From September 9-17th 2023 took place the "International Theater Festival Saint Muse 17" with the theme "Nomadic Culture in World Culture" at the HUN Theater in collaboration with the Academic Drama Theater in Ulan Bator, Mongolia. Awards were given to approximately one hundred artists in various categories. The plays competed in four main categories: dramatic plays, children's plays, musicals, and short plays.
The Saint Muse Academy, the main organizer of the festival, is a member of the International Theatre Institute - Mongolia and has been organizing the festival since 2002. The festival's purpose is to bring together artists from the performing arts field from all over the world to share ideas, learn from each other, create connections, and foster mutual cultural understanding through theater. The festival invites theater groups to perform in genres such as drama, musical drama, children's shows, two-person plays, and monologues, divided into two sections - plays for the large stage and plays for the small stage. Each section has a Grand Prix award for the best performance.
This year's 17th edition has had performances from 13 countries, including Mongolia, Romania, Italy, Germany, South Korea, Japan, India, Georgia, Greece, Slovenia, Luxembourg, and others. Starting from September 9th, participants from Ulan Bator, provinces, and abroad presented their plays to an international jury. In the first part of the festival, over 50 plays have been staged. Approximately 20 of them advanced to the finals and were nominated for awards.
A significant part of the theater festival hosted in Mongolia consisted of master-classes. The jury members held conferences on monologues, theater trends, and theater criticism.
ICR Beijing supported the participation of the Coquette Theater from Bucharest in the Saint Muse International Theater Festival with the play "Barbar Nights" (After 1001 Nights). "Barbar Nights" is a modern adaptation of the timeless stories from Halima/1001 Nights. In a one-and-a-half-hour performance, director Ingrid Bonța, with the help of the two actors Ruxandra Bălașu and Ovidiu Ușvat, dramatized the well-known oriental tales.
The performance received high praise from international critics and was nominated for three awards, winning one of them. Thus, alongside artists from countries like Italy, which have won the award for Best Leading Actor, and Mongolia, which received the award for Best Direction, actress Ruxandra Bălașu received the award for Best Leading Actress, thus representing Romania.
