Xarkis Festival 2018

Xarkis Festival 2018 will take place in the idyllic village of Koilani (Limassol district), during the 18-19th August, with a free entrance and with activities running throughout the week, starting from the 13th of August. This year we are focusing on the possibilities afforded by manifestations of Bottom-up Heritage and we are inspired by the concepts of Symbiosis and Hybridity.

In this light and in combination with the timeless need of our Festival team to search for a form of social sustainability through the sympraxis (collaboration, partnership) and co-existence of different elements of modern society with folk culture, intangible and tangible heritage, we are preparing a unique event with collaborators from different parts of the world, and are including: 8 educational workshops, 5 performances, 3 spatial installations, 1 exhibition, 1 concert with 5 musical performances, as well as an experimental fiesta inspired by the Cypriot “ziafettin”, with the cross-fertilization of 5 musicians.

Xarkis Festival 2018 program includes a workshop on Retaining walls restoration by Cypriot arborist, gardener, natural builder and ecologist Socratis Socratous, a photography workshop aiming to revisit place with the Cypriot photographer and lecturer Nicos Philippou, a workshop on natural & human distortion with Italian illustrator and graphic designer Sara Ortolani, a song marathon called Song Cycles, which explores themes of a culturally plural heritage with Sophie Fetokaki (Cyprus-UK), Mapping Koilani and engaging in ethnographic documentation leading to performative interventions, with the Cypriot performance practitioner Nasia Papavasileiou, Topopoiesis: an open-air poetry workshop on place-making with the Cypriot poet Marilena Zackheos, an experimental book arts workshop with artist Loizos Olympiou, an open movement practice initiative based on improvisation as a main tool with Borys Slowikowski and Dorota Michalak from Poland, sonic walks and a collective performance about experience and understanding of our environmental landscape called Eco-logos with the Cypriot musician Vassilis Filippou, a spatial installation called Echo by Aristi Pavlou whose grandfather hails from Koilani, a participative embroidery venture inspired by the movement of “craftivism” with academic, printmaker and painter Sylvat Aziz from Canada, a collaboration with Turkish Cypriot artist and social commentator Serap Kanay and Voicing Stories (Xarkis) project which features the recording and dissemination of stories by former and current inhabitants of the village, participatory photography workshops and a Possible Landscapes exhibition with the Mexican photographer Monica Alcazar Duarte, music at the football field with Marlia Project featuring a mix of elements with jazz, folk, ethnic / world music and classical instruments. The Lebanese-Palestinian Zeyn Mroueh will distort and manipulate traditional music in atonal sound experiences, the Cypriot Kineza will perform a DJ set with a range of deep electronic beats alongside etheric bleeps and tribal rhythms, and the band Memo Pimiento Electric Orchestra will headline the music part of the Festival. The band members come from Mexico, Cuba and Brussels and fuse the Latin American cumbia culture (Peruvian chicha, Mexican sonidera and Argentinian villera) and the European electro music (synthpop, krautrock, industrial) with a psychedelic hint.

The Cypriot performance artist Korallia Stergides will perform Deep Love Tours to diversify the experience of our local traditional village by excavating reimagined myths and banterous facts, Eva Korae and Eleana Alexandrou will re-open the doors and windows of grandfather Styllis’ Skarpariko and will attempt to bring back the lost memory and discover the next generation’s path. Dimitra Kallitsi will delve into The world's hardest job and will explore the mediums of performance and improvisation (repetition and duration), reinterpreting artistic practices and crafts which are traditionally ‘feminized’, My Johansson from Sweden will present a contemporary dance piece called Negotiating Space and Adam Paroussos from the UK will share with us Musicorum - Bamboo Mustard which explores improvisation, communal creativity, decay, anti-consumerism, smog and power structures of group dynamics. Finally, the Festival will culminate in our Experimental Ziafettin (fiesta) in which the Mexican electro-acoustic music artist Enrique Mendoza will participate with his work Disturbia, which deals with a feeling of fear that something that is considered normal is, in fact, terribly dangerous or wrong, whereas the Austrian composer Matthias Kranebitter, will deal with Heritage of Deviation which focuses on the lost information during the development of culture, on all the small deviations below the threshold of a historical impact, on chaotic microstructure, detuning and desynchronization of a so-called tradition and Vassilis Philippou (previously referred to with eco-logos) and the renowned traditional musician and pithkiavli player, Christakkos from Avgorou village will perform with the rest of the Ziafettin group.

We invite you to come along to Koilani with friends and family to share another rich and original cultural experience.

* The festival is open to publics of all ages and is free-of-charge. Donations are welcome and appreciated!

Special thanks to our main sponsor The Youth Board of Cyprus for their invaluable collaboration and The Cultural Services of the Cyprus Ministry of Culture & Education, as well as our wonderful supporters Carlsberg, RCB Bank, The CTO, OPAP Cyprus LTD, The Austrian Embassy in Cyprus and Rainbow for offering art materials.