Istanbul Fringe Festival returns with a packed program

İstanbul, performans sanatları alanında üretilen alternatif ve yenilikçi çalışmalara ev sahipliği yapıyor. Türkiye’den ve dünyanın dört bir yanından sanatçıların performanslarının sergileneceği festival, 13-21 Eylül tarihleri arasında gerçekleştiriliyor. Dans, tiyatro, atölye çalışmaları ve panellerle dolu bir program İstanbulluları bekliyor.

Art and creativity's meeting point, the Istanbul Fringe Festival, has been bringing together audiences with the latest and alternative examples of performance arts since 2019.  Held for the 6th time on 13-21 September, the festival will host both local and international artists. While offering audiences diverse experiences with its intensive program, the festival aims to be a platform for collaboration and exchange of ideas for artists. The event, which will feature more than 100 artists, is being held at various venues across İstanbul.

Alongside dance, performance and theater shows, the Istanbul Fringe Festival also includes workshops, talks and parties. Art Director Emre Yıldızlar stated, “We are holding our international performance arts festival, which aims to bring together alternative and innovative works produced in the field of performance arts from around the world and from Türkiye, for the 6th time this year. We are eagerly looking forward to bringing together more than 100 artists, 20 shows, 6 workshops, 3 panels and many other events with audiences”.

We aim to make visible artists at the beginning of their careers”

Emre Yıldızlar said, “After receiving physical theater training at Ecole Lassaad in Brussels, I participated in the Stockholm and Athens Fringe festivals with the companies I founded. I thought this art-filled event should be brought to İstanbul. Today, these festivals bring together 170 thousand artists worldwide every year, across 250 different venues, in 60 thousand events, with 19 million spectators. Fringe festivals, held in different scales and formats in every city, generally offer young artists producing alternative and innovative work the opportunity to showcase their work on an international platform. With our event, which we are holding for the 6th time in İstanbul, we are offering artists at the beginning of their careers, as well as experimental works or works outside the mainstream, the opportunity to become visible”.

We are hosting teams from 11 countries in İstanbul”

Emre Yıldızlar, Art Director of the Istanbul Fringe Festival, which has been held since 2019 and has brought İstanbul a dynamic and alternative performance arts festival in a short time, stated: “Our festival, for which we have prepared the 6th edition for 2024, maintained its continuity even under pandemic conditions in its first 5 years, bringing together more than 500 artists from Türkiye and around the world, with more than 100 shows, approximately 30 workshops, panels and parties, at 40 different venues spread across different corners of İstanbul, with approximately 50 thousand spectators. The festival, which offers young artists producing alternative and innovative works the opportunity to showcase their work on an international platform, is this year also hosting teams from a total of 11 countries including Türkiye, the United States of America, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Japan, Singapore, Slovenia, Taiwan and Greece, in İstanbul”.

Participants will be able to hold workshops with the artists whose performances they watched” 

Zeynep Uğur, Cultural Policies Director of the Istanbul Fringe Festival, shared the following information about the festival:

“The word Fringe means things like edge, periphery, margin, border. Starting in 1947 with the shows that eight theater troupes, who were not invited to the International Edinburgh Festival, put on by themselves on the outskirts of the city, the Fringe Festival, which has now spread to 58 different countries, has today transformed into a multinational festival held in the centers of cities. It is now one of the largest and most important performing arts festivals in the world. This year, the festival, which we are holding for the 6th time in İstanbul, begins on 13 September with The Kitchen Dance _ A House Trance Vocabulary by The Black Matter Productions from Greece. It will continue on 15 September with an exciting show by our artist Shinehouse Theatre from Taiwan. We will bring many events together with audiences until 21 September. As every year, we have a quite intensive program again, in which participants will be able to hold workshops with the artists whose shows they watched. Detailed information about our festival, which will host many more events, is available on our website.”