Instead of September as before, this year's Bitef will be held from October 4 to 10, due to the availability of selected performances - explained Nikita Milivojević, artistic director and selector of Bitef.
It will be opened by Boro Drašković, theater and film director and member of the jury of the first Bitef in 1967, in the Yugoslav Drama Theater, with the acclaimed production of the German Schauspilhaus Bochum theater "Children of the Sun" by Maxim Gorky, directed by the Slovenian director Mateja Koležnik.
Tijana Grumić, co-selector (along with Ksenija Đurović) of Bitef, says that "Children of the Sun" is based on the classic work of Maxim Gorky, "about the upper class of citizens who are focused on themselves and their problems, and ignore the world that is happening around them, the ruin of that world , uprising of the proletariat, rebellion in the streets. Slovenian director Mateja Koležnik sets the action in the 1960s and builds characters in a hyper-realistic stage space in a very detailed, psychologically refined way".
In its 57th edition, under the slogan "Strongly, don't agree to be someone else's", Bitef will offer performances from Germany, Lithuania, Hungary, Sweden, Greece, Burkina Faso, Belgium and three performances from Belgrade in the main program.
For the Prologue of Bitef, a program that was part of the conception of the previous selector Ivan Medenica, she was chosen by "Divine Comedy" by Frank Kastorf and BDP. It is scheduled for October 3.
On that occasion, Nikita Milivojević reminded that "there is something that many people before us have incorporated into this festival for 57 years. Appreciating the continuity and what they have incorporated into the shaping of Bitef's identity is very important. In this sense, my gratitude goes to my colleague, the previous artistic director, Ivan Medenica, with whom we agreed to preserve one of his ideas, at least for this edition of the festival. It is a prologue that always had a connection with the previous festival. It seemed to us that, for the sake of continuity, it was important to put the play that he wanted to select at the beginning of the 57th Bitef".
In addition to "Children of the Sun", the main program also includes "Goodbye, Lindita", a play by the National Theater of Greece from Athens, based on the concept and directed by Mario Banousi; "Like all single girls" by Tanja Šljivar directed by Selma Spahić of Atelje 212: from Budapest comes "Singing Youth" by young authors Judit Berec, Bence Đerđ Palinkaš and Mate Sigeti; the opera-performance "Sun and Sea" by Rugile Barzžukaite, Vaiva Grainite and Lina Lapelita, produced by Neon Realism from Kaunas; the local play "The desire to make solid history will end in failure" by the author and choreographer Igor Koruga, produced by the Contemporary Dance Service Station; Ivana Sajko's play "#Jeanne" directed by Anja Suša, produced by Rikstheateren and Dramaten from Stockholm; and the performance "Wakat" by choreographer Coulibaly from Burkina Faso.
S.Ć./SEEcult
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