Romania to stage about 250 first-rate cultural events at EUROPALIA, including Brancusi exhibition

Romania will stage about 250 first-rate cultural events at the EUROPALIA 2019 International Festival of Arts, which opens in Brussels on October 1 with an exhibition dedicated to late Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi.

"We like to believe that EUROPALIA Romania is the most important single project for cultural promotion carried out by the Romanian Cultural Institute (ICR) during four extremely intense months. Romania will stage (...) about 250 first-rate cultural events, among the best cultural products that Romania can offer at the moment. (...) The major events of EUROPALIA Romania would be the Brancusi exhibition, which has posed the biggest logistical and organizational challenges. It is mounted at Bozar, in Brussels. It will open to visitors on October 2. (...) It is by far the highlight of EUROPALIA Romania," interim ICR Chairman Mirel Talos told a news conference on Thursday at the ICR headquarters.

The EUROPALIA festival, where Romania is a guest country, will open on October 1 with the exhibition "Brancusi. Sublimation of form," to be hosted by the Bozar Palace of Fine Arts in Brussels, in the presence of Romania's President Klaus Iohannis and Belgium's King Philippe. The EUROPALIA festival will be organized in locations in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg and England.

The curator of the Brancusi exhibition, Doina Lemny, told a video conference that the works on display comes from the arts museums of Bucharest and Craiova.

"The installation of the Brancusi exhibition is currently in full swing. I have worked on it for two years. (...) It is a dream, because it is very difficult to get loans, but we have been supported over this two and a half years by ICR," said Lemny.

The Brancusi exhibition includes works such as "Sleeping Muse," and "The Kiss" and stays open throughout January 12, 2020.

Also included among the events to be staged at EUROPALIA are the exhibitions "Dacia Felix - Romania's glorious past," to open in Tongeren, and "Roots. Lower Danube civilisations " in Liege; stage performances, including an original staging of "The Scarlet Princess" inspired by Japanese kabuki playwright Tsuruya Namboku IV; contemporary dance and music shows, concerts by Angela Gheorghiu, the SoNoRo ensemble, conductor Cristian Macelaru, who will conduct the National Orchestra of Belgium, Milan W. and an ensemble of female labrophone players, as well as a cimbalom workshop by Marius Mihalache in Gent and Brussels. Visual arts and literature projects will round up the offering, and over 100 films will run. As a first, a film exhibition consisting of 12 video installations will also be mounted.