The international festival The Naked Stage has gone through many transformations and has opened up to different directions during its years of existence. However, The Naked Stage has constantly been comitted to exploring the field of artistic improvisation. At first concieved as a festival of improvisational theatre, it later embraced the wider field of performing arts and finally went beyond the boundaries of theatre to dig into the use of improvisation in various fields of art. ///The theme of this year`s festival is Open/Closed. We are thus dealing with the questions that came up as important from the perspective of the artists and other connoisseurs of improvisation. How and to what extent is it good to open up a theatre piece, a performance or an event to momentary inspiration and spontaneous happening? Why is it inevitable and good to make some decisions in advance? Is it true that to even open up the space for creative freedom, closed spaces and other clear restraints are needed first? These are the questions that this year`s Naked Stage hopes to open up. We believe it is again offering an important encouragement to explore the art of improvisation and that it will once more be a great pleasure for the audience. ///Open yourself to The Naked Stage! ///Alenka Marinič ///Festival Director