Literature festival returns for 11th time

The Sardam interdisciplinary event returns rich and vibrant says ELENI PHILIPPOU

Back this September is another edition of the local interdisciplinary literature festival Sardam, taking place once again in Limassol. Last year, the festival celebrated its 10^th anniversary at the Rialto Theatre and in Athens and in 2023 it returns “slightly more reserved but still rich and vibrant,” say organisers. Logophiles, mark your calendars for September 22, 23 and 24.

“Like every year,” they add, “writers-performers and other artists from Cyprus and abroad will be sharing original experiences of writing, reading and performing through a variety of acts, workshops, screenings and parallel events. Common ground will be the combination of literature/text with traditional and modern means of expression like theatre, technology, sound/music, contemporary dance, spoken word, visual arts, video poetry and so on.”

The main event of the festival will be divided into two separate evenings showcasing different acts each time. This two-night split will be a first for the festival and extends the events across September 23 and 24 at Singergio Theatre. The Sardam Residency programme will also return this year, during which two artists from abroad will be inspired by Limassol to create an interdisciplinary literary performance.

In addition to the workshops and the performances, the festival’s 11^th edition will also present the International Video Poetry Festival of Athens and will showcase awarded video poems from different parts of the world. The guest of honour this year will be musician and composer/songwriter Michalis Siganides from Thessaloniki who follows a ‘deconstructive’ approach to song-writing and represents the musical collage in Greece, with extensive research on the poetry of Miltos Sahtouris. Workshops will be delivered by writer Amanda Michalopoulou and by Safiya Kamaria Kinshasa, a poet combining poetry with dance.

Saturday night will include group performances from Cyprus, Greece and the UK/Barbados as well as screenings of award video poems. Sunday night will continue with another three group performances from Cyprus, Greece and Argentina/Chile, along with more video-poems.

The two workshops this year will be a creative writing workshop by Michalopoulou which will take place in Greek at the Limassol Municipal University Library on September 22 at 5.30pm. The second workshop will be in English and will be run by Kamaria focusing on poetry through dance and movement. Titled Embodied Poetics, the workshop will take place at Synergio Theatre on September 24 at 10.30am. The festival’s Facebook page has all the details on the events (@SardamFestival).

Sardam Interdisciplinary Literature Festival

Three-day literature festival. September 22-24. Limassol. Workshop reservations: 99-558358. Workshop cost: €20. www.sardamcy.wordpress.com