Kultúra.hu

The Janus Pannonius Museum in the Hungarian city of Pécs, a 2010 European Capital of Culture, has opened an exhibition called “From Art to Life” – Hungarians in the Bauhaus. The show, the result of many years of research, presents extraordinarily exciting material, rarely seen pieces, a well conceived overall picture and a high quality catalogue.

The last time Fear Factory played in Hungary was in 2006, also during the Sziget Festival. At the end of that concert, I thought this was the end: there no way to do anything better than this anymore. Yet, much has happened since.

The graduating class of the French Circus Academy and Hungary’s Krétakör theatre group have brought a troubadour’s poem, narrated with artistic spectacle, to Budapest’s Grand Capital Circus.

Michéle Anne de Mey has brought a playful, infantile and light piece to Budapest’s Trafó. The Charleroi/Danses company’s Sinfonia Eroica was like a daunting, but inspiring rehearsal.

The hundredth anniversary of Futurism was celebrated in Europe in a rather muted manner last year. But the centennial is coming to Budapest with an exhibition that centres on the work of the Italian Fortunato Depero.

The Mediawave festival is continuing the tradition of bringing international musical productions under one roof. This year, the organisers brought members of the Mihály Dresch Quartet together with the Berlin-based Michael Schiefel in the village of Öriszentpéter.

The Polish dancer Dominika Knapik has brought a piece to the L1 Contemporary Dance Festival that is stripped of meaning and focuses rather on her own body as a docile tool.

Denmark is the guest of honour at this year's Budapest Spring Festival. Two marvelous performances by the Danish Royal Ballet launched the programmme.

An exhibition of work by contemporary Danish artists whose work addresses contemporary social issues ha opened at Budapest's Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art (LUMU) as part of the 30th Budapest Spring Festival.

The critic Jeannette Catsoulis has praised Hungarian director Kornél Mundruczó's new film Delta in the New York Times, calling its imagery "intensely seductive".

The Hungarian director Szabolcs Hajdú has left behind the biting realism of his previous films, especially White Palms, and shot a grand fairytale with Bibliotheque Pascal, but one that starts and ends with the most disturbing of realities.

The critic Claudia La Rocco had little praise for a production by Hungary's Győr National Ballet at the Joyce Theatre in New York on Tuesday.

The Vivarium Studio's La Mélancolie des dragons, directed by Philippe Quesne at the Trafó, was a baffling piece in which a regiment of unusual objects and creatures appeared on the stage.

A few days after the 2009 Budapest International Book Festival, I got on a tram and sat down just to read the Russian author Ludmila Ulitskaya's new novel. A few minutes later, a young person sat next to me and was also buried in a book. After many stops, we both looked up and had to laugh as we were both reading the same book: "Daniel Stein, Translator".

The Second Golem Festival ended at the National Theatre in Budapest, after performances by three troupes from Israel and two from Hungary. Though the festival did not make a big splash in the media, the performances drew big audiences eager to see some of the best of Israeli theatre.

It's an extraordinary thing to witness the elements that go into making an Örjan Andersson production an exciting and unforgettable dance performance.

Markus Schinwald said he was shocked when he saw the large space he would need to populate for an exhibition in Budapest's Műcsarnok. There might be some truth in it, even though his statement to the press was obviously part of the staged performance that the young Austrian artist creates with his works and their presentation.