The artists will perform at more than 200 events in 14 cities in North Rhine-Westphalia, including Essen, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Bochum, Dortmund, Bielefeld, Munster and Aachen. North Rhine-Westphalia is supporting the programme with EUR 1.2 million.
Hungary was picked as the partner for this year?s festival because the Hungarian city of Pécs is sharing the 2010 European Capital of Culture with Essen, in Germany?s Ruhr region, as well as Istanbul, Christian Esch, who heads the state?s cultural programme office, said at a presentation at the Goethe Institute in Budapest.
Esch conceded that Germans still know little about Hungarian culture, ?but we?re interested in what is happening in Hungary, what you do differently or the same as us.?
A wandering multimedia exhibition of meetings at Hungary?s Lake Balaton between German friends and families divided by the Iron Curtain will show in Dortmund?s culture museum within the framework of the festival, said János Togay Can, the director of the Collegium Hungaricum in Berlin.
The Hungarian writer Lea Polgár said a recent tour of North Rhine-Westphalia as part of the Scene Ungarn programme drew much interest. People who came to hear her read were interested not only in her own work, but in Hungarian literature and life in Hungary, she said.
A concert by the clarinetist Lajos Rozmán and the pianist Martin Tchiba was a big hit in Bielefeld recently. Also on the Scene Ungarn music programme are the Dresch Quartet, Tony Lakatos, Bea Palya, Besh o Drom, Ferenc Snétberger and Béla Szakcsi Lakatos.
On the theatre programme is a piece by Béla Pintér and Cloud by the Hungarian-Dutch Space Theatre.
The Hungarian State Dance Ensemble, the Pál Frenák Company, the Budapest Dance Theatre, Eszter Salamon and Joseph Nadj are on the dance programme.
Among the writers to visit North Rhine-Westphalia for Scene Ungarn are György Dalos, Péter Nádas, István Kemény, László Márton and Orsolya Kalász. Hungarian filmmakers to come to Germany are István Szabó, Béla Tarr, György Pálfi, Nimród Antal and Benedek Fliegauf.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI) / Photo: Dániel Kováts
