Belluard Bollwerk International is a arts festival that, since 1983, takes place every year during ten days and announces the summer in the city of Fribourg, Switzerland.
Belluard Bollwerk International takes a special position in the Swiss and European festival landscape through its qualitative, pointed program, its scale, unique location and inviting, convivial atmosphere.
Belluard Bollwerk International presents projects from the fields of theatre, dance, performance, music, visual arts, video, music en related art forms – in conventional or unexpected places, inside or in the public space. The festival offers discussions on a high level, and encourages reflection and cross thinking.
Belluard Bollwerk International is a multilingual festival, in a city on the crossroads of the German and French speaking part of Switzerland. It brings together artists from inland and abroad. It confronts local with international art practices and puts Fribourg in the centre of a global art context.
Belluard Bollwerk International is on the one hand a festival where both emerging and established artists can present work. On the other hand the festival has a yearly thematic contest and it is a producer of projects on the cutting edge of classic disciplines. It is a place where cook meets architect, spectator meets choreographer or orchestra meets theater group to walk unexpected paths “Today here the artists are invited, for who the festival lions will tear each other apart tomorrow”. (newspaper Basler Zeitung – July 2008). A reputation to be kept up.
Belluard Bollwerk International is a meeting point. From the old Belluard fortress to the new art centre Ancienne Gare or the public space: the festival takes over the city and changes it into a pulsating landscape. Here inhabitants meet visitors, professionals meet amateurs. Here one eats, drinks and discusses good.
Belluard Bollwerk International beat two records in the summer of 2008. The festival had for the first time more than 3000 paying visitors. And it could counts on a huge media scope, with nearly only positive feedback in both the regional and the national press, from the Neue Zürcher Zeitung in the west to Le Temps in the east.
Belluard Bollwerk International is made possible thanks to structural subsidies from Coriolis, the Canton of Fribourg and the Loterie Romande on the one hand, and support from private foundations and sponsors on the other hand.
Belluard Bollwerk International is unusual, versatile, courageous and colourful. Or as the newspaper Freiburger Nachrichten titled: “Belluard is when its director programmes her hairdresser into the festival.” Fri-CUT is the mobile hair salon where peroxide-tinted after-show-discussions happen at this festival.
