Susedia – Sąsiedzi – Sousedé – Szomszédok – Cусіди

The main idea of the project is to challenge the myths among neighbors, among countries – notably the Visegrad countries + Ukraine. Our goal is to address this via theatre, humor and satire. The project will build partnerships among the countries – the neighbors and bring them closer by creating a common understanding of what humor means, how it addresses the current socio-political challenges, but also every-day life situations among neighbors. The project will showcase performers and cartoonists from at the three day festival – Kremnica Gags 2022 (www.gagy.eu) and creates an original show.

The effort will bring together a group of performance actors and cartoonists from all Visegrad countries and Ukraine = Slovakia and all its neighbors and thus enhance international cooperation of artists and professionals from the region – including but not limited to the project partners:

• Poland – Legnickie Centrum Kultury: lck.art.pl
• Hungary – Mesebolt Bábszinház: meseboltbabszinhaz.hu
• Czechia – CTJ ART Production: ctjart.cz
• Ukraine – Creatrix Artium agency: creatrixcircus.com

The next edition of the Festival of Satire and Humor – Kremnica Gags 2022 will carry an overarching theme: „Neighbors – connected via humor“. Our goal is to invite artists from all neighboring countries to address the following questions: how are we seeing each other? what are the differences and commonalities? The answers will be presented with the variety of humor expressions: cartoon, theatre performance, puppetry, physical theatre, circus, juggling,…The project will address the issue on multiple levels:

1. Cooperation of artists to create an original and unique variety show, where all Visegrad countries + UKR + AUT will perform together on one stage to challenge stereotypes around neighbors and living next to each other (both in the sense of country relationships as well as more basic meaning of neighbors). The artists will bring unique perspective on the topic and will meet before the festival to create a variety show with a common thread. Approx. 10-15 artists will collaborate before the festival to create the performance. The show will be performed 2x during the festival.
2. Presentation of culture and identity of the Visegrad countries and its neighbors – showcase of theaters, artists, comedians, performers. We will showcase a minimum of 6 ensembles (representing all neighbors). Each will perform 2-4 times during the festival.
3. Cartoons – we will hold an exhibition of cartoonists from all neighboring countries (minimum of 6 cartoonists/120 artworks) and join a live event Impro-cartoon, where the cartoonists will jointly draw a mega-cartoon.

The project is co-financed by the Governments of Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia through Visegrad Grants from International Visegrad Fund. The mission of the fund is to advance ideas for sustainable regional cooperation in Central Europe.