In the case of Péter Závada, it is no cliché or exaggeration to say that he exploded on the contemporary Hungarian artistic scene like a comet. Born in 1982, he became at one stroke an icon for a sizeable group of admirers among his contemporaries. Contributing to his popularity were the nationwide success of Akkezdet Phiai, the band he founded with Márk Süveg in 1996, and his appearances at slam poetry nights. He is at the vanguard of a new generation of artists from around the turn of the millennium who take a ‘total art' approach, dismantling boundaries rather than quarantining genres.
In this spirit of freedom, those following Závada's career would also get to witness major theatrical activities evolving in his studio: as a dramaturg, song lyricist and opera librettist, he has collaborated with Chalk Circle, The Symptoms, the Mohácsi Brothers and the Katona József Theatre, among others. Nor is it any coincidence that his author's night at Müpa Budapest will primarily focus on his work as a poet. His volumes of poetry Where It Breaks (2012), Mortar (2015), and a third to be released at around the time of this event, reveal a mature and inimitable lyrical world so unique that the reader is irresistibly swept away and tossed in waves of anxiety and sin, doubt and certainty, and mourning and joy. There to ensure that there is no mercy, no cheap consolation and no resolution will be Ákos Szelevényi, the master of free jazz recently returned from France.


Presented by: Müpa Budapest