The festival will focus on Budapest and the Hungarian city of Pécs, which is a 2010 European Capital of Culture.
Head of the Karlsruhe cultural bureau Susanne Asche said that this year's festival will promote cultural diversity. Many Germans still see Hungary in the clichés of "paprika, Gypsy music and Piroska", and the festival organisers are determined to changes this, she added.
The cover of the festival programme shows a barbed wire fence - with Hungarian peppers as posts - that has been cut, showing the country's important role in the fall of the Iron Curtain.
More than 50 Hungarian productions, featuring about 1,000 Hungarian and German performers, will participate at the festival with the support of the Hungarian Ministry of Education and Culture, the cities of Budapest and Pécs, the Pécs2010 European Capital of Culture Management Office, the Hungarian consulate in Munich and the Hungarian Institute in Stuttgart.
German and Hungarian artists have visited some of the largest industrial companies in Karlsruhe to create works from stone, iron, wood and plastic that match the companies' profiles. These works will be displayed in Karlsruhe from April 18.
Also on the festival programme are concerts of Hungarian folk music, dance seminars, theatre performances and a talk on the work of the philosopher György Lukács.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
