On the 18 June Steirischer Herbst presented the 2007 program for an attentive audience at the press conference located in the penthouse of the regional office of Sparkasse. Later International Festival organized a lounge on the location for their festival project The Theatre which also will host the festival centre during the festival. Before the festival opening on the 21 September International Festival will create a series of event to animate the site and get the city on its feet.
The press coverage was extensive and very positive, as it should be, and International Festival ended up on the pictures.

The Theatre is a performance in the shape of a building, simultaneously a building that provokes shifts in the performance of the everyday. The Theatre transforms performance from representation to situation, situations that each individual plays an active role in, and where the city part is stimulated. International Festival’s The Theatre is a full-scale theatre with all that theatre should include: a building, a show and a permission to act.

The Theatre, commissioned by the festival Steirischer Herbst in Graz, is an autonomous project consisting of a fully functioning theatre building that during three years will be touring to different cities in Europe. The Theatre is an actual building that will be programmed locally through local means. It will be used as a season theatre, festival theatre/centre and education platform, and accommodate both performances, office, bar restaurant, studio space etc.

The Theatre is constructed with unconventional materials to decrease effort of transportation etc. but also to research alternative economies and the uses and needs of contemporary theatre structures.

International Festival The Theatre will appear in Graz, London, Montpellier, Stockholm, Berlin, Paris, in collaboration with prominent local institutions.

International Festival is a Stockholm based collaborative project platform initiated by the architect Tor Lindstrand and the choreographer Mårten Spångberg. It includes approximately 50 artists, architects and thinkers from eleven European countries. International Festival creates project between architecture and performance, between art and the staging of social contexts.

The Theatre will premiere during Steirischer Herbst 2007 and accommodate performances by among others BAK-truppen, Nature Theater of Oklahoma and Poelstra/Stein. The Theatre’s own crew will create surprise events, bubbles and glitter.

With and By: Jonathan Allen (GB), BADCo / Ivana Ivkovic, Tomislaw Medak, Nikolina Pristas, Sergej Pristas (HR), Alice Chauchat (D/F), Marcus Doverud (S), Max Frey (A), Moa Hanssen (S), Yngve Holen (N/D), Mario Höber (A), INPEX (S), Kein.org (D), Kira Kirsch (A/D), Sonia Leimer (A), Xavier Le Roy (D/F), Tor Lindstrand (S), Annette Lundebye (N/GB), Florian Malzacher (A/D), Liz McAlpine (GB), Ulrike Melzwig (D), Yves Mettler (CH), Martin Miljard (CH), Moderna Dansteatern (S), Marlie Mul (NL), Platforma 9.81 / Damir Blasevic, Marco Sancanin (HR), School of Architecture Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm (S), Christine Sbaschnigg (A), Hermann Schapek (A), Support Structure (GB) / Celine Condorelli (I), Mårten Spångberg (S), Tensta Konsthall (S), Testbedstudio / Anders Johansson, Erik Wingquist (S), UglyCute (S), Unfriendly Takeover (D), WELD (S), Janica Wiklander (S), Josefine Wikström (S), Siegmar Zacharias (D/RO)

The Theatre opens at Steirischer Herbst 21 September 2007.