BUFFER FRINGE FESTIVAL 2020 CHALLENGES PHYSICAL AND ARTISTIC BARRIERS

 Cyprus Mail 12 November 2020 - by Eleni Philippou

“As an arts community, we cannot just shut down and wait, we must continue,” said artistic director of the Buffer Fringe Festival, Ellada Eva just days before the festival kicks off. Organised to adapt to the current situation, the festival is taking place physically but also online for the first time, safely connecting artists and audiences from around the world.

“There is so much that is not under our control right now, but some things are,” added Ellada. “Keeping the festival going, engaging artists and thinking outside the box is. So we decided to go ahead with the festival and draw on that human quality of adaptability to take care of the rest. We took advantage of digital tools and paired it with the creativity that is already abundant within the arts community, to think of a new festival structure, that is versatile, that responds to uncertainty, but maintains integrity.”

Artists from Australia, Greece, Great Britain, India, Norway, Scotland, the USA and Cyprus will participate in this year’s Buffer Fringe Festival, with theatre, dance, installation art, mixed media and graphic arts, and site-specific work. Some projects are collaborations between Cypriot and international artists, Greek and Turkish-Cypriot, quarantined and local artists. “Two interesting examples,” said Ellada, “is Indian choreographer Vikram Iyengar, whose piece A multitude of Drops is performed by a group of Cypriot artists, with who he is rehearsing online.”

Displacement is this year’s theme with the performances exploring why this human activity is contested, the relationship between migration, mobility, displacement and how different people experience the displacement of themselves, their ideas and their practices.

Beginning on Saturday with live performances, virtual discussions and online lectures, the 2020 edition of the festival is rather different than what audiences are used to.

One of these new ways is a blog (bufferfringe.org) where artists post their works in progress for audiences to get to know them and their work without necessarily relying on the physical presence. The Buffer Fringe Live page on the blog has also been created from where worldwide audiences can catch the virtual performances of the festival live and to allow productions from outside Cyprus that may not be able to travel, to be a part.

Using a virtual space to present events is a first for the Buffer Fringe yet a necessary step to keep the show on the road. “It has been an adventure,” commented Ellada, “trying to conceptualise the true utility of the tool, to see how hosting things online would serve the artists, the audiences, and the festival itself. We all need to grow and benefit through the process, having in mind the global nature of the internet, and the vast possibilities it allows for showcasing art.”

Should everything go according to plan – meaning if the measures allow – performances will happen in Nicosia and Limassol as well as be live-streamed on Buffer Fringe Live and the Buffer Fringe Facebook page. The only performances that take place solely online are of two Buffer Fringe artists who are based in the US, and a dance group based in Thessaloniki, Greece. The festival will open this Saturday with these two US-based artists with two performances live-streamed from New York and a Virtual Discussion.

A history lesson with Argyro Nicolaou will begin first at 7pm drawing from artistic sources that are rarely looked at and studied (such as films shot on Cyprus before 1974 among them Exodus, Sin and Ghost in the Noonday Sun) to teach the island’s history. History Lesson reflects a desire to return to a vision of Cyprus as a whole; before the island was displaced from itself – connecting back to this year’s theme of Displacement.

At 8pm a virtual discussion titled The New Faces of Displacement – artistic praxis and a contested festival in the middle of a pandemic will take place with artists, scholars and researchers. Held via Zoom, the discussions can be followed via the festival’s livestream or at the Home for Cooperation for those in Nicosia.

Then at 10pm, researcher and artist Monica Anna Day will explore how bodies experience ‘place’ or ‘displacement’ by using the language of art in her performance titled Placeholder. “When body wisdom is missing, so are the desperately needed solutions to some of the world’s biggest challenges. Like displacement,” the American artist said.

Besides Saturday’s events, more performances will follow on November 29 in Limassol and on December 4, 5 and 6 in Nicosia, which will also be streamed online. Limassol’s event is a partnership with Mitos Performing Arts Centre and Mağusa Kale Pasajı in Famagusta. Nicosia’s events will take place at different locations each day. December 4’s performances will be at the European Mediterranean Art Association, December 5’s at Theatro Polis in partnership with NiMAC – Pop Up Festival and December 6’s at Goethe Institute.

Showcasing new and experimental work by local and international artists, Buffer Fringe challenges physical and artistic barriers, having established itself as a platform of innovative artistic expression. “We are on the quest to support the production of new narratives,” said Ellada, “of new ways of seeing the world and the human experience, and that is work which is by nature nonconformist. I would say that definitely differentiates us from most festivals.”

 

Buffer Fringe Festival 2020

Live performances and virtual events. November 14, 29 and December 4-5. Various locations in Nicosia and Limassol and online at www.bufferfringe.org and https://www.facebook.com/BufferFringe