ELBASAN, Oct. 22 – The annual International Contemporary Theatre Festival ‘Skampa’ attracted the attention of the scenic art’s crowd with its premiering night on Sunday; an event that has now become a tradition in promoting art and the new legacy of Albanian theatre. The festival takes place in the city of Elbasan, during the fall season. This has been its 19th edition, taking place from the 22nd until the 27th of October.
13 theatrical troops, 6 Albanian and 7 international ones, were selected among 67 applications to perform in Elbasan’s scene during this edition. The international troops came from China, USA, Chile, Russia, Italy, Switzerland and Kosovo. This event is organized by the Albanian Theatre Association, Elbasan’s municipality and the ‘Skampa’ theatre, and comes under the artistic supervision of famous director, Adonis Filipi.
The artistic profile of the Skampa Festival is the exploration of the scenic and theatrical language, through contemporary achievements of artistic communication, scenic and theatrical alternatives and experimentation. Each edition has its own slogan within this artistic profile, thus making its continuity an artistic and managerial challenge, through confronting ideas and exchanging experience.
This year’s edition came under the slogan ‘Awakening’, whose concept, according to the Director, nurtures a poetic spirit along its new forms.
“An awakening in space travel, an awakening in the monotony of silence, an awakening of the consciousness, an awakening in esthetic movement, an awakening of the naked soul covered by clothing’s armor, an awakening of the actor’s masks and the spectator’s eye, an alternative awakening…” , director Filipi described.
The premiering night of ‘Skampa ‘17’ brought the Chinese troop of the ‘Shanghai Kunqu Opera’ on its stage, which was represented by the play ‘Chairs’, one of Romanian drama-writer’s, Eugen Ionescu, most famous plays. The play was directed by Guang-Jin Ni.
The second show was staged by the USA troop, which brought dramatic poem ‘Gjergj Kastriot Skà«nderbeg’ on stage, under the direction of well-famed Macedonian actor and director currently living in the US.
The 16 performances put on stage during the week were not limited to Elbasan, but were also hosted in the cities of Gramsh and Librazhd, as well as the capital, Tirana. On the last day of the event, Friday the 27th, Turk novelist’s ‘From Egzil to Egzil’ will be staged by Geneva’s AD-HOC Theatre and directed by Mathieu Chardet.
On the ‘Skampa’ Festival
The ‘Skampa’ International Theatre Festival was first introduced through the ‘Skampa ‘99’, which opened its doors 18 years ago in Elbasan, under the slogan ‘new Forms’, in coherence with European integration developments, as the first international theatre festival that opened the way for Albania to host many other festivals.
This event has now ensured a well-known tradition, with its biography and artistic vocation, by significantly contributing in the recognition of Albanian art abroad, through the participation of troops and companies in international festivals taking place in Italy, Romania, Russia, Greece, Turkey, Belgium, etc., as well as the inclusion in many joint projects, workshops and various seminars.
The ‘Skampa’ Festival is the most major theatrical competition hosted by our country, with the participation of more than 10 troops in every edition that have enabled more than 220 theatrical plays to be archived and over 2,500 Albanian and international artists and over 90,000 spectators to contribute. On the other hand, the event can be also described as a ‘Laboratory Festival’, as it also includes the organization of activities that explore the contemporary scenic methods, in the fields of artistic and managerial exploration, through seminars and workshops taught by specialists coming from the USA, Germany, Italy and Bulgaria.
In this way, the Festival has become a part of the most recent Albanian cultural heritage, one of the most well-known in the region serving contemporary theatre developments and an attractive platform where education through art is made possible. The goal of this festival is accessing theatric alternatives, not only through the close scene, but also through urban and touristic environments, as the need of a more tangible relation between the spectator and theatre as a genre.
