Politics, entertainment, collaboration coming up at Buffer Fringe

Political, entertaining, evocative, experimental, collaborative: Buffer Fringe Performing Arts Festival 2021 will present a full schedule of performances and events inspired by the theme of Displacement with things kicking off this week!

The festival starts on Friday at Phytorio (Nicosia Municipal Garden) with Rehearsing the Revolution – Common Grounds Dialogue, an immersive storytelling/performance based on the ‘politics of the personal’ and “starting the revolution in the imagination”, the result of an international collaboration of Buffer Fringe with Amsterdam-based SPACE, powered by the European Cultural Foundation, and with the participation of artists from Cyprus, Hong Kong, Trinidad/Canada, the Netherlands and Hungary.

The ‘radiophonic’ performance 8102 follows, with Switzerland-based artist duo Alexandra Bellon and Karla Isidorou, an interdisciplinary experience challenging the audience to displace their imaginations and minds towards an unknown territory, the “ultra-future”, the year 8102. The Buffer Fringe will also host the video installation Restless Spirits by South Korean artist Yeon Yeji, which will run through the evening. A performance film, it portrays a ritual spanning the entire moon cycle seeking to honour the ‘restless spirits’ of the Korean diaspora of Soviet Russia who were victimised through forced migration and displacement to Central Asia in 1937.

On Saturday, Buffer Fringe is proposing a full day of events at Home for Cooperation and in Famagusta. Contemporary dance and hip-hop workshops and performances, DJ sets, audio-visual/multi-media installations, discussions and a visit to Famagusta are on the agenda.

At Home for Cooperation in Nicosia, the day will begin with Nomadic Dialogue 2, a discussion on ideas of displacement (also online at www.bufferfringe.org) presented by the Creative Center for Fluid Territories. An upbeat line-up of movement/hip-hop workshops and performances – and unique DJ sets – will then energise the space in and around Home for Cooperation, powered by Yuka Blend, throughout the day.

Two socially-engaged visual/multi-disciplinary installations will be featured in the space: Twenty Three’s The Serpent Egg’s Deconstruction, developed through interviews with Cypriot refugees and immigrant communities, raising questions about practices of displacement; and To Your Hands, a multimedia/documentary installation exploring the artisanal and culinary traditions in the northern and southern parts of Cyprus by Ana Mouyis and Fox Schwach – presented in partnership with Animafest Cyprus. On the same afternoon, Brazilian choreographer Rafaela Sahyoun will present an exciting contemporary dance piece, Wheel of Radical Affection, an orbit around a field of dynamic synergy.

At the same time, 95 Stops+ will be taking place in Famagusta: a site-specific public intervention/picnic exploring the city’s dystopic realities, lost stories and abandoned dreams based on creative research in Limassol and Famagusta. A Buffer Fringe collaboration with Mağusa Kale Pasajı, MITOS Center of Performing Arts and Famagusta New Museum.

Buffer Fringe continues on the afternoon of Sunday with drive-in performance DAME. Visual artist PASHIAS invites audience members to drive, park and meet in an empty parking lot, to experience a landscape environment through their private shelters. The performance is presented at Pentadaktylou Street Municipality Parking, free of charge, with reservations. The festival’s final evening at Narnia Garden in the old city of Nicosia features two performances: a repeat of Rehearsing the Revolution and It May All Be Over Soon, a multimedia performance by androula based on a series of reflections on our relationship with the natural world, informed by a vivid awareness of the unfolding environmental crisis. Presented in partnership with The Yard Residency (by Center of Performing Arts MITOS).

Buffer Fringe Performing Arts Festival

8^th edition of festival with performances, discussions and installations. Around Cyprus and online. October 8-10. Day tickets needed only for Friday October 8 at Phytorio and Sunday October 10 at Narnia Garden. €10 for all performances per evening. All other events are free of charge. www.bufferfringe.org