Graz Festival of Women Dramatists is scheduled to take place in June
While events are currently being postponed or canceled from spring to autumn, the organizers of the Graz Dramatists Festival are optimistic: “The festival will definitely take place,” emphasized Edith Draxl from the uniT cultural initiative, which together with the theater for the Implementation is responsible. “We have planned a lot outdoors and in public spaces,” explained Draxl at a press conference on Tuesday in Graz.
The motto is “About Tomorrow” and should encourage the participants to think about the stories we need on the way to the day after tomorrow and how one could get there. We are looking for texts and fictions that “have the potential to be the future,” it said. As a preview of the event in June, flags of text and cloth bags were presented to draw attention to the festival. “A text seeks a home” is the motto of the flags, some of which have already been hung. Just like the gray cloth bags, they are provided with quotes from the authors who will be presenting their pieces. Author Ferdinand Schmalz is there again, and his sentence “What it would have been worth living for” adorns bags and flags, among other things.
The Retzhofer Dramapreis is also awarded as part of the festival. It is advertised for the first time in the field of “Theater for Young Audiences” and awarded in the new categories “For Children” (4 to 8 years) and “For Young People” (9 to 13 years). With these new prizes, together with the partners of the TaO! – Theater am Ortweinplatz and the Next Liberty Youth Theater encourage writers to write high-quality texts for a young audience.
In cooperation with the Afro-Asiatic Institute (AI), uniT realized the exhibition “Hair Salon”, in which participants from different countries and cultures thought about the symbolic meaning of hair. History, memories and ideas were collected and show various aspects of this topic. The exhibition can be seen at AI until April 13th.