02 / 06 / 2025
From Afrobanana to ABR Festival
An interview by Eleni Nearchou in Limassol Today
The well-known Afrobanana festival, this year changes its name and location, while retaining the characteristics that made it so popular with the public: Good music and an open community to all individuals. Alternative Brains Rule (ABR) Festival, as it is now called, is moving from Larnaca’s countryside to the heart of Nicosia, specifically, to the Municipal Gardens of the city.
“We have always been more than just a music festival,” Martha Georgiou and Constantinos Kyprianou say, the festival’s organisers. From multi-disciplinary interventions, to music and nature exploration for children and local street food, ABR Festival, is a multi-faceted cultural experience.
From AfroBanana to Alternative Brains Rule Festival.
What makes this edition different
from previous ones?
We’ve always been more than a music festival — and this evolution reflects that.
Music has always been a powerful hook, a way to draw people in. But what has always mattered most to us is bringing people together.Over the years, we’ve worked across disciplines to build something broader: a space for experimentation, community, and cultural imagination.
From artist-led installations in and around the Municipal Gardens, where the festival is taking place — to long-term collaborations with changemakers like OPU Collective, we’re interested in creating new visions that challenge how we experience the world around us.
This year’s edition features a series of multidisciplinary interventions throughout the Municipal Gardens. To give you a taste: Visual Voices present Peacock Hand Juicer— an interactive sculpture paying homage to Famagusta’s orange festivals.
Studio [lamarina] and Ferhat Yeşilada introduce Umbra — an immersive experience situated along a new bridge they’re creating to connect the Municipal Theatre with the Gardens.
Kyriaki Costa’s Head and Hand Series, crafted from shards of glass recovered from the Pedieos river, offers moments of quiet reflection.
And Maria Mitsi, inspired by the architectural lines of Neoptolemos Michaelides, unveils Windows to the Soul, offering a fresh perspective on the visionary architect behind the Gardens’ 1960s redesign.
Forest School returns, together with a number of exciting kids’ workshops, like Jo’s Funland, and science play with Learning Meets Creativity.
We’re also expanding the festival’s footprint beyond four days, with a series of Jack on Tour events hosted by some of our favourite spots around the island.
Our broader vision is also reflected in the music. We bring you our Best Of — a series of open-air performances in Lefkosia’s Municipal Gardens, celebrating the sounds that shaped us while also venturing into new sonic territory.
At the same time, electronic music takes centre stage at the Municipal Theatre with 1984–NOW, a retrospective on the history of electronic music in Cyprus.
We honour the pioneers of the scene in an opening awards ceremony, and showcase its evolution and future across five showcases, each curated by leading players from the local scene: ABR, Sousami, Alex Tomb, Barking Cats Radio, Honest Electronics.
Handing over curatorial agency to the community has activated new voices. Co-creation has always been part of our DNA — and this year, we’re looking to honour and deepen that practice.
Never before have we had so many voices across so many disciplines shaping the festival.
So, this edition isn’t about one style or genre — it’s about offering a different kind of cultural experience. A lens that helps us see the world in a new light. A chance to gather around a long table feast, dance under the trees, and celebrate what connects us.
It also marks the beginning of a new rhythm — our transition to a biennale format. More time to ferment ideas, collaborate meaningfully, and celebrate with a bang every two years.
WE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN MORE THAN A MUSIC FESTIVAL
What does the move from Larnaca’s
countryside to the centre of Nicosia signify?
This is the first time ever that the festival takes place in the heart of the city — and it’s a big step.
Nicosia isn’t just the setting; it’s the subject, as we invite people to imagine it differently. This relocation marks a deliberate move towards accessibility, visibility and community engagement, opening up new possibilities for us to entangle ourselves in daily life, bring new energy to public spaces, and create meaningful connections between culture, community, and the city itself.
We’re approaching our sites not just as venues, but as creative platforms — where multiple activities and artistic interventions unfold simultaneously.
The Municipal Gardens, for example, will host a Τραπέζωμα (or long table feast), open-air performances, workshops and art installations — transforming a familiar place into something unexpected.
Meanwhile, electronic music takes centre stage at the Municipal Theatre, placing a genre that’s long lived in the underground right at the cultural core of the city.And we see the festival experience as beginning with the journey itself — whether it’s walking along the linear park, hopping on a bus, or joining an OPU bike bus.
It’s an open invitation to rethink how we move through the city. It’s also a chance to remember that we don’t need to leave the city find inspiration or connection. Green spaces within the city itself can become vital cultural sanctuaries — if we choose to activate them. We’re interested in blurring the lines between daily life and cultural experience — rethinking how we gather, how we connect, and urban living can really become.
How did you decide to bring
the festival to Nicosia?
We felt increasingly drawn to the city — especially after our experience with This is AfroBanana x Athens — where the urban setting revealed powerful new possibilities to inject a festival right into our everyday life.We’ve long worked with Nicosia through pop-ups, events, and collaborations, but this year marks a shift in scale and intent.
The Municipal Gardens and Theatre offer more than a backdrop — they carry history, symbolism, and potential.
Neoptolemos Michaelides’ redesign of the gardens in the 1960s gave the space structure; now we want to give it rhythm again.
And placing electronic music inside the Municipal Theatre — a genre that’s long been left out of formal cultural spaces — is a deliberate act of recognition and reinvention.
We’re not here to offer an escape.
We’re here to reimagine and revitalise the city — to bring new energy to its public spaces and celebrate summer as something shared, lived, and local.
What can we expect at ABR Festival 2025?
Beyond music, what activities await the public?
Music is still at the heart of what we do — and this year’s lineup reflects the full spectrum of what ABR stands for: bold, boundary-pushing, and a celebration of community in all its forms.
We’re honoured to welcome back BCUC — now one of the most talked-about live acts on the planet. Winners of the prestigious 2023 WOMEX Artist Award, their music fuses indigenous funk, hip hop consciousness, and punk rock fire, into an unforgettable live ritual.
We’re also thrilled to feature Luzmira Zerpa, who first appeared on our stage in 2014 with Family Atlantica.
She returns in a fresh collaboration with 10-piece rhythm powerhouse Drymbago — blending folk vocals with raw, tropical energy.
Joining them is a powerful wave of local and international acts — from the genre-warping vision of Spherical Cow, to the theatrical storytelling of Nama Dama, and the euphoric brass chaos of Netherlands-based favourites Brass Rave Unit.
Alongside the open-air programme, 1984–NOW presents a retrospective of electronic music in Cyprus — tracing its underground past and celebrating the communities, collectives, and artists shaping its future.
Curated by Honest Electronics, Alex Tomb, Sousami, and Barking Cats Radio, the programme unfolds across the Municipal Theatre and its hidden corners, featuring three nights of showcases and an opening awards ceremonyhonouring the pioneers of the scene.
But the festival doesn’t stop at the stage.