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The Budapest Autumn Festival

The Budapest Autumn Festival was established by the Municipality of Budapest in 1992 as successor to the Budapest Arts Weeks, as an event focused on contemporary arts. The city set three fundamental goals for the event: to serve a representative function as the city's own festival, to play a determining role in strengthening Budapest's international relations, and to meet in concentrated form the steadily developing demands for autumn cultural tourism.

The event is organised by the Budapest Festival Centre Kht., established in 1996 under the direction of Zsófia Zimányi, festival director, a body which also organises the Budapest Spring Festival and the Budapest Fair.

Its aim is to present to the Budapest public the significant progressive creative artists of the present and the past decade and their artistic achievements in all branches of the arts. The series of events strives to make the new art known and recognised in Hungary. The event which initially ran for two weeks but from 2004 lasts for 10 days, is a festival of artists seeking new forms, of events and ideas. During the festival it attempts to present significant, progressive creative artists of the present and recent past, their works and artistic results. Its primary aim is to show the public of Budapest the cultural creations of the present embodying an outstanding image of the future, in as many branches of the arts as possible. According to its self-definition and aims, its fundamental task is to contribute to making the new art known and recognised in Hungary.

One of the major aims of the festival is to contribute to realising the notion of "Budapest festival city", to raising Budapest's cultural standard in Europe and strengthening its image as an important European cultural centre, by inviting high standard international productions of new art, and arousing international attention with its own productions and others created jointly with partners.

Over the past years the Budapest Autumn Festival has become one of the most influential new art events of the Central European region. Meredith Monk, Roscoe Mitchell, Michael Nyman, Robert Lepage, the Rosas Dance Theatre directed by A. T. Keersmaker and the Jan Fabre Company, the Ensemble Wiener Collage, and the UMZE Chamber Ensemble all visited Budapest for the first time as guests of the Autumn Festival. The Soros Studio Theatre Days and the Bohemia series of Czech-Hungarian cultural programmes have been among the festival's regular programmes.

In 2003 the Autumn Festival, Hungary's biggest festival embracing the various branches of contemporary arts appeared before the Hungarian and foreign public in different venues in the city with a new, modern and youthful image.

In March 2003 Balázs Kovalik was appointed by the Budapest Festival Centre Kht. to elaborate a new artistic policy. After examining the annual statistics and programmes offered it became obvious that the festival had fallen behind the times and no longer attracted the attention of its target groups. The bodies creating, supporting and operating the festival therefore put forward the following expectations for the new management:

"rejuvenation" of the festival,
winning back the lost sectors of the public,
producing the biggest possible series of programmes within the available budget.

The Budapest Autumn Festival must present events that could not be brought through their own resources to the Hungarian public. It is just as important to import foreign productions as it is to create Hungarian works, and to give creative artists who do not yet have name recognition and a following the opportunity to introduce themselves.

It is the aim of the Budapest Autumn Festival, keeping in sight both Hungarian and international judgement of the event: to invite as many as possible of the biggest possible foreign productions, either as co-productions or independent programmes. In 2003, for example, festival guests included: Cirkus Cirkör (S) | Trio Anima (CH) | Fabien Tehericsen/Louis Sclavis (F) | Erste Wiener Gemüseorchester (A) | Anouk van Dijk (NL) | Contemporary Japanese Evenings (J) | MK (I) | Peter Erskine (USA) | Erik Truffaz Quartet (CH) | Arditti Quartet (GB) | Teatrino Clandestino (I) | Cie Bud Blumenthal (B, Senegal, Ivory Coast) | Orchester der Panonischen Philharmonie (A) | Cie Emile Dubois/Jean Paul Gallotta (F) | Thalia Theater Hamburg/M. Thalheimer (D).

In view of the festival's limited budget there was a great need to expand the traditional PR and marketing activity. The organisers of the Budapest Autumn Festival definitely wanted to reach the "man in the street" and create a real festival atmosphere in the city. To achieve this the festival announced the POINT:HERE:NOW public sculpture competition (placing giant question marks in the five busiest points in the city), drawing attention to the exhibition of public sculpture to be held jointly with ARC Kft at the 2004 Autumn Festival.

In 2004 the Budapest Autumn Festival held 89 programmes in 37 venues. Continuing last year's trend, the festival strengthened its indicators this year too. The duration of the festival was reduced from the previous 17 to 10 days. The aim was to achieve a more concentrated programme, to have at least one internationally renowned company every day, and to make more rational use of the available funds.

The Budapest Autumn Festival places great emphasis on introducing young creative artists who have few possibilities, and on initiating and stimulating communication among different branches of the arts. The following programmes were organised within this frame: Plexi concerts in the Kultiplex | Open Doors Day in the Academy of Music | Swedish-Hungarian-text-music (meeting of poets and composers) in the Merlin Theatre | Premiere of new pieces by Krisztián Gergye and Ágens | New play by Béla Pintér and Company | Triginta Percussion Group (directed by Péter Szalai) | Concert by students of the percussion department and László Tömösközi | Exhibitions throughout the city (Árkossy, Nyári, Jeleniczki)

It is a tradition that there are also a number of smaller festivals within the festival, as well as programmes comprising a series of events running for several days, sometimes even for the whole festival: