and culture has inspired us to combine an opera show and the Night Half-Marathon during one June weekend.
The Wroc%u0142aw Opera is appreciated not just for its high artistic level, but also for the organisation of the largest opera shows in Poland, held in various surprising venues. This time, the show will be held on a huge stage constructed in the Municipal Stadium in Wroclaw, where 500 artists will perform: an orchestra, a ballet, Wroclaw Operas choir and soloists, as well as singing and dancing groups from Wroclaw and Lower Silesia. The participants were chosen in competitions organised by the Wroclaw Opera, and their performance will have been preceded by zarzuela workshops conducted over the period of two years by dance and voice teachers from Spain. Thanks to the cooperation with the Ministry of Culture of Spain, the performing cast will be joined by Spanish ensembles and guest artists from Madrid and San Sebastian (twin Capital of Culture). The show will base on fragments of Bizets opera Carmen, which is set in the Spanish city of Seville. The climax of the night will be a presentation of the most beautiful zarzuelas, a genre which is very popular in Spanish-speaking countries, similar to traditional operetta and the contemporary musical. The production will be enriched by film screenings presenting beautiful regions and cultural monuments of Spain.

25.06.2016: Wroclaw Festival and its stars: David Gilmour and Leszek Mozdzer

St. Johns Day, an annual festival of the city and its dwellers, is a special time on Wroclaws calendar. In 2016, it will be marked by an exceptional concert, which will become one of the most important events of European Capital of Culture Wroclaw 2016. The square between the beautiful seat of the Wroclaw Opera, which dates back to the Prussian times, and the recently built National Forum of Music will become the venue for a meeting of David Gilmour, a rock guitarist and a former member of Pink Floyd who will be touring Europe to promote his newest solo album, and Leszek Mozdzer, a renowned Polish composer and jazz pianist. The unusual meeting of two generations, two genres, two instruments and two musical expressions will become an unforgettable musical experience. If we add to it Zbigniew Preisner, the composer of music for many films by Krzysztof KieBlowski or Agnieszka Holland, who co-created Gilmours newest album, no more recommendations are needed.
Rattle That Lock, the first single from Gilmours newest solo album, has been ranked no.1 in Polish Radio Three Chart since 25 September

21-31.07.2016: Non-stop art melting pot

Each year, T-Mobile New Horizons Film Festivals provides cinema buffs with a host of cultural events. As unlikely as it may sound, in the ECoC year we will make the atmosphere even hotter. City Coalition 2016, the Singing Europe project and an abundance of worlds best films this is what Wroclaw will be like on these days.
City Coalition 2016 will be a true melting pot. An art village that Europe has never seen before will be created by artists from five Polish cities: Lublin, lodz, Gdansk, Katowice and Wroclaw. Visitors could join them or catch a glance of different actions from the field of performance, the visual arts, music, culture animation, etc. This project is important for one more reason the cities that competed for the European Capital of Culture title will now unite to engage in art exchange, share experiences and confront different perceptions of culture.
On 23rd and 30th July, we will witness a meeting of several dozen European choirs. As part of the Singing Europe project, the choristers will give joint concerts and learn about each others culture. During the final concert at the Municipal Stadium, everybody will be invited to join them.
Naturally, there will also be a huge number of films screened during this special edition of T-Mobile New Horizons Festival. This year, it will be broadened to encompass the Masters of European Cinema section, which will feature a series of retrospectives demonstrating the richness and variety of film art in the Old Continent. It will include films that shaped the history of European cinematography, the New Wave of the 1950s and 1960s and their continuators, and Basque productions to honor San Sebastian, Wroclaws twin Capital of Culture. Probably around 40,000 young Europeans will take up the invitation to visit Wroclaw and participate in the attractions of the art melting pot on their way to World Youth Day in Cracow.

9-11.09.2016: Weekend of great exhibitions

Another highlight in the European Capital of Culture programme will consist of several unmissable exhibitions. Art galleries, museums and various non-obvious venues will open their doors to thousands of visitors. Among the most interesting shows, there will be the exhibition in the renovated Four Domes Pavilion, Wroclaw in Europe %u2013 a presentation of the cultural diversity and importance of Wroc%u0142aw and Silesia several centuries ago, Photography Never Dies an exhibition devoted to the past and future of the medium, Rivers and Roads 2016 a presentation of different faces of photography within the TIFF Festival, and MAJAKI: Art and Photography in Lviv since 1914, which will constitute an attempt to present the essence of avant-garde art in Lviv. The public space of the city itself will turn into a gallery featuring the oeuvre of Stanislaw Drózdz.
September has traditionally been the time of the Wratislavia Cantans festival. This most well-known festival of classical music in Wroclaw is about to enter a new age. This years edition will provide a whole array of musical experiences to all those who decide to visit Wroclaw and many other Lower Silesian towns.

14.10-14.11.2016: International Theatre Olympics

The programme of this theatre festival will include Dziady. Recycling a presentation of recent adaptations of Adam Mickiewiczs Romantic drama Dziady (Forefathers Eve) as well as remixes of now-classic productions, Eastern Line a presentation of young independent theatres from Central and Eastern Europe (from Saint Petersburg, Warsaw and Prague to Bucharest and Athens). The Theatre Olympics is an international theatre festival organized since 1993, which presents the achievements of the most outstanding theatre artists from all over the world. It was initiated by Theodoros Terzopoulos and Melina Mercouri (who was also the instigator of the European Capital of Culture project). The motto of the 7th edition of the Olympics is The world as a place of truth a paraphrase of the title of Jerzy Grotowskis text. The programme will be arranged in the form of a season, between October and November 2016. Each day will be devoted to one artist. Among the masters invited to Wroclaw will be Tadashi Suzuki, Theodoros Terzopoulos, Robert Wilson, Eugenio Barba, Peter Brook and Romeo Castellucci. They will present renowned productions as well as premieres and co-productions prepared for European Capital of Culture. The Wroclaw edition of the Olympics will also include new themes. The city will become the centre for deep reflection on history, the present situation and perspectives for the development of theatre art. It will be a creative continuation of the idea of the University of Research of the Theatre of Nations, organized in Wroclaw in 1975 by Jerzy Grotowski. Alongside the masters programme, the Theatre Olympics will comprise five thematic segments: Dziady. Recycling; Lower Silesian Theatre Platform; Eastern Line; More Than Theatre Presentations; and Polish Theatre Showcase.

10.12.2016: European Film Awards

European Film Awards are the most eminent film distinctions in the Old Continent, intended to promote European cinematography and directors. The awards summarise a given year in European cinema. By means of a two-stage voting, tembers of the European Film Academy (currently numbering around 3,000 people) select the best European film and award European filmmakers in over a dozen categories. In Wroclaw on the 29th , the gala of the European Film Awards will be held, which will be attended by several hundred representatives of the European film
industry. Between September and December 2016, the New Horizons cinema will host screenings of films awarded in previous editions as well as those nominated in 2016.

17.12.2016: Sky Web %u2013 the closing ceremony of ECoC Wroclaw 2016

The spectacle will summarize and crown the European culture festival in Wroclaw. It will become a symbolic closure and a new beginning. The only indoor performance of The Flow Quartet will take place in the Centennial Hall. Thousands of people will gather to watch the performance Sky Web, which will merge the threads of the three previous performances into a concluding gesture to provide a commentary on the entire year 2016 and evaluate the perspectives for Wroclaw. The four-nation orchestra and a mass choir will create the frame for a performance illustrating the main theme of the years events: Wroclaw as a European city belonging to all those who have lived here and left their marks. The project will include artists from Germany, France, Israel, the Czech Republic, Sweden and the U.K.

http://www.wroclaw2016.pl

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