, MONZENICA AMOUR 2.0 SCREAM OF THE DEVIL CRIME AND PUNISHMENT THE RAFT OF THE MEDUSA ALL ADVENTUROUS WOMEN DO MOSTAR
6 10 16 20 26 32
MOSTAR, MON AMOUR
ZENICA 2.0
SCREAM OF THE DEVIL
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
THE RAFT OF THE MEDUSA
ALL ADVENTUROUS WOMEN DO
6
MESS Market is a production platform developed with the aim of promoting performing arts regional projects, as well as establishing regional and EU coproductions. The former Yugoslavia region is, artistically speaking, a potent territory, with more than 20 million people who cherish very similar languages and cultures. It is our goal to give authors from this region an opportunity to widen the area they work in, as well as to offer their audiences a quality and diverse theater content. The long-term goal is creating a positive atmosphere for a regional performing arts fund to be established. MESS Market provides authors with a place to meet the potential producers, but above all, it is our hope to provide them with partners who share their own vision and passion. We would like to thank all of the partners and the participants who appreciate the importance of establishing the MESS market. Welcome to the MESS Market! Nermin Hamzagić
7
MOSTAR
MON
AM 8
R,
N
MOUR Tanja Miletić-Oručević
9
MOSTAR, MON AMOUR DIRECTOR Tanja Miletić-Oručević COUNTRY Bosnia and Herzegovina TEXT BY Tanja Miletić-Oručević AUTHOR’S STATEMENT Everywhere in the world, war has a disgusting, hateful face with an ugly smile and rancid breath, but for people inside its microcosm, each particular place shows various atrocities of its profiles. People in Bosnia and Hercegovina already know one face of war – the face of the siege of Sarajevo. However, the war in Mostar had another evil face; a period of siege was followed by a period of street combat, one group of people expelling another group of people from their apartments and houses, taking possession of their property, and sending them to concentration camps. A border was established in the middle of the town, separating lovers, families, and friends. Thousands of citizens escape to other countries and the town remains without its soul, without its hundreds of years old essence. Even today, twenty years after the war, people broken by their trauma reluctantly speak in public about those events, assured by some higher spheres that their pain is an obstacle to healing of the city, so they swallow it and push it deep under their skin. But, is it true? Could the stories that hurt them, told on the scene today within an artistic space, bring more fresh air to them and their city? Would the horribly unhappy love they feel towards their town become happier with that breath of fresh air?
,
RUO PROJECT DESCRIPTION Mostar, Mon Amour, would be a documentary project which would use interviews with citizens and their co-operation in creating a story about war tragedies, about hate as a burden on their back, and about the love they still feel for their city. Although the author has excellent co-operation with theaters in Mostar, it would be important that this project is a completely independent production, perhaps in a logistic co-operation with OKC Abrašević, in order for the approach to the topic and people to be completely free of any national narration, and to try to reach a universal dimension of a story about feelings and traumas.
Because of the above mentioned methodologic neutrality, it would be ideal if the producer/s of the performance were not from Bosnia and Herzegovina (except for MESS), perhaps not even from the region of former Yugoslavia, so that the perception of war tragedies would be completely distanced from political manipulation, which prevents people from remembering and speaking, or misuses their speech and memories for political purposes. Although the potential author is from Mostar, as the title shows, she would like to deal with her
ćhometown ivečurO-and ćitepeople liM awith jnaTempathy, but also with a certain distance, as if it were Hiroshima. 10
PRELIMINARY BUDGET 50,000 EUR BIOGRAPHY Tanja Miletić-Oručević is Bosnian-Herzegovinian director of the younger middle generation. She studied directing in Cracow and Brno. She directed more than thirty performances in professional theaters in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Poland, Czech Republic, Macedonia. She received several awards for her work at local and regional festivals. Her interest mostly lies in contemporary drama, and in the last few years, she also began working on documentary plays. In the following season, she will direct at the Contemporary Theater in Wroclaw (Wroclawski teatr wspolczesny) and in Slovensko mladinsko gledališče in Ljubljana. ESTIMATED PRODUCTION DATES 2017/2018
ATSOM
OM
A
CONTACT Tanja Miletić-Oručević mail: tanja.miletic@gmail.com
11
ZENICA
12
2
A
2.0 COLLECTIVE Moving Island
13
ZENICA 2.0 COLLECTIVE Moving Island COUNTRY Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina
ZENICA
AUTHOR’S STATEMENT “Moving Island” is a young collective of 6 professional artists with different backgrounds, active in different types of art media. We strongly believe that our varied individual experiences and skills can contribute to creating a (culturally) richer and more diverse society in Bosnia and Herzegovina and abroad. Every year, we plan to realize at least two (socially engaged) artistic projects. At the end of each project, we will evaluate the process and create the preconditions for continuing the work even after its formal completion.
2
Earlier this year, we realized the first step of the project with young delinquents at the Institute for Education of Male Children and Youth (Zavod za vaspitanje muške djece i omladine), Sarajevo. After listening to our proposition and witnessing the work we do, the direction of the Institute invited us to become a part of their structure, focusing on rehabilitation. For “Moving Island”, this meant the continuation of our artistic work at the Institute through familiarizing the children and the youth with different artistic practices, environments, ideas, views... We are currently working on a project with children from “Porodica Dom”, the Centre for children without parental care in Zenica. After a constructive dialogue with the management, they warmly welcomed us to work with fourteen children in their care. –The project, for which we are submitting this application, is called “Zenica 2.0”. Through spatial intervention and documentation of ideas on film and photographs, the project aims not only to evoke awareness, but also to activate the community in becoming active participants in the creation of a better city of Zenica. Since we are realizing this project on a voluntary base, its possibilities and activities are limited. If we want to create a full production to present to an audience, we must depend on funding and subsidies. Why working with children without parental care?
“Moving Island” is dedicated to working with groups whose members have fewer opportunities to become “positive” members of a society. Studies have shown that, after leaving the centres for children without parental care, a high percentage of orphans turn to crime, prostitution, or become dependent on social welfare. Through use of artistic practices, we want to take the kids out of their usual habitat, and create an environment in which they can learn about and appreciate differences, and understand that people have unique values and see things in different ways.
We would like to add a little spark to their childhood that can help them dream, imagine, and shape their present and their future. We want to emphasize that their voices matter and that they 14
can make a change in their environment through abstract and concrete action. PROJECT DESCRIPTION The “Zenica 2.0” project is an ongoing artistic project that started in June 2016 with fourteen children of the “Porodica Dom” centre in Zenica, BiH. Guided by their imagination, we would like to explore the potential for architectural and infrastructural changes in Zenica, to create the ‘perfect’ fictional city. How different could the city look? What would you like to demolish or (re) build in the city? What about playgrounds and parks? How to deal with pollution? Where do people mostly gather, and why? If you could build one building/space that could attract people, what would it be and where would you place it?
A
2.0 Part one: After two introductory days of lectures and exchange of ideas regarding the architecture and city design, imagination and dreams, we started walking and driving through Zenica in groups. Armed with hand-held small video cameras, the kids documented their trips. At the same time, they talked about the changes they would like to see, or about the aesthetics of certain spaces or buildings. In addition to the video-walks, we asked the children to make a series of photographs of what they perceive as ‘beautiful’ and ‘ugly’ places/spaces in Zenica. During the observation of the moving and still images, we opened dialogue about the aesthetics and the function of spaces in cities. Why is something beautiful and why is something ugly? What does a certain place/space/building add to the city in terms of social, economic, and cultural context? Some of the ideas and changes in the city will become physical through creation of 3D prints and animation, maps, postcards, and so on. The first presentation of the project will be at the Juventafest inSarajevo, in September 2016. The exposition will contain a selection of photographs created by the children. The second presentation of the project will be at the Bosnian National Theater Zenica in October 2016. The exposition will contain the video works with voice-overs, 3D prints, 3D animation, a selection of photographs, maps, postcards...
Part two: In 2017, we would like to change the city not just on paper, screen, or through expositions, but also through the action of spatial intervention. At a certain amount of locations selected by the children, we will create those changes using our bodies in a choreographic and performative way. How can we change a space in a meaningful way simply through a temporary physical interaction with this space? Does memory have value in this context? How can we build or demolish a construction using our body in an imaginative way? Can we trigger the awareness of the community? The audience will be invited to join the “Moving Island” and the children on their walk through Zenica. At the selected locations, they will be asked to shape a certain formation; to observe or to participate in the interaction, through which they become active viewers of the spatial transformation.
The performers (the children, the “Moving Island” , and sometimes the audience) will act in a playful physical manner, inspired by the history, architecture, location, the surroundings, and the imagined future of the location. Simple materials will be used in some cases, such as sheets,
15
cardboard boxes, wooden planks. “Zenica 2.0” consists of two parts. This application relates to the second part. The first part is realized on a voluntary basis, with small support from the Bosnian National Theater Zenica. PRELIMINARY BUDGET 14.100 EUR
2
BIOGRAPHY Asja Krsmanović, Irma Saje, Elma Selman, Vedad Orahovac, Zulfikar Filandra, Thomas Steyaert
March/April 2016: “Whispering dreams” - theatrical workshop at the Institute for Education of Male Children and Youth in Sarajevo, with a presentation of the work. June/July 2016: “Zenica 2.0”, part 1 - creation of an “ideal” city with children from “Porodica Dom” Centre for children without parental care in Zenica, in co-operation with the Bosnian National Theater Zenica. ESTIMATED PRODUCTION DATES May-June 2017
CONTACT Thomas Steyaert mail: thom.steyaert@gmail.com
16
2.0 17
SCRE
LI 18
Andrรกs Urbรกn
EAM
OF THE
ED 19
SCREAM OF THE DEVIL DIRECTOR András Urbán COUNTRY Serbia TEXT BY András Urbán
E
Author’s statement In 2011, theater Kostolanji Deže realized the Passport trilogy project under a common name “European Passport”. The first play, the “City of demons”, deals with multicultural relations within the urban environment (Subotica), examines the possibility and reality of the life of Croats, Serbs, Hungarians, etc., in an area located at the official edge of Europe. The second project, “The devil himself” deals with the relations between the minorities and the majority within the same national origin separated by borders, examining the relations between the Hungarian minority and their country of origin. The third play aims to articulate the entirety of the attitudes of all players in the region towards Europe, starting with their desires and wishes, through their fears and prejudices, to European acceptance and rejection. The process was based on sociological research among the inhabitants of these areas in relation to those issues and the direct experience of the participants. The performance “Scream of the devil” is a project that sublimates the experiences of previous research and recent developments, that is, it takes the stage material of the previous trilogy as the basis for the performance. Theatrical and material reality of the passport trilogy is the starting point. As an author and director, I intend to continue my work, based on the above experience and stage materials, by using the new findings to realize a new play that examines the relationships, that is, the differences within the same cultural heritage and identity, i.e. within the so-called Judeo-Christian European identity from a minority position which relativizes both geographical and national affiliations, whose identity lies outside the limits of the conventional due to the awareness of its relativity and the daily questioning of oneself.
Project Description The “Scream of the devil” engages 8 actors, costume and set designer, composer, dramaturge, choreographer, and director. Therefore, Passport trilogy, as an implemented concrete stage project, is a starting point and basis of the new performance, that is, it replaces the literary or directing template that will be developed in the context of recent events, with specific reference to the conflict of cultures and political attempts to define the European cultural identity at the borders of Eastern Europe and the Western Balkans. Topoi and stereotypes appear as the starting point, regardless of whether they are found on the left or ultra-right side of the political table. Scenographic solutions are reached through interactive communication with the participants, and thus formed scenes confront the non-stage reality. The language of the performance is based on the language of physical action, i.e. it articulates its aesthetics, which is not bound to the verbal content, in terms of concrete action scene, with elements of performative 20
D
execution. In addition to the extremely visual theatrical language, which uses gestures and movement as the main tool, the play is arranged by means of intense musicalization of events on stage and the use of original music. Therefore, the play “Scream of the devil” can be labelled a theatrical-musical spectacle for tourists on the topic of an imaginary world called Europe, and for the loners who, either alone or in packs like wolves, howl in the night amongst these city walls. Preliminary budget 25-30.000 EUR Biography András Urbán was born in 1970 in Senta. As a seventeen-year-old, he created an independent theater and literary workshop where he works as an author, director, and actor. Later, he formed a theater company “AIOWA”, which treated theater as a specific, but all-artistic ideological action, renouncing the conventional dramatic and theatrical interpretation of theater. He obtained a degree in directing from the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, in the class of profs. Vlatko Gilić and Bora Drašković. He is the director of the Hungarian city theater “Kosztolányi Dezső” in Subotica, and the founder of the international theater festival Desiré Central Station. He directed around 40 plays, both in institutional and independent productions. He has directed plays in Serbia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania, and Germany. His plays are staged at regional and international festivals, and have received several awards and decorations. Urbán observes theater as an enlightened space of provocative actions, where a specific form of artistic reality is conceptualized, spoken, and organized. For him, a performance is communication and the other reality that exists for itself, but arises in respect of the relation between the performers, the performed reality, and the audience. András Urbán directs his works via interactive communication with the actor. The latest works he directed include: László Végel: Neoplanta (Novi Sad Theater, Novi Sad), Soloviev: A Short Tale of the Antichrist (Bitef Theater, Belgrade), George Orwell: Animal Farm (National Theater Ivan Zajc, Rijeka), Ildikó Lovas: Spanish Bride (Theater Kosztolányi Dezső, Subotica), Dracula (ZKM – Zagreb Youth Theater, Zagreb; Teatro due di Parma, National Theater Maribor), Sterija: The Patriots (National Theater in Belgrade), László Végel: What is Europe? (MESS, Sarajevo), Aleksandar Radulović: Butterfly (Royal Theater Zetski Dom, Cetinje) and Hungarian (Theater Kosztolányi Dezső, Subotica; Hungarian State Theater Csiky Gergely, Timisoara).
DEV Production / Theater Позориште «Kosztolányi Dezső» - Kazalište «Kosztolányi Dezső» - Kosztolányi Dezső Színház «Kosztolányi Dezső» Theater Estimated production dates May - September 2017.
CONTACT András Urbán mail: info@kosztolanyi.org
21
AN PUNISHMENT Mirjana Medojević
22
CRIME
ND
23
CRI
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT DIRECTOR Mirjana Medojević
AND PUNIS COUNTRY Slovenia
BASED ON THE TEXT BY Fjodor Mihailovič Dostojevski Dramatized by Mirjana Medojević
Translation into Slovenian Nina Rajić Kranjac, Mirjana Medojević
AUTHOR’S STATEMENT My theater work on the novel Crime and Punishment (F.M.Dostoevsky), started in 2013 when I was a sophomore at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Cetinje. My adaptation was based on the relation between Sonya Marmeladovna and Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov. The theme of unconditional love, which calls for the transformation of the main character and helps his psychological rebirth, was the hot spot around which the novel gravitated. Transforming the novel into a story of two people was what I was interested in at that time. Although, I believe that Dostoevsky was also focused on this relationship, because without Sonya’s anima it was impossible for Raskolnikov to have a new beginning.
A few years later, I began my master’s studies at the Academy of Theater, Radio, Film and Television (AGRFT) with an idea to work on a new adaptation of the novel that would include all the characters and their complex network. Many times I have witnessed how difficult it is to transform a novel to a stage adaptation that truly covers every important topic that the writer brought into focus through different characters. Very often, the rich and profound characters of Dostoevsky seem somehow dried-up when we watch them on stage. I was trying to find an innovative way to use the theater language to talk about crime, unconditional love, internal punishment, and transformation. My research for the concept of the play was very wide and went in different directions (for a long time, I was committed to the concept of working on this novel with the prisoners in Slovenia’s biggest prison, Dob). But, in the end, or should I say - at the new beginning, I realized that Dostoyevsky’s novel is about playing games, coexistence, and the interlacing of the characters – or the ideas that characters represent. Because, with Dostoevsky, it is always about big ideas, about big conflicts and desires. After these different approaches, I decided to fling myself into the novel and do something new: to mix the situations, to mix the characters, and to make a postdramatic and fresh adaptation. I think I have succeeded. Also, I will use the amazing space of the tunnel (the currently unused Ljubljana Puppet Theater space), which I am sure will support the atmosphere of the dramatic situations. What I need in order to make this work are excellent actors, because this type of text requires excellent performance skills. 24
IME At the beginning, this project was to be coproduced by the international theater ExPonto (Slovenia), but because of the death of its founder, the festival does not exist anymore. For now, the only confirmed producer is the AGRFT. I am also hoping to get some additional support from the experimental Glej Theater in Ljubljana. That support is not confirmed yet but I think that this project will do well in Glej Theater’s open competition.
D SHMEN Artists who have already signed on to the project are terrific actors Nejc Cijan Garllati, Janez Škof, and Tamara Avguštin, dramaturge Nina Rajić Kranjac, costumer Tijana Todorović, and lighting designer Mirko Radonjić. The translation into Slovenian is in progress (done by Nina Rajić Kranjac and myself). Right now, I have a very small budget which is not enough for all the needs of the production, so I hope that The Mess Market platform will recognize this opportunity to stage Dostoevsky in a new light, and that you will support us and this project. PROJECT DESCRIPTION From my perspective, there are three essential components that are important for work on a new phase of this process. These are: dramatization, authentic architecture of the space where the play will be staged, and the cast. I see these three components as the three points that, with three lines, become three points of a triangle - the basis of the future performance.
It seems that it is necessary to say something more specific about the authenticity of this dramatization of the novel. Dramatization included thirteen characters: Raskolnikov, Sonya Marmeladovna, Svidrigailov, Razumihin, mother, father, Dunya – sister, Alonya Ivanova, Lizaveta, Porfiry, Marmeladov, Katerina Ivanovna, and Luzin. Three actors will be performing all thirteen characters. This conceptually originates from the nest of Dostoevsky’s polyphony. Polyphony is a term that M.Bakhtin introduced in the analysis of Dostoevsky. Without wishing to go into any type of recounting of his study, which I find more than theoretical and very fruitful for certain aspect of a director’s work, the fact is that Bakhtin stands out in the constellation of many analyses of Dostoevsky. Polyphony as an ambiguity, a mixture of radically opposed ideas in the same character, and co-existence of all the characters at the same time certainly constitutes the basis of theatrical reading of Dostoevsky. And it seems to me that in polyphony lies an essentially theatrical impulse to the work on any novel written by Dostoevsky. Without pretensions, I want to complement Bakhtin’s reading with an insight that conditioned my division of acting roles and choice of actors. In a certain way, all male voices from the novel merge into a single one, but their essential characteristic is the archetypal gender identity. The same is true for female parts. This means that characters and roles can be mixed, but mixing genders is not allowed. Dostoevsky has very clear ideas of male vs female souls and ideologies.
Thus, in a sense, I’ve found the starting point: all male characters are played by an actor, all female characters by an actress... All except one – Raskolnikov. He has a specific position of an outsider, someone who perceives that he is lonely (through others’ wishes) and lonesome (through his own choice). This is the main motive for assigning the role of Raskolnikov to another actor who plays only that role. This does not mean that he is a unique personality; as if Dostoevsky’s figures can ever be unique and whole?!It seems to me that, in this dramatization, we will deal with a certain ideas, very radical ideas, emotions, and passions, but not with real people. A speck of their individual peculiarities and positions lies within each and every one of us, as an universal archetype.
25
CRIM
AN It is important to explain the fact that the themes that Dostoevsky predominantly concerned himself with are primarily staged between three characters: Svidrigaylov, Raskolnikov, and Sonya. Svidrigajlov-Raskolnikov relationship is essential for dealing with the topic of crime. As if therein lies the major conflict. However, this does not diminish the importance of other relationships in this novel. It only means that the intention of the writer is to deal with the dominant theme of the crime. Coupled with the “punishment” mentioned in the title of the novel, it indicates another important axis from which the writer draws the topic of punishment or retribution. In case of Svidrigaylov, it’s death, in Raskolnikov’s case it’s the beginning of transformation and rebirth. Therefore, Sonya MArmeladovna emerges as an essential characher for the second topic Dostoyevski puts in focus. For us, it is the relationship between Sonya and Raskolnikov. Hence, the montage of other scenes and characters in this dramatization is built around those characters. Three important topics from the prologue are also built around Raskolnikov, Svidrigaylov, and Sonya. Dramatization ends with the untangling of their relationships. As I mentioned before, in addition to dramatization, space is a very important starting point in this phase of the process. I chose the space that is very authentic, has its own memory, patina of the years past, poor natural light, and is an architectural oddity as it forks into two branches. The tunnel, the specificity of which can only partially be gleamed from the photographs, strongly invokes the atmosphere of Sonya’s room in which she receives her customers. It is predominantly Sonya’s space, even though vastly different situations are staged within it.- In symbolic and even realistic terms, a dark, cold, and dank tunnel that splits into two branches brings forth the story of a man in schism, schism of the human soul, the rift between the anima and animus.
Finally, the third element that will determine the basic quality of this performance is the cast. I will not talk at this time about their individual acting qualities and performative abilities, but I intuitively knew that proper casting was essential for this play and that certain mistakes that could have been made during the selection would have not been able to be fixed at a later point. Without too much mystification or fatalism: it seems to me that there are actors who, despite their great professionalism, are too “narrow” to deal with the roles that Dostoyevsky writes. In this case, this crucial precondition of being versatile is particularly acute, given that three actors will play the role of thirteen. Therefore, it is very important for me to have such a good cast. PRELIMINARY BUDGET 6,770 EUR AVAILABLE FUNDS 3000,00 EUR
BIOGRAPHY Mirjana Medojević was born in 1990, in Montenegro. She obtained her bachelor’s degree from the Faculty of Political Sciences in Podgorica, and she completed her studies in theater directing from the Faculty of Drama arts in Cetinje. She directed the performances: “Changing the Outfit” by Ljubomir Đurković, “Diary of a Madman”, written by N.V. Gogol, and “The Cage”. She also wrote two plays: “Son” and “The Cage“, both awarded. 26
ME
ND During her studies she worked as an assistant director in several productions. She also published a few interviews in the weekly magazine “Monitor”. She did an internship at the “Royal theater Zetski dom” in 2015, when she also started her master’s studies in Ljubljana. She speaks English and Slovenian language, and is also conversational in Russian and Italian. PRODUCTION COMPANY / Theater Academy of Theater, Radio, Film and Television, Ljubljana ESTIMATED PRODUCTION DATES Premiere 13. january 2017. Ljubljana
PUNISHMENT
KONTAKT Mirjana Medojević mail: mirjana.medojevic@yahoo.com
27
T RAFT
O
MED
28
THE
OF THE
DUSA Oliver Frljić
29
T RAFT THE RAFT OF THE MEDUSA DIRECTOR Oliver Frljić COUNTRY Croatia
TEXT BY Oliver Frljić
AUTHOR’S STATEMENT In 2019 it will be 200 years since the French painter Théodore Géricault presented his masterpiece “The Raft of the Medusa” at the Paris Salon. Inspired by an actual event which caused a great scandal in the French society – the shipwreck of a French frigate Medusa on July 2nd, 1816 – Géricault shocked both the Paris audience and critics. However, he has shown that art shouldn’t hide from political engagement and current events. The theme which Géricault chose became a national scandal when it was found out that the captain of the frigate gained his position due to the monarchist sympathies towards the king, and not because of his competences.
At the time when countless Medusa’s rafts are sailing through the Mediterranean Sea and Europe is closing its doors to the inhabitants of its former colonies, Géricault’s masterpiece opens itself up to new interpretations. Europe’s heartlessness mirrors itself in it – in a sinking world, as in the case of the wreck of Costa Concordia, Europe becomes the captain who was the first to abandon the premise of European humanism. But if you escape like that, you can’t get far – one can only reach the cannibalism in which we survive by eating the ones that died before us.
O
MED
“The Raft of the Medusa” painting becomes interesting as a platform for analysing postcolonial situation created by Europe. On the top of the pyramid, which is formed by castaways who are waving to the ship barely seen on the horizon, stands a black person – a colonial subject who represents the new social power which will be ready to disintegrate the old social standards and become the articulating voice of the new social relations. But Géricault leaves little room for optimism – opposite the diagonal formed by the castaways’ hands outstretched towards the ship on the distant horizon, there’s another diagonal – the one formed by the sail which is pulling the raft of the Medusa towards the rising, threatening wave. The pyramid of human bodies from which the new idea is rising is repeated in one more painting from the French romanticism– the one from Eugène Delacroix, who also served as a model for “The Raft of the Medusa”. This is Delacroix’s painting “Liberty Leading the People”, which establishes continuity with its precursor. Unlike “The Raft of the Medusa”, where the old colonial subject (in whose exploitation and oppression the French society revealed itself as a rather homogenous) becomes the new social actor, “Liberty Leading the People” represents the social class subject as the carrier of the social change.
30
THE The tension between colonial and class consciousness – a certain variation which is also represented by the tension between class and national consciousness of today’s Europe – reveals the key issue of this same Europe. Since the left-wing politics abandoned the working class as the “losers” of globalization, it began articulating itself through identity platforms of the extreme right, becoming the standard-bearer of anti-immigration politics. It is precisely this paradox found in the narrative represented by the juxtaposition of Géricault and Delacroix painting – class revolution doesn’t recognize colonial subject as a carrier of the social change – which today grows into an open antagonism of the European working class towards the immigrants. Instead of attacking the economic system which exploits them, working class is more prone to attacking the ones who are also the victims of the same system and its inherent violence. PROJECT DESCRIPTION Gèricault’s “The Raft of the Medusa” and Delacroix’s “Liberty Leading the People” will serve as the main reference points of this project, as will the various relations that appear in the tension between their content and formal plan. These two images can be viewed as two chapters of the withdrawal of the universal emancipation and its particularization, the epilogue of which represents the European working class as the bearer of the anti-immigrant policy and the legitimacy of the extreme right.
Although it takes two works of art as the starting point, their original context will be expanded to other texts that talk about the complex problem of emancipation, which easily becomes a new form of ideological colonialism. In this context, the “Der Auftrag” by Heiner Mueller imposes itself by asking the question of conflicting interpretations of class revolution in the colonial context. French planters in Haiti welcomed the French bourgeois revolution because they viewed it as an opportunity to gain independence from France, which would allow them to take control of the country and create trade rules that provide them with even higher profits and power. The Haitian Revolution was a test of the French Revolution ideology, because it raised the issue of slave ownership and forced the leaders in France to understand its full implications.
OF THE
DUSA Another text, which produces a variety of semantic correlations in this context (Géricault - Delacroix - Mueller) and which will be used is the famous Saint-Just’s monologue at the end of the second act of “Danton’s death”. Saint-Just’s words, “There seem to be in this assembly some delicate ears which cannot stand-the sound of the word ‘blood’. A few general observations should convince them that we are not more cruel than nature or the times. Nature obeys her laws calmly and inexorably. Man is destroyed wherever he comes in conflict with her. A variation in the chemical composition of the air, an outbreak of subterranean fire, a change of balance in a body of water, and an epidemic, a volcanic eruption, and flood swallow up thousands. What is the result? A minor, scarcely perceptible alteration of physical nature which would have passed without a trace had it not left corpses in its wake”, vary the content of Gericault’s image with a new social actor, a colonial subject as a metaphor for a possible change of social relations, realizes his equality in a collective death together with those whose own skin color provided them with different social privileges and set them on the position of their social antagonists. As in the inspired comparison from Saint-Just’s monologue, death is caused by nature, but without any ethical connotations that the same number of deaths would produce as a result of the revolutionary-emancipatory ideology.
31
The third text that will be used represents a certain synthesis of the previously listed sources to be used in working on this play. It is an episode from the novel “Aesthetics of Resistance”, by German author Peter Weiss, who uses the aforementioned works by Gericault and Delacroix as references. In this example, Weiss builds an analysis of cultural hegemony - the way certain social class produces a specific type of consensus, representing their particular interests as the general interests of society as a whole.
T RAFT The combination of art works and text templates aims to examine the still prevailing logocentric character of the Western European theater in which, despite the fact that we live in a world dominated by visual information, the speech is still seen as the primary generator and transmitter of meaning. The focus of the formal research in this project is a new visuality of theater art - one that is born in the tension between the depletion of theater-image and the inflation of the new theater verbalism. One of the important features of theater-image and its most important representatives (Robert Wilson, Achim Freyer, Jan Fabre...) is the intentional autodepolitisation. In the words of Ivica Buljan: “Theater-image shows the movement, the development of the world and reality, or represents individually important images with live performers, regardless of verbal, intellectual, and discourse analysis”. Wilson or Fabre do not ask questions about the truth or plausibility. Their plays show no compassion, violence, or purification of the viewer of fear or responsibility. Nothing is morally questionable. The protagonists are not changing the society, they are never given useful information, nor do they give it. In contrast, the politics of the new theater verbalism appears on the content level, but becomes apolitical through prioritizing speech and mimetics as representational modes. In the midst of the ongoing tension, is it possible to find theatrical language that will not give up on changing the society? PRELIMINARY BUDGET 79.000 EUR
PRODUCTION COMPANY / THEATER Mladinsko Theater (Slovensko mladinsko gledališče, Slovenia) in coproduction with Teatar &TD (Croatia)
MED
ESTIMATED PRODUCTION DATES March 2019
CONTACT Barbara Babačić mail: bbacic@gmail.com
32
O
BIOGRAPHY Oliver Frljić is born in Bosnia-Herzegovina (Travnik) in 1976. At the age of 16 he left his family after the outbreak of war and expatriated to Zagreb. He studied philosophy, religions and finally theater direction at the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. Today, he lives and works in Zagreb as a director, author, and theorist.
THE Oliver Frljić is known for his critical view of social conditions in the new countries of the former Yugoslavia. His career began in 1995 with the foundation of Le Cheval Theater, followed by works at the Teatar &TD, Zagreb Youth Theater, and the National Theatre Ivan Zajc in Rijeka. In the following years, he became one of the most important theater-makers in his country. His performances “Turbofolk” (2008), “Preklet naj bo izdajalec svoje domovine” (Damned be the traitor of his homeland!) (2010), “Zoran Đindić” (2012) succeeded. The autobiographical theater project “Mrzim istinu! / I hate the truth!” is one of the outstanding performances by Oliver Frljić that won him several awards. From 2014 to 2016, he was the director of the Croatian National Theater Ivan Zajc in Rijeka and caused quite a stir with his work. In “Aleksandra Zec”, for example, he thematised the quickly repressed war-crimes in post-Yugoslavian Croatia; for this and similar projects he was confronted by death threats and attacks in his country. In Germanspeaking countries, he is known through productions such as “Where Do You Go To, My Lovely ...?” at the Schauspielhaus Graz (2013), “Black Box Schule - They Expect You to Pick a Career” at the Schauspielhaus Düsseldorf (2013), and “Balkan macht frei” at the Residenztheater Munich (2015).
His latest performance “Naše nasilje i vaše nasilje / Our Violence and Your Violence” commissioned and produced by HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin Co-production Wiener Festwochen, and several other theaters and festivals - premiered in May 2016 at the Wiener Festwochen. His theater work was represented several times at various theater festivals, including the Heidelberger Stücke Markt, the MESS in Sarajevo, the Theater Biennial “New Plays from Europe” Wiesbaden, the BITEF Festival in Belgrade, and the prestigious Sterijino Pozorje in Novi Sad. In the season 2016/2017, he will stage plays at the National Theater Mannheim, the Dresden State Theater, and at the Residenztheater Munich.
OF THE
DUSA
On March 14, 2016 at the media conference held in Mimara Museum, Steve Green, the president of the Commission of independent experts for the election of the Croatian European Capital of Culture for 2020, announced the Commission’s decision to award the title of European Capital of Culture to Rijeka. Rijeka won this prestigious title with the programme Port of Diversity, which aims to create a city of culture and creativity for Europe and the future. Oliver Frljić is a part of the concept committee and its artistic coordinator.
33
ALL
A
WOM
34
L
Tanja Å ljivar
ADVENTUROUS
MEN DO
35
ALL ALL ADVENTUROUS WOMEN DO
WO EN * Play
TEXT AUTHOR Tanja Šljivar
COUNTRY Bosnia and Herzegovina
Translation into English Željko Maksimović, Cory Tamler Translation into German Mascha Dabić
AUTHOR’S STATEMENT A year and a half ago, a piece of news was published about the state of reproductive health of the youth in a Bosnian daily newspaper. In it, as an example of the bad, uneducated, and unguided sexual behaviour of the teens, a gynaecologist mentioned a recent case of seven thirteen-yearold girls who all got pregnant during a short school trip. This news escalated into a scandal, resulting in the international media such as Deutsche Welle reporting on the case, but for me, most notable were the comments of the readers published on the internet. It was the comments by female readers such as “WTF? Parents were not informed?? Well, how did they manage to make their own children then? The parents are definitely to blame. I don’t understand the youth nowadays. When I was 13, my priorities were school, walks with my friends, and I have seen sex only on TV. Do these kids have any brain in their skulls??? “, and by male readers, such as “These little whores should learn how to stop spreading their legs” that made me understand that the girls in this case were regarded and blamed as a collective, together with their whole families, and that the boys were still regarded as individuals, even though obviously also took part in the event, and were left out of the whole discourse. The title of the play is a quote from the popular HBO series “Girls” created by Lena Dunham, and refers to a comment of one female friend in her twenties to another after the results of medical tests showed that she is infected with HPV.
In a performance with an all-female cast, I tried to give a voice to the girls who do not have a voice in the BiH public sphere, I tried to give a voice to girls from small Bosnian towns, to the voiceless, invisible, non-represented, neglected girls who communicate only among themselves through video blogs, Facebook, Skype, and Instagram. Boys, teachers, parents, and medical workers only sporadically appear in the play, with short written online notices, or short offensive and uninterested sentences aimed at the girls. Characterization of the girls evidently that of a group, not of individuals, since the repressive chauvinist practices are imposed on them as a group and not as individuals, and sometimes their quick dialogues work more like a choral parts. Similarity of their names also points towards their portrayal as a group, as a choir. For a long time, I have been fascinated with the way in which teenage girls in Bosnia talk to each other, and I have explored their speech further in the play “All Adventurous Women Do”. This speech is modelled through several points of influence - street language of the young, internet slang, 36
L
and the speech manner of their mothers and aunts. This produces a strange effect, like talking about Miley Cyrus or Taylor Swift using the language partly appropriated from the middle-aged unemployed, uneducated women, and partly from the male chauvinist discourse of the street. I tried to make the realism of the speech of a teenage girl gradually change into stylized speech, which is partly influenced by the critical theory discourse, to which they have most probably never been exposed, and partly by all other speech regimes they are constantly surrounded by. Their speech is shocking in its speed and topics, and its apparent sadness. Their monologues are partly repetitive, but also different in content and general tone, depending on the girl speaking the words. Some girls are thrilled and excited by the events they are describing, some are more disturbed, and the unreliability of their memories on the whole is obvious. Multiple ideas are expressed by the girls, such as the possibilities of collective raising of the babies, living in communities, even male pregnancies and lactation, etc. These girls have obviously been victims of the patriarchy, but they do not have the language to talk about that, therefore they continue to talk about American pop stars and Bosnian turbo folk stars even after what happened to them. The very ending had to be emancipatory and liberating in the play, although it has most probably not been so in real life. In the last scene of the play, all girls are gathered in one of the girly rooms – they lay on each other’s empty stomachs and pretend the outside world does not exist. On a similar case of collective teenage pregnancies in Massachusetts, Nina Power wrote: “It is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the death of the nuclear family.” With this play, I wanted to imagine, investigate, and reimagine what happens when a group of teenage girls decides to break the rules, to rewrite the patriarchy’s concepts of family, to have sex, get pregnant, get abortions, and get severely punished by the society for doing it all, and for them to, essentially, not care the least about that punishment or exclusion. My aim was to write a full-length play that would primarily speak of the social problem of misogyny that keeps resisting all historical and geographical boundaries thus far, and I believe that it can resonate with many different theatrical and social contexts outside of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
OMN PROJECT DESCRIPTION The starting point for the text “All Adventurous Women Do” is a true (?) event, about which several reports were published at the end of 2014, both in the Bosnian and international media. It was the case of “collective pregnancies” of seven Bosnian teenagers, during a short school trip. Seven thirteen-year-old girls, seven scenes, and seven monologues sketch a formal and thematic frame of the play, in which the unreliability of memory and girl’s testimonies are the only constant. Pregnancy test, Skype, Instagram, Serbian turbo-folk and American pop, their grandmothers, critical theory, chauvinist pornography, patriarchal muck of small towns, abortions, and devouring meat are some of the thematic cores of the text.
“All Adventurous Women Do” is a play about the necessity to go elsewhere in order to fully realize one’s own sexuality, about the necessity to go elsewhere in order to make decisions regarding one’s own body, about the necessity to go elsewhere in order to make decisions regarding one’s own life. In the play, in terms of language, I wanted to imagine and explore what happens when a group of teenage girls decides to change the patriarchal concept of the nuclear family, have sex, get pregnant, have abortions and, on the basis of it all, become excluded from the society. These girls do not really care, because, they had never belonged to that society in the first place. Seven girls want to tell us everything through seven monologues, except for how they got pregnant during the school trip, actually.
37
Note: The text is partly written during residential stays at IHAG in Graz and Museumsquartier 21 in Vienna, in the period of October 2015-January 2016 The play has been shortlisted for the Retzhoferdramapreis award, which will be given in the spring 2017 in Austria. BIOGRAPHY Tanja Šljivar was born in Banjaluka, SFR Yugoslavia in 1988. She holds both BA and MA degree in dramaturgy from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, Serbia. She wrote full length plays “How much for Paté?”, “Scratching or How my Grandmother Killed Herself”, “We are the Ones Our Parents Warned Us About”, “But the City has protected me”, “All Adventurous Women Do”, and a short play “Stillborn”, which were published in theater magazines and various anthologies, and were publicly read and performed in professional theaters in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, Spain, Poland, Austria, and Germany. She also writes short stories, radio plays, screenplays for short films and texts on theater theory. She won several awards for her playwriting in Bosnia and Serbia, most recently the prestigious Sterija award for the best contemporary play in Serbia. And her plays have been translated into some 10 languages. She has been a guest of writing residencies IHAG in Graz, and Museums Quartier 21 in Vienna, and she is currently attending an MA course in Appied theater science in Giessen, Germany.
ADV ENT URO CONTACT Tanja Šljivar mail: tanjasljivar13@gmail.com
38
EXCERPT FROM THE PLAY ALL ADVENTUROUS WOMEN DO a play about a small-town attempt for big-world freedom The names of the girls and the names of the scenes are identical; each girl has a scene with her name: Ana, Ena, Ina, Ona, Una, Lea, Mia,
13 13 13 13 13 13 13
There are no boys in the play, or parents, or teachers, or health workers, except where dialogues with them are written out. The play consists of monologues spoken by girls, except where dialogue and stage directions are written out. The truth about the case, which Mr. N.B., the National Coordinator for Reproductive Health of the Republic of Srpska, appropriately summarized in the sentence: We had a case in which secondary school students from a small town went on a school trip which lasted about five days, and when they returned, after some time it became apparent that seven of the female students had gotten pregnant during the trip is not contained in this play and no one should expect to find it here. ( ) – denotes dialogue which, in most cases, is simply a repetition of information already incorporated into the monologues themselves; however, since idle girly conversation is probably more interesting to stage than a bunch of dense monologues, I use this symbol to mark places where the adventurous director might exercise this option. Text in italics denotes a stage direction. The number of performers reading/performing the text onstage can vary from one to indefinite, depending on the concept of the performance. The story takes place here and now, in the theater, in the full warm mouths of seven girls, as well as in seven girls’ full warm wombs. 39
All the girls are on stage the entire time. They have round bellies and round heads and eyes and mouths. They caress their bellies and sigh, like pregnant women do. They caress their bellies although they’ve already given birth. They caress their bellies although they’ve already had abortions. They caress their bellies although they have never been pregnant. They interrupt each other if the sign () suggests it, they giggle, they listen to Rihanna and Taylor and Marina and the Diamonds. They wear long black dresses, like in Greek tragedies, they weave each other’s long hair into braids, they put on make-up, they put cucumber slices on their eyes, they snort meth if there is any - in short, they’re being young girls. SCENE THREE – INA INA: #bosnianteen#bosniangirlsdoitbetter#fun#grandma#morning #morningsickness#pregnant I take a selfie with Grandma beside me in bed, I’m wearing a white tank top, Grandma is still asleep in a pink nightie, you can only see one of her eyes, but you can see both of mine, my pouty lips too of course, I post it to our Facebook group bulimics, I can’t wait to see what each of them threw up this morning. We’re not really bulimics like the losers from class 6-C, we’re just having a hell of a good time, and we’re also pregnant so we have morning sickness and all that goes along with that, in the correct order, of course. Ana threw up a hot dog. She posts a photo. I quickly type: it looks like cock hahaha. Lea responds: sometimes I feel like throwing up when he shoves it in too deep lmaooooooooo. She threw up corn flakes and milk but it’s because of the cream that floats on top of warm unpasteurized milk fresh out of the cow, not because she wants to be skinny or cos she’s pregnant, cos we’re still not sure if she is or isn’t. I get up, Grandma’s still snoring, I spread a thick layer of 40
ajvar on a thick slice of bread, the red peppers change color in my stomach so I throw up orange #orangeisthenewblack. Mia threw up an entire warm sandwich, but I swear you could still see all the ingredients. #bulimia#teengirl#fun#morningroutine I heat my water and I make my tea!!! I heat my water in my grandma’s pot, the red one with white dots on it, and I spill some of the hot water over my crotch for fun, I make Turkish coffee out of the remaining water for grandma and me to drink. It’s like a tattoo, it stays on the skin as a memento of a certain day, then you have to put marigold balm on it, then it heals and leaves just a small scar, and then you have to pour hot water on yourself again and then repeat it all over again. Normally it’s fruit and yoghurt!!! Normally it’s bacon, I just wouldn’t throw up bacon, or Čvarci, not a chance, can’t waste all that delicious pork fat in my puke. And of course my phone is near me. I take a photo of the bacon and send it to them. They’re typing: (ANA: yuuuuk ENA: Go fuck yourself UNA: Go back to Seljanec LEA: Are you living in the fucking middle ages or something MIA: You might be pregnant but it doesn’t mean you’re dead) #teengirl 311,284 posts I send my photo after photos of 41
casually crossed legs and a short dress a smile like hehehe I’m girly blond hair and fierce eyebrows bed in which I sleep with grandma athletic ass rammed up close to the lens pink towel rainbow bathing suit a gold chain like accidentally falling over my tits me at dinner with the old pervert the first time I tasted clams it was all at the school trip he said I wanna lick your little cunt and suck all of its juices like I’m sucking the meat out of this clam I threw up cos of the clams not cos of what he said, they’re disgusting pepsi cola colorful sports top animal print soft dick resting on a hairy belly that post has 0 likes we’ve all seen it but I wouldn’t like it even if it was erect, not a chance toilet selfie adidas top bare ass with cellulite
42
nose piercing girls send me nudes I am horny af high heel shoes with laces from toes to ankles The problem is the girl thinks he will change he won’t. When I posted the photo I automatically received six likes from the six of them, Grandma woke up and was pretty out of it. She always wakes up after me and always goes directly to the river behind the house. It’s actually a creek, but Grandma can’t see a thing, she’s out of her mind, so for her it’s a river from her youth. She would like to jump in and soak the dress and the nighty underneath the dress and swim, but she can’t get rid of the feeling that the dress could pull her to the sludgy bottom filled with green algae and everything else creepy and slimy. But she can’t see in front of her; she’s looking at the horizon and the mist but she can’t discern what’s in it, is it mud, or a river, or a creek, or a mountain, like I can’t discern my past, like I don’t know if it was Andrija, or Stefan, or Marko, or Dražen, or Avdo or the religion teacher, that’s how the picture in front of Grandma isn’t clear to her, for example if she could take a photo Grandma wouldn’t know she just wouldn’t know which hashtag to use should she use #mountains #tbt or #river #creek or #current #torrent or #youth or #crazy or #crazyyouth. Grandma has a blank look and a blank brain and a blank heart and everything’s blank except for the bowels and the bladder. Then she goes back into the house, then gets back into bed, then she falls asleep again. Then I have to wake her up. Grandma started shitting her pants. They only have diapers for infants in the store, which is good for the seven of us, but bad for the old hag. I’d never put one of those on her, unless I really have to. I have to specially order old people diapers. It doesn’t disgust me to wipe her, I’d rather do it to her than to the thing growing inside me. Cos Grandma wiped me when I needed it, that’s for sure, but as for this wrinkly loaf that drinks everything from me draws everything from me all my strength and all the bacon I’ve eaten, that smokes with me when I smoke, and that fucking wakes me up when I sleep, I have no way of knowing whether it will wipe me or not when and if I need it. Everyone else would say a baby’s skin is fragrant and soft but Grandma’s skin is smelly and wrinkly, well I won’t say that, shit is shit is shit, and at least Grandma doesn’t scream and thrash around while I wipe her. 43
I pull down her white panties, Grandma always took good care of herself and wore the best Srbac underwear, underneath a few straggling hairs I see her clitoris, I’m wondering for the shortest second I’m wondering if I should touch that part she might have not touched herself that no one might have ever touched that she might not know she even has that she might touch more often that I do maybe she waits for me to fall asleep every night so she can touch it just for a second just like I wait for her to fall asleep every night I’m looking at the feathery hairs at the old goose skin and I realize I can’t that it’s hers it’s not mine although it might make her feel better. Grandma knows she’ll soon be going somewhere she knows she’s already on her way there she knows I’ll follow her in fifty years or so and that comforts her a bit she knows it isn’t better here cos Grandma wasn’t born yesterday but it’s not like it’s any better there she knows it’s not good anywhere she knows I’ll lie next to her tonight that she’ll shit her pants and her diapers while I jerk off maybe she doesn’t know anything maybe she’s just looking straight in front of her trying to come up with the best hashtag for the river from her youth which is actually just a sludgy slimy dried-up creek. What can I do but drink coffee alone and smoke alone and the shrunken runt smokes inside me and gets soaked with caffeine inside me, I’ll provide him with the best stuff from his fetal beginnings, he’ll be my king. I’m now in my ninth week and that’s when you can see the sprouts of feet and arms with stumps where little fingers will be. So, next week I’ll have a chemistry test and I’ll have an abortion, I’ll be in the tenth week, and that’s when the genitals begin to form, and the hands and feet continue to form, so I’ll be able to say from his beginnings and it would be somehow true. Grandma’s sitting on the straw on the floor of the henhouse the pigsty the stable cos we put everything together since Grandma and me can sleep in the same bed a chicken and a pig can sleep in the same mud. Grandma’s sitting and looking off in front of her doesn’t see me she’s sitting beside slain chickens beside slaughtered decapitated pheasants beside piggies that are still alive and are sniffing around Grandma’s belly she wasn’t capable of doing anything to them and maybe she didn’t want to. The carcasses are neatly arranged next to each other they don’t stink yet they don’t stink a bit but they smell they make you salivate pheasant soup chicken soup I want it all in the ninth week soup’s 44
the only thing that doesn’t make me puke. Grandma with a blank look and a pheasant and a chicken without a head is the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in my life it’s more beautiful than those lines on the pregnancy test. I sit next to her take a photo of it all from above I capture us all I post it straight away and the number of followers grows slowly but steadily it grows like my nails like the fetus’s nails like Grandma’s nails with every second it’s clear to people that what I’ve posted is special, that it’s today only and never again that it’s not every day that you see a trelfie of a headless pheasant and a pouty girl and a shit-covered grandma. #trelfie#hunting#grandmaisgoneabitcrazy I put her hand on my tummy I say hey you old hag you might have a great-grandkid imagine that. What did you do Grandma? I ask her. C’mon tell me what it was like when you gave birth, it was like this on the straw right? It’s not that scary, I guess? You push a bit like you’re taking a shit now you do it every day anyway several times even so what? Why did you slaughter all of this poultry Grandma are you fucking crazy Grandma what’s wrong with you what you looking at? And Grandma doesn’t say a thing to that. [...] SCENE SEVEN - MIA The girls are lying on top of one another, on their empty and barren bellies, cramped like seven fetuses. Each round girlish head is atop one flat girlish belly, on the bellybutton, on those sources of life that for just a short time were connected to the promise of new worlds and new lives. Now and then, they stroke one another’s long hair. Now and then, they speak to one another. After this scene there is nothing more; after this scene there is no future. MIA: The seven of us are lying on my bed in my room, pressed to each other, now and then one of us rolls onto the floor, now and then one of us sits on the rocking chair, now and then Ina goes to the computer to play something else, because YouTube autoplay is so 45
basic, even YouTube isn’t flawless, even YouTube sometimes fucks up and plays Usher circa 2003, fuck our lives. Our seven bellies were time bombs of the future for our dump of a town and for our tiny state and for our parents and for our teachers and for ourselves. Our seven bellies were supposed to give birth to the future, supposed to bring sweet, chubbycheeked children for us to swaddle and lift up and lower and weigh, and in our seven bellies had rested seven copies of a thing that has direct access to wholeness perfection the future, a thing that would bring smiles back to our faces, but somehow we were not in the mood to smile. We have let the air out of our bellies, we have aborted, we have aborted them all, the National Coordinator for Reproductive Health said we all had to cancel our pregnancies, because it was essential for the preservation of our health and would protect us from complications. Everyone is outside, our whole po-dunk town, we’re the only ones who are inside, in the room, on the bed. The walls separate us, and the posters stuck to the walls separate us. Now everyone in our town is staring at the horizon, in the hope that something might reveal itself to them there, but they can no longer see the outlines of their own bodies there. All of them outside, the whole fucking dump, eighteen thousand seven hundred and thirteen inhabitants, are holding lit cigarettes in their right hands and cellphones in their left hands, and they’re taking pictures of the fog on the horizon and wondering where the future is now, and all the while they know that they themselves are the ones who forced us to kill the future. Everybody’s outside, only we seven are inside. In my room, time stands still forever, because the future no longer exists, because we killed it, seven times. We can finally see our own outlines clearly, and I can see Lea’s piercing and the hole that Ona made for her, Lea sees Una’s bellybutton, Una sees Ona’s hairless stomach, Ona sees Ina’s water-puffed stomach, Ina sees the pimples Ena has on her belly, Ena sees the pores of Ana’s belly, Ana sees a few of my little hairs I didn’t get around to plucking. Our bellies are flat, but not dried up like a grandma’s; rather, they are flexed and firm, nothing has happened to us, nothing has ever happened to us in our small town. *English by: Željko Maksimović and Cory Tamler
46
47
OME
ADVENTUROUS
LL
GENERAL SPONSOR
48
FINANCED BY
49
SUPPORTED BY
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Hungary
АМБАСАДА НА РЕПУБЛИКА МАКЕДОНИЈА AMBASADA REPUBLIKE MAKEDONIJE EMBASSY OF THE REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA САРАЕВО – SARAJEVO
50
OFFICIAL VEHICLE FESTIVAL
OFFICIAL DRINK FESTIVAL
SPONSORS AND FRIENDS OF THE FESTIVAL
51
SPONSORS AND FRIENDS OF THE FESTIVAL
52
GENERAL MEDIA SPONSOR
MEDIA PARTNERS
53
CO-ORGANIZERS
g a l e r i j a
54
DIRECTOR: Nihad Kreševljaković ARTISTIC DIRECTOR: Selma Spahić MESS MARKET ARTISTIC DIRECTOR: Nermin Hamzagić EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Dino Mustafić FESTIVAL PROGRAMMERS: Giorgio Ursini Uršić Dino Mustafić Selma Spahić MESS MARKET jury members: Dubravka Vrgoč Dino Mustafić Giorgio Ursini DIRECTORATE: Naida Đugumović Dajana Gurda Nermin Hamzagić Lejla Hasanbegović Ira Isović Oliver Jović Belma Jusufović Jasmina Koluh Nihad Kreševljaković Mirna Ler Aida Mujković Dino Mustafić Bojan Mustur Dragana Radulović Zana Rapa Ismar Salimović Selma Spahić Mirsada Škrijelj PUBLIC RELATIONS: Una Bejtović Emir Muhamedagić Benjamin Bajramović Rasim Pavica Jasmina Đikoli
56
PHOTOGRAPHERS: Velija Hasanbegović Nikola Blagojević Video: Spektroom EDITOR: Belma Jusufović TRANSLATION AND proofreading: D. Sarzinski DESIGN AND DTP: Bojan Mustur PUBLISHER: Public Institution MES - International Theater Festival – MESS Scene FOR PUBLISHER: Nihad Kreševljaković PRINT: Unioninvestplastika COPIES: 120
57
Public Institution MES - International Theater Festival - MESS Scene MarĹĄala Tita 54/I, 71000 Sarajevo Bosnia and Herzegovina Tel: + 387 33 200 392 Fax: + 387 33 211 972 Email: mess@mess.ba www.mess.ba 58