Sampling Bucharest- Bucharest Days in Vienna

The press conference of the General Mayor, Mr. ADRIEAN VIDEANU, from the 26th of April of 2007

Bucharest Municipality, together with World Trade Center Bucharest and the Municipality of Vienna, organize during the 5th – 26th of May “Sampling Bucharest – Bucharest Days in Vienna”.

The General Mayor, Mr. Adriean Videanu, gave on Thursday, April 26, a press conference regarding the concept of the event, the motivation, the organizers and sponsors.

The details related to the two component parts (cultural and economic) of “Bucharest Days in Vienna” were offered by Mr. Calin Mocanu – artistic chief executive of the event – and Mrs. Dana Seiciu – program chief executive at World Trade Center.

The speech of the General Mayor, Mr. Adriean Videanu

We know that the city of Bucharest is facing today the most ample modernization process in the last 17 years. We know that Bucharest is facing today the fastest evolution in the quality of life, according to international studies, from the 244 cities monitored on a global level, and that is why this city offers huge opportunities, becoming dynamic and attractive.
But now we want the entire Europe to discover and recognize our values. We start with Vienna, the capital of Austria, where between the 5th and the 26th of May we will give a sample of Bucharest – Sampling Bucharest.

Bucharest Days in Vienna represent an impressive export of interactive culture, offered outdoors, where the visibility is at its best. There will be days when 80 events will take place simultaneously – from classic culture to underground: sculpture, paintings, photos, classical, alternative street, animation and children plays, dance, blues, jazz, classical music, panpipe and organ concerts, we present the best we have for the world to know us.

Bucharest also represents a great investment opportunity. I received the other days a delegation led by the Governor – Prime Minister of the Upper Austria, who informed me that over 4.000 Austrian companies are active on the Romanian market. It represents a starting point and we will go on. We have all the reasons to try to change the negative opinions about our city and I invite you to join me.

There are opportunities in all the fields – from the real estate field to the IT one there is a wide range of opportunities. We want to be different from other opportunities the investors can find due to the transparency and predictability the municipality has in view. We believe such things can be in our favour in front of the important investors the municipality needs. We need investments in the environment, real estate and economic sphere. As human being and as general mayor, I strongly believe in the partnership between the municipality and the private sector: the municipality should invest in infrastructure, utilities and the private sector should be the one involved in a fast and qualitative development of the city of Bucharest, in base of such partnership.

There are investments regarding the improvement in the quality of the life in what concerns the pollution, the dust that, unfortunately, still “feeds” the Southern area of Bucharest city. We have water purification and chemical treatment problems. These are public investments made by the Municipality, but we need know-how, we need the experience of the companies that have been working in this field for a very long time.
A project that we have been watching very closely, not only in Vienna, but also in Madrid and Paris, is the public transport – one of the priorities of the Municipality: the investment in the increasing quality of the public transport to the detriment of the individual transport. Such thing was also confirmed by the presence of a well-known architect from London, I am glad that you gave credit to this project that we started three years ago.

Please note the setting up of some big companies and their involvement in the life of the community and allow me to present the official sponsors of this event: BCR/Erste Bank, PERTOM/OMV, Raiffeisen Bank. The main sponsor of this event is Omniasig and the partner – Trigranit. Co-organizer, together with Bucharest Municipality, is World Trade Center, to which I express my deep gratitude.

Maybe you will ask “Why Vienna?” Because, according to recent researches, Vienna represents the European Union city with the highest standard of the quality of life and which invests the most in culture – it has a budget of approximately 1 billion EURO allotted for the culture, which means that the public, at its turn, is prepared to receive such an event.

I want Bucharest to be seen from its bright angles, I want Bucharest to be the place where people can fulfill their aspirations, live a better life, call it home.

I would like to present you the organizing team of this event – the general coordinator is Mr. Cristian Iftimoaie (executive director of the International Relations Department from Bucharest Municipality), Mrs. Dana Seiciu is the organizing executive of this event, Mr. George Rusu is the logistic manager and Mr. Calin Mocanu is the artistic manager.

I believe that the involvement of big companies in the social and economic life of the city does not address only to the economic sphere. The big companies also invest in the social, cultural, educational role of the communities in which they carry out their activity. That is the reason why I would like to thank them once more, on behalf of Bucharest City and of its citizens.

Next to me, (and it would be a mistake not to mention them) are all my colleagues from the cultural departments of Bucharest Municipality, who will be active participants in this cultural action we organize in Vienna: the theatre managers, the chief executive of Municipality’s Department for culture, the executives of the cultural institutes subordinated to the General Board and to Bucharest Municipality, who have made a special effort in order to organize such an event.

In the end, I would like to give my thanks to the Ambassador of Austria, H.E. Christian Zeileissen, for the logistic support provided all along this period of time and, in advance, to Bucharest’s friend - the Mayor of Vienna – Mr. Michael Haupl.

Please note that the amplitude of this event from Vienna has an auxiliary objective of great importance: it represents the beginning of an important and long process of re-branding Bucharest. Bucharest is a European capital and the main pillar, we have in view, is the cultural act. We believe that such process, which will be carried out for 1 – 2 years, will offer us the opportunity of changing the negative opinions about our city and re-brand it as a European capital. Together with the modernization process, we also have the obligation to start such a project – it is important that you should know it, because we need you to join us in this process.

Thank you very much, further on I give the floor to Mr. Calin Mocanu, who will present us the details related to the event.
Thank you and we will be expecting you in Vienna.

Mr. Calin Mocanu, the artistic manager of Sampling Bucharest, presented details related to the artistic – cultural aspects of the event

It is about a macro-event that takes place from the 5th until the 26th of May, it is an event we have been preparing from over half a year.
We started by examining the cultural market – the famous people in Vienna, the famous people of Austria (it is about Romanian artists from all the cultural fields). In this examination there also took part the cultural and international relations departments from Vienna, together with the culture and international relations departments from Bucharest.
We have reached, after three or four meetings, the conclusion that we also must have a classic cultural offer, an alternative one and even an underground one.

We will occupy a vast area in Vienna, starting with the fixed locations – the important theatres, very visible, up to parks. We will present street shows and small quartet orchestras in the center of Vienna and on Kartneestrasse, where the people who walk there will be able to watch our shows. We will have in Prater a few plays for children; we have, for example, an offer for children only in German. We will also be spreading, in Karlsplatz, all these places being very crowded.

At Pulffy Palace, starting with the 4th of May, there will be The Painting Exhibition of the young pupils from the specialized high – schools of Bucharest and from the Institute: Made in RO-EU. At the same time, there will take place the opening of a photo exhibition, Tourists’ Bucharest Destinations. In the same location, on the 15th of May, there will be opened two important exhibitions: Mr. Nemtoi’s sculptures (Shapes) and the stamp exhibition.
We have a series of itinerant installations that we presented in Vienna and people were delighted, for example, at the installations bearing the name of the event, Sampling Bucharest. It is an installation that presents Bucharest - a huge book, its pages forming rooms – manipulated by handling – men, having pictures on the walls; it is lightened and has video projections.

The Jewish Theatre, the Comedy Theatre, Nottara Theatre are in Vienna and Bulandra Theatre plays in one of the largest halls from Vienna, the Halle – E, an important hall of the Quartier Museum, where we will perform many plays. There are days with 80 – 90 plays a day – at a given moment we have 30 – 40 shows at the same time and this is very important. That is why, when we presented our plans in order to obtain the necessary authorizations, we have been told: But you invade our territory…
The Act Theatre has an important play, The Play Creator – which will be there because we wanted it to be played in English. The Green Hours Theatre will be present for six days of this period of time.
We also have plays for children in Prater, Karlsplatz: the Masca Theatre, the Comical Opera for Children, the Ion Creanga and Tandarica Theatres.
Metropolis Theatre, together with ARCUB, has a very interesting offer of street plays, called Freestyle, which comprises street dance and modern dance.
We will have panpipe concerts with orchestras, in a very important church, where such concerts are held in Vienna, Karlskirche, and the important show of Gheorghe Zamfir and his guests.
In the Stadtheater, Teodora Enache will hold a show that is already famous all around the world, called Radacini (Roots), with Romanian and European jazz from its beginning up to the present day. Nightloosers will play in Karlsplatz.

In fact, we have an opening that lasts for three days – the 4th, 5th and 6th of May – in the mentioned location, we will be all around the place and have outdoor concerts. The Castle Music, the pupils I told you about from the music high-schools (most of them from the George Enescu high-school) and from the Academy of Music are planted in such locations with a very important offer.
In Tanzquartier Wien we have a very interesting collaboration with the local dance centre and with the people running it: we have Mr. Mihalcea’s show towards the end of the event and four Romanian choreographers’ shows.
For the underground offer we looked for central locations, clubs. Besides the music everybody knows, we also have painting exhibitions, photo exhibitions and film projections (taken with the help of the phone and then edited, exactly as in the underground culture). There are, at a given moment, projections during the concerts, projections related to the respective plays, similarly to a television clip in real time. The concerts are in Karlsplatz and in Fluc Club, next to the famous Prater Park, where many such singers hold their shows.

And now, the most important thing in my opinion, - the presentation of the economic events, for which I give the floor to Mrs. Seiciu.

Mrs. Dana Seiciu, the organizing manager of SAMPLING BUCHAREST, spoke about the economic events taking place in Vienna

Good afternoon,
In Vienna, the representative cake is the apple strudel in vanilla sauce. All along our collaboration with the municipality I always said that this beautiful and tasty part of the cultural offer must have an important piece, “the apple strudel”.

As a consequence, together with the colleagues from The Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Bucharest City, we arranged, on the 15th of May, an international forum conference, called Bucharest, the international metropolis – Investment opportunities in Bucharest City 2007, which is meant to be the second edition of the same event organized together with the Municipality two years ago, in 2005, at World Trade Center.
Through the agency of such conference, we wish to send the message of the Romanian economy and of the Romanian business environment – that things go in an absolutely normal direction. In a culturally well-defined space the economy is developing, “feeding” at its turn the culture.
We expect the participation of 300 Austrian businessmen. We hope to be accompanied by an impressive delegation of Romanian businessmen, from the fields related to the public – private partnerships, in which Bucharest Municipality want to get more and more involved in the next stage. The most impressive part of this forum will be Bucharest Municipality’s collaboration offer, its plans for the development of the city, the opportunities that might be of interest for the Austrian businessmen’s investments.

The last part of the event, May 23 – 26, is dedicated to the participation of Bucharest City – for the first time with its own pavilion – in one of the most important real estate conference and exhibition, Real Vienna. The Municipality disposes of a location of 120sqm, where, together with a series of companies in the field of the real estate development, wishes to present, including in a graphic form, the real estate development intentions.

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