FIT-BH

Belo Horizonte’s International Theater Festival – Stage & Street
is held in Belo Horizonte, capital city of Minas Gerais State, Brazil

Unique in the format - 50% stage / 50% street .

Achieved by

Belo Horizonte’s City Council through the City Culture Foundation in partnership with the private sector through funds raised through incentive laws and other sources.

Periodicity

Biennial, always in even years: 1994, 1996, 1997 (Belo Horizonte’s Centenary Special Edition), 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008.

Duration

11 days

Concept

Non-thematic festival. Its program aims to bring together diversity of languages and artistic quality, carefully avoiding the oversized proportion and superficiality of spectacular events.

Program

. Average between 100 and 120 performances
. a 60% average of international plays, 20% of national and 20% local ones.
. carefully elaborated time table, arranged in a way to allow the audience to watch all the
performances and enable members of the participating groups to watch other groups’ performances as well.

Democratization

In order to offer the population easy and democratic access to the performances, an average 50% of the program is held totally free in open spaces such as streets, squares, parks, and others. The rest of the program takes place in theater houses and alternative spaces for which tickets and package deals can be bought in advance at extremely accessible prices or, closer to the event, at prices normally practiced by the city theaters.

Special Events

Totally free program including workshops for professionals and amateurs, debates, book launchings, lectures, round-table discussions, video shows, method demonstrations, among other activities.

Meeting Point

Space for the public, artists and technical teams to share experiences, held every night during the Festival at the City Park downtown. Drinks and Food Stalls.

Urban Movement Show

This diversified program is held inside the Meeting Point. Its intention is to stimulate and highlight the work of groups and artists representative of the city’s traditional and contemporary culture.

Goals

. Propel and insert Belo Horizonte in the national and international performing arts circuit;
. offer the population, either at extremely low prices or for free, a vast and diversified quality
program of international, national and local performances;
stimulate performing arts activities in the city;
. permanently try to democratize the access and the decentralization of its program;
. offer free parallel programs so as to provoke reflection and discussions that may contribute to
the education and technical updating of performing arts professionals.