Festival - ImvrosFest

#ImvrosFest2022

The Translation Village Festival Returns to Imvros Island this Summer

This year’s theme is Translation, Music and Dance, which means we will be singing and dancing on the streets, squares and shores of the island for four days! There will be a main stage and camping site next to the beach, with various workshops and talks on translation, music, dance, and much more.

Join us for an enjoyable four days of critical conversations, interactive workshops, delicious local food and of course, participatory dance and live music.

JOIN US AT IMVROSFEST ON AUGUST 18-21 2022

Register Now

What is ImvrosFest?

Organised by the Translation Village team with the support of Imvrosians, ImvrosFest offers a multilingual and transcultural experience for people who desire a free, fair and peaceful life.

Timolean Caknis, an 81-year-old local musician and resident of Imvros talks about how the island once hosted up to 200 small day-long festivals each year called panayiri (πανηγύρι, panigýri).

The four-day ImvrosFest music and dance festival is organised by the Translation Village in the spirit of these panayiris.

The first of the festivals was held in 2018. The festival is back after a three-year break with a new focus on local and transnational dance that complements the usual rich variety of music from a range of styles, traditions, cultures and languages.

The event kicks off in the village of Gliki, with a celebration of everything multiinstrumental, multilingual, multigendered and multicultural. The festival musicians, dance performers and participants will start jamming and dancing together on the evening of Thursday 18th August. The next day, on Friday, workshops, activities and concerts will begin and continue until the night of Sunday 21st August.

There will be participatory and accessible dances and music workshops. Discussions will take place on topics ranging from language, translation and culture, to solidarity economy models and tools. Musicians, dance performers and workshop facilitators will be ready to help, guide and inspire participants with a series of performances and activities across the villages of Kastro, Gliki, Panayia, Aya Todori, Agridia and Shinoudi.

Don’t forget to bring your instrument to join in with the jams throughout the festival. There will be a wide range of Balfolk dances for everyone to join and enjoy. The participatory dances will be open to dancers of all abilities (no experience necessary!)

Who can join?

ImvrosFest 2022 is the place to be for anyone who desires peace, both on earth and in their minds.

There is space for everyone who would like to enjoy multilingual, multigendered, multicultural and multiinstrumental music, dance and discussions, as together we demand a free, decent, fair, truly democratic, ecological, sustainable and peaceful world.

We aim to provide a welcoming environment for language and culture workers, translators, interpreters, musicians, dancers, locals and internationalists who haven’t had a chance to meet in person during the local and global pandemics and wars.

Don't miss this incredible gathering!

Bursaries are available for people who would like to participate in the event but can’t afford to pay for transport and accommodation.

Who organises this?

ImvrosFest is organised collectively by a group of language and culture workers, translators, interpreters, musicians, dancers, locals and internationalists. This year the event will again highlight talented musicians and dance performers across a wide variety of multilingual and transcultural disciplines.

Translation Village have been organising wide-reaching public events and smaller gatherings over the past five years. They successfully hosted various events with different themes, including summer and spring camps, music festivals, participatory workshops and academic conferences.

1st Translation Village Event:

Translation and Nature Summer Camp 1.0
28-29-30 July 2017, Imvros Island

2nd Translation Village Event:

Translation, Nature and Technology Spring Camp
16-17-18 March 2018, Sirince-İzmir

3rd Translation Village Event:

Imvros Translation, Music and Nature Festival
6-7-8-9 September 2018, Imvros Island

FESTIVAL VENUE BY THE SEA

Why are we organising this festival?

Due to the global crises, pandemics and wars, there haven’t been many opportunities for people to learn from each other in person; sing and dance together; celebrate and discuss the positive aspects of local and global solidarity, together. We aim to offer some space and time where people can camp together under the stars and take part in a programme of dance, music, workshops and discussions during a 4-day long festival.

Translation Village would also like to emphasise the spirit of international solidarity and cooperation, while being locally based on the island.

We will bridge the local with the global in the ancient villages and shores of Imvros Island, in the universal languages of music, dance and translation.

We believe that both localism and internationalism are vital for the survival of humanity.

‘Being and suffering at the centre of these global problems’, we invite all language and culture workers, locals and internationalists, music and dance performers and lovers who believe there is a way for greater solidarity, cooperation and mutual aid.

The festival team have cooperated with local people and grassroots groups and organisations, and created a programme full of enjoyable and participatory workshops, concerts and dance activities to give festival participants the chance to discuss how they can manage local and global solidarity by using the welcoming and universal language of music, dance and translation.

Suitable for all people to enjoy and participate in, the four-day programme of pop-up experiences and activities will take place in multiple historical locations of the island across the four villages, providing the opportunity for the local community and professional artists, musicians and dancers to inspire residents and visitors.

A full version of the festival program is available here.

“We are living in a world in which we are either going to cooperate internationally or we are going to be destroyed’. All of the major problems we face, ‘and they are very serious problems’, are international or transnational. The recent developments showed us all that ‘There are no borders to pandemics, there are no borders to global warming, there are no borders to the threat of nuclear war’. Nothing. ‘Every problem we face is international’. There is a slogan, Internationalism or Extinction. ‘That’s what we actually face, and interpreters and translators are right at the heart of this.”

Noam Chomsky on “Internationalism or Extinction”, International Translation Day, 30 September, 2021.