Festivals in the post-COVID-19 era

EVENT

01 July

Topics

Culture and education

Thursday, July 1^st 2021, 14.00 CET

Ancient themes and heroes trigger today’s opportunities in the context of the digital and the green transition and the New European Bauhaus Initiative

Festivals have an important contribution to the local economies and stand as best practices for European cultural policy implementation and for strengthening European cultural diversity and identity. Strengthening the role of Festivals could therefore be considered as a cultural response against the current overall crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic as well as to boost current opportunities such as the digital and the green transition and the New European Bauhaus Initiative. In this context, ancient themes and heroes may serve as a trigger for transnational cultural collaboration as they have always been uniting and inspiring artists throughout Europe across centuries to overcome crises and to flourish.

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PROGRAMME

The programme of the event is about to include two panels.

In the first panel, discussion is about to focus on the importance of festivals and on the need for the foundation of a European body of Festivals, in light of the current challenges of Europe, such as the post-COVID-19 era’s challenges, as well as the challenges and opportunities brought by the digital and the green transition and the New European Bauhaus Initiative, under the perspective of the transformative power of culture.

In the second panel, discussion is about to focus on the multidimensional benefits that Festivals gain and have as an impact when inspired by ancient themes and heroes, such as Antigone, Prometheus, democracy and justice, that are common yet differently handled by artists from Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles in the 5^th century BC, to Seneca, then Corneille and Racine in the 17^th century and the Renaissance in France, Müller in Germany in the 20^th century and until today with various contemporary versions all over the world. Throughout the centuries, these themes have always been a shared source of reference for artists all over Europe and across all different types of arts, uniting them and inspiring them to overcome crises and to grow further and most of all “united in diversity”.