The program of the 58th Bitefa, the Belgrade International Festival, which will begin on September 25, was announced last week. Artistic director and selector Nikita Milivojević and co-selectors - executive director of Bitef Ksenija Đurović and playwright Tijana Grumić selected 10 plays from Germany, France, Switzerland, Bolivia, Brazil, Holland, Belgium, Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia.
Given that this selection team has been working since February last year, the 58th edition of Bitef will be the first that they have prepared all year and independently, and several hits of this year's program indicate their tendency to make Bitef a special and exceptional festival.
To begin with, they chose a dance performance Softening by Christos Papadopoulos performed by the Dance On Ensemble from Berlin, whose dancers are over 40 years old. The selectors announce that Softening it is not a spectacle in the literal sense of the word, which is the usual choice for the first performance, but it is - spiritual.
Ksenija Đurović says for "Vreme" that "the tendencies of the theater that is recognized as Bitef's they haven't been going in the direction of a super-spectacle for years, so we thought it was Softening a very precise dose of research in dance and tension that accompanies curiosity and desire, and with such a hypnotic effect. However, the ensemble of dancers over 40 years of age is totally punk, considering that these are typically the years when they are told they are no longer fit for work."
The title of this year's program is "Beauty (will not) save the world". Ksenija Đurović says that we don't have an answer to the "big question, what are the assumptions for and which are against that beauty will save the world, because the assumptions depend on the perspective and experience of the person asking the question." We ourselves are divided in the team - Tijana and Nikita, it seems to me, have more faith in the future and people, so their outlook is more optimistic. On the other hand, my position is more gloomy. I would say that we can only save ourselves, and as wars, hunger and capitalism are rampant, it doesn't seem to me that we care enough."
Probably the biggest hit and trump card of this year's selection is the show Hecuba not Hecuba Thiago Rodríguez performed by Comédie Française from Paris, the oldest live theater in the world, which will come to the region for the first time because of Bitef.
"Comedy française in Belgrade is a historic event in the year in which we celebrate the 100th anniversary of Mira Trailović's birth. Visiting houses of this caliber are usually arranged four years in advance, and Bitef is limited by the public sector administration, so it cannot plan in that way. This is the main stumbling block in addition to the eternal problem related to the technical capabilities of Belgrade's stages - they are simply too small for larger-scale productions," says Ksenija Đurović.
Hecuba, not Hecuba co-production of the Avignon Festival and Comédie Française, so Ksenija Đurović says that "they were very lucky," and explains that Rodrigues, the director of the play, is also the director of "Avignon from 2023, so his influence led to the tour of Southeastern Europe in general an idea. In addition to luck, we also had the help of numerous individuals and institutions - the tour model envisages a close collaboration of partners that automatically lowers the cost of transport and travel for the troupe, this allowed us to start talking about dates. The French Institute in Belgrade supported us this year as well, although in a different form, because over time the hosting got the status of a separate project due to its complexity."
On the thematic level, Bitef will deal with the questioning of the archetypes of femininity and the interpretation from new perspectives of famous heroines such as Hecuba and Antigone. What is the conclusion of those reviews?
"This year's program offers several takeaways, but what seemed more important to us were the stories and the urgency with which they were conceived and executed." The need for artists to re-investigate, re-actualize and bring Hecuba and Antigone closer to us speaks quite loudly about the position of women in the societies we live in, so Milo Rau will in the play Antigone in the Amazon to compare the agricultural country of Brazil and its defenders to Antigone through a common line of exploitation and silencing. So us Sexuality Education II: The Struggle reminds of Vida Tomšič and her tireless fight for all the women of post-war Yugoslavia, while author Tjaša Črnigoj and a fantastic team of collaborators remind us that Yugoslavia was still the first country to include abortion in the constitution as a basic human right back in 1974," says Ksenija Đurović.
The fact that Carolina Bianchi's "The Bitch Power Trilogy - Chapter I: The Bride and Goodnight, Cinderella" closing Bitef will be taking GHB on stage reminded us of the beginnings of Bitef and the performances where much of it was seen live for the first time. The performance deals with sexual violence, and GHB is the drug used by the perpetrators to abuse the victims.
Ksenija Đurović reminds that this year there are more 'first times', as well as that the conversations, "What kind of Bitef do we need?" started by asking "interlocutors about what were the moments at the festival that moved them." The answers were different, and I am very happy that I am sure that this festival will surely have the same effect".
The main program also includes three lectures-performances, which is a form that is just beginning to live on our stage, although "Anja Suša Bitef introduced it to our vocabulary in 2014, and the domestic performance Communitas on the exam Ana Vujanović and Saša Asentića was on the main program".
He explains that "it is a specific form of performance in which the authors, in the simplest terms, combine storytelling and performing elements. Lectures-performances can be very different, which the audience will be able to see in the works of Jasna Žmak and Tjaša Črnigoj, and in the theatrical screening of Đorđ Živadinović Grgur and Irena Ristić and in two parts Trilogies the excellent Caroline Bianchi."
Two plays from Serbia are also taking part in Bitef: a play by the Belgrade Drama Theater and the Municipal Theater of Ljubljana (MGL). Future Žige Divjak, and the play We are going to do something about war, gender and freedom, it will be called: What would Chelsea say to me Irene Ristić and Đorđe Živadinović Grgur.
Ksenija Đurović says that apart from these two, there were more plays that they thought about including in the main program. "But I mention it with particular regret The End of the World in Act III Selma Spahić, a co-production of Belgrade, Zagreb and Maribor, because this work conveys the life and experience of women on stage with extraordinary precision, sincerity and poignancy."
This year's Bitef lasts until October 4.
