The festival, which includes musical performances and film screenings, boasts a multidisciplinary program around this year’s theme: bravery.
German electronic music giants Tangerine Dream headlined the event on Thursday, with supporting acts by Holly Herndon and Ben Frost.
Friday’s acts include Russia’s Pussy Riot, well-known for their “performative campaigns aimed at the Russian dictatorship”, the festival organisers said on their website.
Other performances on Friday are Polish post-minimal jazz group Lotto, dream pop singer Mary Komasa, Poland’s Siksa, who is described as “a punk rock feminist with a mission,” and Soft Power, which brings together UK-based DJ Felicita and Polish traditional dance group Śląsk Song and Dance Ensemble.
Saturday’s performers are experimental folk musician Polmuz, and the Round Table Orchestra, which comprises Polish jazz heroes such as Raphael Rogiński, Mikołaj Trzaska and Tomasz Ziętek. American ambient music pioneer Robert Rich is scheduled to perform as the day’s final act.
On Sunday, Polish rapper donGURALesko is set to rap Timothy Snyder’s essay On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century in a performance entitled “Not A Word Without Us.”
According to the festival’s website, Ukrainian film director and Euromaidan participant Oleg Sentsov will be awarded the Neptune prize. Sentsov won’t be there in person to pick up the award: he has been accused by Russia of terrorism and sentenced to 20 years in a Siberian labour camp.
The Neptune award is annually presented by the Mayor of Gdańsk to artists whose life and creative work reflect the values of freedom and solidarity.
The four-day festival takes place at the city’s B90 and 100cznia venues as well as in the European Solidarity Centre, all located in the city’s former shipyards, the cradle of Poland’s Solidarity movement which helped bring about the collapse of the country’s communist regime in the 1980s.
The event runs from August 22 to 25.
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(jh/pk)
Source: PAP/solidarityofarts.pl