Bitef was opened by director Milo Rau. His speech was anything but polite and empty-celebratory. Milo Rau put the situation in our society (the conflict between citizens and the multinational company Rio Tinto) in the context of the global struggle for the right of citizens to live freely in their space in a clean and unpolluted environment. This speech is important for at least two reasons. The first is that an influential European artist recognized and supported the struggle of our citizens. Second, he showed that politicians who work in favor of large corporations are not representatives of European values, even though they present themselves as such here. Of course, one should not harbor the illusion that this speech will change God-knows-what, but one should have faith in people and the theater. Those hopes were awakened in us by the first part of the festival where we watched a dance performance (Softening), two plays that show how institutional theaters develop contemporary theatrical tendencies (Hecuba, not Hecuba i Future) and three plays-performances-lectures (Sexual education II: bumblebee; We'll make something about the war., gender and freedom, will be called: What would Chelsea say? i This is My Truth, Tell Me Yours).
SOFTENING,
DANCE ON ENSEMBLE FROM BERLIN, PERFORMANCE IN MADLENIANUM
The festival was opened by a dance performance Softening. Dance On Ensemble is made up of dancers over the age of 40, which is the opposite of the standard dance troupe setup where the focus is on strong, young bodies. The troupe advocates the idea that contemporary dance is primarily an expression of personality, and only then a demonstration of technique. Choreographer Christos Papadopoulos asked the question of what it means to mature. The choreographer connected the concept of ripening with the concept of softening, because, for example, in nature, when fruits ripen, they soften. Does the human body "ripen" in the same way and what does the movement of a mature body look like? The choreographer examined his thesis through a minimalist approach to dance. We assume that minimalism is a good choice when working with mature dancer bodies, because minimalism can aesthetically justify the need to protect dancers from risky movements. At the same time, minimalism requires concentration, which should be a reflection of maturity. Softening is a performance that all consists of micro-movements that are performed concentratedly, systematically and in the appropriate rhythm. Through these micromovements, the dancers explored how relationships develop within the ensemble, with whom they can communicate with their gaze without betraying their form, who they can approach, and from whom and how to distance themselves. There is no direct physical contact between the dancers, but the closeness of the body, movement, gaze, music and light give us the impression of dynamic relationships between the dancers. Although the performance is minimalist in means, it is rhythmically very well thought out. During the hour of the performance, we follow the constant complication and change of the relationship between the performers. Simple and focused movements, performed precisely by the dancers, make the whole dance group look effective. At the same time, minimal differences in the way of movement leave the possibility for each performer to have a grain of individuality. The performance is not narrative, but invites the viewer to create his own interpretation of the relationship between movement, light and music.
photo: festival.bitef.rs / rsHecuba not Hecuba
HECUBA NOT HECUBA,
COMEDIES FRENCH, PERFORMANCE IN THE NATIONAL THEATER
Comedy française performed at this Bitef for the first time in Belgrade. They performed a new play that premiered on June 30 at the Avignon festival. The director and author of the text of the play, Tiago Rodrigues, is the director of the Avignon Festival. The director found inspiration for his theatrical work in the tragedies of Euripides Trojans i Hecuba. Both plays take place at the time of the complete defeat of Troy, and one of the main characters is the captured Trojan queen Hecuba, who tries to preserve the dignity and lives of her loved ones or at least give them a dignified burial. These tragedies were written at the time of the bloody Peloponnesian Wars and bear witness to the terrible and senseless suffering in the war, which especially hits the weakest - civilians, that is, women and children. An ancient Greek tragedy is set in the context of a theater rehearsal. We are witnessing the meeting of Greek tragedy and contemporary theater, which "struggles" with the demands of political correctness, strives for modern aesthetics and wants to revive on stage the values of a work written more than 2000 years ago. The third level of the play consists of the drama of the main actress who plays Hecuba in the rehearsal, and in her private life is fighting in court against the institution responsible for the care of people with disabilities, due to the abuse and neglect of her autistic son. The special value of this play is the ease and naturalness with which the actors of Comédie française, under the guidance of the director and writer, move from the Greek tragedy about the struggle of the captive Hecuba for justice and dignity, to the contemporary story of a mother's struggle for the rights of her disabled child. Watching the play we realize that these two struggles are seemingly so far apart, in fact they are very close. In both cases, it is a human struggle for the right to dignity in conditions that are inhuman. At the same time, the artists show us that a good contemporary theater still stands on what the great and eternal values of the dramatic theater were founded on in the age of the rise of ancient tragedy - the action and clear relationships between the characters that cause fear and pity and lead to the purification of such affects. The actress Elsa Lepavre who plays Hecuba and the modern mother-actress has perfect articulation and great power of transformation. When the seemingly frail blond woman screams, you feel like she could crush even the fiercest opponent to smithereens. Her fellow actors and actresses who sometimes play the Greek chorus, sometimes actors in rehearsal, sometimes actors in court proceedings, confirm the old thesis that there is no great theater without the collective and harmonious play of the acting ensemble. With the Comedie française performance, the Belgrade audience had the opportunity to see what this famous theater looks like and what it does, and how high the standards of contemporary mainstream European drama theater are. It is important that we saw it!
photo: festival.bitef.rs / rsSexuality Education II: The Struggle
SEXUAL EDUCATION II: FLIP,
production of new mail
(SLOVAK YOUTH THEATER AND MASK) LJUBLJANA AND THE TOWN OF ZENSK, PERFORMANCE IN THE BITEF THEATER
The theme of the play by director Tjaša Črnigoj is the fight for the right to abortion and contraception led by Slovenian communist women before and after the Second World War. The goal of the play is to vividly, convincingly and clearly show us the main actors of that struggle, to understand the social and political context in which the struggle took place and to understand why the abolition of the right to abortion means the abolition of a woman's right to decide about her own body. In this way, the state acquires the right to dispose of the body of its citizens and can easily force women to give birth to children who will not have a quality life, but will therefore be cheap labor or cannon fodder. The environment in which some of its segments are played was important for this performance. The first part, when the theater public is still being formed, takes place in the square in front of the Bitef theater, where everything looks a bit like some kind of political rally or demonstration, during which the actresses Sandy Bakotić and Vanda Velagić, as speakers, invite us to take part in their struggle. The second part, in which the circumstances under which illegal abortions were performed, takes place in the Bitef Theater club, where it is dark and the atmosphere is suffocating. The third part, when the main flow of the fight is explained to us and the results of the fight are indicated, takes place in the theater hall of the Bitef Theater. Actresses-lecturers-performers change their roles during the entire play-lecture: they present us with the flow of research, compare their life experiences with those of women's rights fighters and play particularly significant scenes from the lives of the main actors, reciting key lines with passion. This performance is a fine example of the complexity of acting in contemporary documentary and post-drama theater. This play draws on experiences from the entire 20th century and interweaves elements of Brechtian wonder with moments of immersion in the character. to Stanislavski. Despite all this, the actresses easily switch from one acting approach to another and act as if they are entertaining themselves and us. The significance of the play is primarily reflected in the fact that it points to the deep and permanent cultural ties of all Yugoslav peoples and warns that once acquired rights must be constantly defended and reaffirmed.
photo: festival.bitef.rs / rsWe're going to do something about war...
WE WILL DO SOMETHING ABOUT WAR, GENDER AND FREEDOM, IT WILL BE CALLED:
WHAT WOULD CHELSEA SAY TO ME
HOP PRODUCTION.LA! WHITE CITY, PERFORMANCE IN THE GALLERY OF THE CULTURAL CENTER BELGRADE
HOP.LA! is an artistic organization led by director, psychologist and professor at FDU Irena Ristić. Irena Ristić and HOP.LA! have been very important participants of Bitef polyphony, the main supporting program of Bitef, and now for the first time they are part of the main program of the festival. The immersive, documentary performance-lecture-play about the fate of the whistleblower Chelsea Manning is interesting because it puts the problem of the vulnerability of whistleblowers, which we also face here, into a wider, global context. Through the play-lecture, we follow the key moments from the life of the main actor and the results of research by Irene Ristić and Đorđe Živadinović Grgur. The two of them are also performers who constantly encourage us to test the limits of the theater. The audience was allowed to "choose" whether they wanted to participate in the reconstruction of the "case" or just watch. Those who chose to participate were allowed to touch the artifacts, drink coffee, explore the documentary material, and witness the "wrangle" of the team members. The actors force you to constantly check what is true and what is not, when something is presented and when it is real, how in life we distinguish a real situation from fiction, and how the army and prison shape the consciousness of an individual. Irena Ristić examines the dynamics of the group and uses elements of forum theater in her theatrical research, such as the "hot seat" - someone from the audience sits in a chair and tries to imagine the answers that the others ask him as if he were Chelsea Manny. The play spontaneously flowed into the round table (which normally takes place after each play and is led by Anna Pinter). When doing a "forum", it is somehow natural for the audience to take part, because those who stay until the end want to share their experiences. Oliver Frljić and Igor Injac (artistic director of Mladinski) joined the discussion. The discussion about engaged theater in the region and Europe in the context of the current political situation has developed nicely. Including the work of HOP.LA in the main program is a very good move by the selection team of the festival, because in this way they supported the independent theater scene of Serbia. When the presentation-play HOP.LA! compare it with a play of a different theme, but of a similar type (a play from Slovenia that we saw the day before in the Bitef theater), it is clear that Serbia has a relevant alternative theater scene and that we must all strive for its survival.
photo: festival.bitef.rs / rsThis is my truth, tell me yours
THIS IS MY TRUTH, TELL ME YOURS
PRODUCTION CENTER FOR DRAMA ART ZAGREB, VIA NEGATIVA AND MESTO ZENSK, PERFORMANCE IN THE BITEF THEATER
The third in the series of performances-performances-lectures, unlike the previous two, was a deep personal research of the actress Jasna Žmak presented in the form of a monodrama-performance. The actress asked herself a question about the nature of contemporary art, the relationship between men and women in contemporary art, what is honesty and authenticity on stage, and how much such honesty requires sacrifices from performers. The artist presented before us her professional path and the results of her artistic work. We listened to a story about personal choice and performance, about how and whether art can help overcome frustrations (or just increase them) and how the artist deals with the situation of a panic attack on stage. Apart from giving a nice insight into the development of theater research in Croatia, this play poses an interesting question: when a performer steps on stage, can he or she be completely personal and authentic? Even under the pretense that he or she is mentally and physically completely naked in front of us and does the most intimate things or talks the most intimately, does he or she remain "just a performer" or does he really reveal his authentic self to us? In other words, can art be free until the end and where, in that case, are the limits of performance?
About the play Future We wrote about the Belgrade Drama Theater (director Žiga Divjak) in the issue of December 20 last year. What is important to say about this play is that it is a really good representation of ours mainstream theaters in the context of this year's Bitef. She may seem a little strange in the regular repertoire because she insists that she does not deal with the issue of ecology from the point of view of numerous local problems, but approaches it globally. The approach to the theater is also unusual - theater of movement in a theater of distinct dramatic provenance. But, as we have already said, in the context of Bitef, which deals with ecology and gender roles, this play is a good choice and shows that in manistream there are Bitef performances in the theater, no matter how "rare beasts" they are in the domestic repertoire.
This year's Bitef began very dynamically from the very opening and was what we think Bitef should be - a festival that brings together creative, innovative and socially conscious artists who reflect on the relationship between theater and contemporary society and find the common denominator of our theatrical practice and what are primarily European (and then worldwide) new theater tendencies.
