Brave Festival – Against Cultural Exile is an annual Polish music festival launched in 2005 by Song of the Goat Theatre Association. It takes place in Wroclaw, as well as in other cities in Lower Silesia. Since inception, artists from all over the world have been invited to present their musical/cultural traditions. The festival is intended as an opportunity for attendees to speak about where they come from, their values, their traditions and their spirituality. It aims to save and protect forgotten, abandoned and forlorn cultures. Brave Festival also has a project called Brave Kids, which aims is to introduce, integrate and start a collaboration of artistic groups of childs from different continents. Grzegorz Bral is the director of Brave Festival.
In 2011 Brave Festival was included in the official list of The Cultural Programme of the Polish EU Presidency 2011 in the category “Cylic cultural events and festivals organized by local and non-governmental institutions.” The following groups help to support the festival: President of the City of Wroclaw - Rafal Dutkiewicz, UNESCO, Marshal of the dolnośląskie voivodeship - Rafał Jurkowlaniec and the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.
Idea of Brave Festival
Since now there were ten editions of festival: The Magic of Voice (2005), Voices of Asia (2006), Drowned Songs (2007), The Ritual starts it Africa (2008), Prayers of the world (2009), Enchanters (2010), The Mask (2011), Women Initiating (2012), Lost Rhythm (2013), Sacred Body (2014), Griot (2015) and Outcasts (2016). Each edition presents concerts, theatre, performances, rituals, prayers and art of the people, tribes, groups or individuals from all over the world.
During the festival people, who don't agree on exile from their own traditions and sensitivity, share their culture. Brave Festival tries to support them by concerts, exhibitions, workshops (dance, musical and handicraft ones) and film program. All those events allow a public to see and experience what maybe couldn't be known in other way.
Festival places were among others: theatres in Wroclaw (Teatr Polski, Wrocławski Teatr Współczesny, Teatr Pieśń Kozła), cinemas (Dolnośląskie Centrum Filmowe), galleries (Galeria BWA Design, ArtBrut) and other cultural places (The White Stork Synagogue, the Impart Art Center, Opera Wroclawska, Wytwórnia Filmów Fabulranych). There were also outdoor events.
Brave Festival hosted artists and groups from China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Russia, Australia, Egypt, Georgia, Bulgaria, India, Mali, Tanzania, Burkina Faso, Chile, USA, Ukraine, Uganda, Kyrgyz Republic, Mongolia, Niger, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Poland, Corse, Rumania, Israel, Sardinia, Macedonia, Marocco, Grance and other countries.
Revenue from festival ticket sales are designated to support humanitarian activities in Tibet led by the international charity organization, ROKPA.
Festival Main Program
2018
The thirteenth edition of Brave Festival took place on July 13–22, 2018 and was organized under the slogan "Visible-Invisible", which revealed a number of unique, often difficult to reach to a wider audience, artistic phenomena. The eleven invited artists or creative groups share a decidedly social character and the fact that they all use art - primarily music and theater - not as entertainment and decoration, but as a tool to influence social change and stagnant reality, and as a weapon against injustice and exclusion.
2017
The festival for 2017 was cancelled due to lack of funding.
2016
12th edition of the festival took place between 1st and 16 July 2016 and was organized under the title "Outcasts - Wykluczeni". It was a significant and symbolic edition, because in 2016 more than any in other year so far it dealt specifically with "exile". Organizers decided to discuss people who have always been different in their own communities or in foreign ones, for which they have been stigmatized. "Outcasts - Wykluczeni" was host to a number of events from across the world showing people whose everyday lives are, for a variety of reasons, very difficult and complicated. Brave Festival showed people who used art to change or even utilize their exclusion.