51. Beogradski internacionalni teatarski festival – BITEF Nove pozorišne tendencije EPIC TRIP / 22. septembar – 20. septembar 2017. godine

EPIC TRIP

Reč umetničkog direktora

Jedan od glavnih događaja 51. BITEFA, a izvesno njegov najveći kuriozitet, jeste gostovanje predstave Olimp proslavljenog belgijskog reditelja Jana Fabra. Ova predstava traje, bez pauza, puna 24 sata, a zasniva se na celokupnoj grčkoj mitologiji, onako kako je ona artikulisana u Homerovim epovima i tragedijama Eshila, Sofokla i Euripida. Scenski jezik ove predstave je vrlo specifičan, a mogao bi se podvesti pod najšire određenje fizičkog teatra (pre nego plesnog): grupa od tridesetak vrhunskih glumaca i plesača izvodi mnogobrojne epizode jedne telesno, pa i duhovno izuzetno zahtevne scensko-koreografske partiture, epizode koje asociraju na pradrevne rituale, savremene sportske ili vojne „vežbe“, oživljene antičke skulpture ili freske, dionizijske orgije… U pogledu osećajnosti ili spiritualnosti, ova predstava ponajpre predstavlja obnavljanje Dionisovog kulta u savremenom ključu, sa svim onim što je u njemu užasavajuće, zavodljivo, opasno, ali pre svega lepo, uzbudljivo i katarzično: kao takva, predstava Olimp je veličanstvena oda životu.

Njeno trajanje bi bilo izazov za publiku iz svih istorijskih perioda i kultura, ali je ona to pre svega za savremenog gledaoca iz zapadnog sveta, a kojeg su savremeni mediji i stil života u potrošačkom društvu u potpunosti „nabaždarili“ na vizuelne efekte, kratke formate, vrlo brz ritam, odnosno promene… U tom smislu, predstava koja traje dugo, koja traži da se prepustimo njenim ritmovima i energetskim talasima, te da se, u snažnom sadejstvu s drugim gledaocima i izvođačima, oslobodimo svakodnevnih stega, ali i onih koje nam je civilizacija vekovima nametala – takva je predstava, dakle, ubedljiva civilizacijska alternativa našem životu i svetu koje odlikuju sebičnost, površnost, užurbanost, ishitrenost… U tom specifičnom, deljenom iskustvu, u toj civilizacijskoj alternativi savremenom iskustvu, prepoznaje se društveni značaj ove predstave, odnosno njena političnost. Takvo shvatanje odgovara tvrdnji Hans-Tisa Lemana o samim izvođačkim oblicima i načinima komunikacije između gledalaca i izvođača kao specifičnoj manifestaciji političnosti, imanentnoj postdramskom teatru. Predstava dolazi na BITEF sa epitetom jednog od najznačajnijih scenskih dela ostvarenih na početku 21. veka – ugledni belgijski kritičar Fredi Dekreuz izjavio je da će se istorija pozorišta odsad deliti na period pre i posle predstave Olimp – a pre Beograda bila je, usled svoje velike organizacione i finansijske zahtevnosti, samo na nekoliko gostovanja i to u najvećim svetskim pozorišnim centrima.

Projekat Olimp odredio je obe glavne programske linije 51. BITEFA: i estetsku i tematsku/problemsku. Kao što smo prošle godine istakli, u savremenim izvođačkim praksama nije više moguće „spontano“ se odnositi prema pojmu „novog“, kao što je bilo u (modernističko) doba BITEFovog nastanka, već treba izoštriti jedan (ili više) estetskih fenomena koji danas mogu da se odrede ako ne kao „novi“, onda izvesno kao i dalje radikalni, provokativni, emancipatorski i politički, u najširem značenju te reči. Prošle godine smo, želeći da se prilagodimo velikom jubileju festivala „novih pozorišnih tendencija“, podvukli crtu i potvrdili raznovrsnost formi u savremenim izvođačkim umetnostima, što u našoj sredini još uvek nije podrazumevajuće: dramsko pozorište, savremeni ples, dokumentarno pozorište, predstave-predavanja itd. Ove godine će se, kao što smo prošle i najavili, estetski fokus izoštriti. Da bi se dotični estetski fenomen adekvatno mapirao i kontekstualizovao, i ove godine će biti organizovana teorijska debata, s tom razlikom što će u njoj, pored nekih od vodećih svetskih teatrologa (Marija Ševcova, Žorž Bani itd.), ovog puta učestvovati i umetnici.

U estetskom pogledu, 51. BITEF markira jednu od značajnih tendencija u savremenim izvođačkim umetnostima: predstave dugog trajanja („durational performances“). Pored Fabrovog scenskog spektakla, ovaj fenomen oličava i predstava Kvizula! poznate engleske trupe Forsd Enterteinment, koja će biti izvedena u danu Prologa, neposredno pre projekta Olimp, kojim će 51. BITEF biti svečano otvoren. Reč je o predstavi koja originalno traje takođe 24 sata, ali je umetničko-produkcijski tim BITEFA iskoristio mogućnost koju trupa i inače nudi: da se predstava igra u skraćenoj verziji od „svega“ šest sati (odluka je doneta zbog toga što smo procenili da bi, bez obzira na umetničku i koncepcijsku opravdanost, bilo isuviše radikalno i zahtevno da se publici ponude čak dve predstave koje traju ceo dan). Predstava je koncipirana, kao što i njen naziv sugeriše, kao jedno beskonačno kviz-takmičenje (asocijacija na film I konje ubijaju zar ne?) u kojem se nižu kraće scene sa po dvoje glumaca, koji se smenjuju i rotiraju, a u scenama se tumače izvučeni pojmovi. Izuzetna veština improvizacije engleskih glumaca, u kombinaciji s izborom samih pojmova, čini predstavu vrlo duhovitom, ali i politički krajnje osvešćenom i zaoštrenom. Stavili smo je na program za dan Prologa iz dva razloga: kao posvetu ovoj britanskoj trupi, koja se među prvima bavila izvođačkom formom koju nazivamo „durational performances“, ali i zbog toga što je ona, pre petnaest godina, već gostovala u Srbiji, doduše ne na BITEFU. Mogli smo da se opredelimo i za neku drugu, noviju „durational performance“ ove iste trupe, ali smo namerno izabrali ovu da bismo naglasili još jedan specifičan aspekt vremena u teatru: dugo trajanje ne samo jednog izvođenja (24 sata) već dugi opstanak iste predstave na repertoaru (nekoliko decenija). Važno je istaći da se predstava Kvizula! – imajući u vidu da se bazira na improvizacijama – bitno menjala kroz sve ove godine svog postojanja, da se prilagođavala novim i aktuelnim problemima našeg sveta.

Predstava Biblija, prvi pokušaj Drame SNG-a iz Ljubljane, u režiji čuvenog slovenačkog reditelja Jerneja Lorencija, takođe traje relativno dugo (preko tri sata), ali ona pripada, pre svega, drugoj, tematskoj liniji ovogodišnjeg BITEFA. Ta linija je takođe, kao što je istaknuto, izvedena iz predstave Olimp: Fabrova se predstava zasniva na celokupnoj grčkoj mitologiji, Lorencijeva na Bibliji. U oba slučaja, dakle, reč je o bazičnim mitskim narativima naše, Zapadne civilizacije. Na 51. BITEFU, Lorenci će biti zastupljen s još jednom predstavom: festivalskom koprodukcijom koju BITEF teatar radi u saradnji s Narodnim pozorištem u Beogradu, a čija će premijera biti za vreme festivala. Ona će se izvoditi iz dva dela u toku iste večeri: prvi deo na sceni „Raša Plaović“ Narodnog pozorišta, a drugi u BITEF teatru, što je originalna prostorna i koncepcijska postavka, bar za naš kontekst, te potpuno u tradiciji BITEFA. U kontekstu koji smo gore postavili, ovde je najbitnije da se predstava, čiji je radni naziv Carstvo nebesko, odvija na osnovu srpske epske književnosti. I ona se, dakle, kao i druga Lorencijeva predstava, a kao i Olimp, zasniva na velikim mitskim naracijama, ovde oblikovanim u epskoj književnosti.

Ove tri predstave noseći su elementi tematske linije 51. BITEFA, a koja se svodi na okretanja ka, kako bi rekao Liotar, „velikim naracijama“, odnosno ključnim pričama na kojima se zasniva naša civilizacija. Ovakav tematski izbor motivisan je shvatanjem da se „kraj istorije“ Frensisa Fukujame – utopijska, u međuvremenu uveliko relativizovana projekcija beskonfliktne, posthladnoratovske epohe u kojoj dominiraju neupitne vrednosti liberalnog, demokratskog sveta – izvesno nije desio. Naprotiv, ponovo živimo izuzetno intenzivne istorijske trenutke obeležene globalnom krizom kapitalizma i posredničke demokratije, ekspanzijom ratova i sukoba u svim delovima sveta, kao i izbegličkom katastrofom. U takvom dobu čini nam se da je došao trenutak da se vratimo upravo najznačajnijim velikim naracijama. To su one naracije koje su, istorijski gledano, formirale naš svet, a koji sada doživljava jednu od svojih najvećih kriza u modernom dobu. Ovaj zaokret je tim potrebniji što smo imali dug period bavljenja „ličnim kao političkim“, tim nosećim ideološkim konceptom drugog talasa feminizma, te naučnih i političkih projekata proizašlih iz njega. To ne znači, naravno, da je koncept „ličnog kao političkog“ odbačen, već samo to da nas savremeno iskustvo vraća i „klasičnim“ političkim problemima za koje smo naivno mislili da smo ih prevazišli.

Obe Lorencijeve predstave, a u izvesnom smislu i Fabrovu, povezuje i to što u njima ne dominira dramski modus (ili podražavanje), zasnovan na konstruktima priče, sukoba i lika, već pripovedački. U prvi plan istaknut je, dakle, sami čin kazivanja na pozornici, koliko njegovo značenje toliko, ako ne i više, auditivini, energetski i, uopšte, čisto telesni vid scenskog govora. To je posebno istaknuto u predstavi Biblija, prvi pokušaj, monumentalnoj koliko i minimalističkoj, koja se može shvatiti kao scenski esej ili eksperiment na temu moći i mogućnosti kazivanja biblijskog teksta u savremenom pozorištu… Kao i dugo trajanje predstava, tako i usmeravanje gledalačke pažnje na različite aspekte scenskog kazivanja, s isticanjem njegove telesnosti, odgovara političnosti izvođačkih umetnosti, karakterističnoj, prema Lemanu, za postdramski teatar. To je ta političnost koja se ne nalazi u sadržaju predstave već u načinima njegovog izvođenja. Konkretno, pažnja usmerena na slušanje je politička i, u najširem smislu, civilizacijska alternativa svetu lakih, brzih, trivijalnih i nezahtevnih vizuelnih informacija.

Predstava koja je potpuno usmerena na slušanje, ima odgovarajući naziv – (Sa)slušanje. Ova predstava mladog iranskog reditelja Amira Reze Kuhestanija, koja je već ostvarila veliki uspeh na vodećim svetskim festivalima, ima strukturu saslušavanja, a na temu slušanja i prisluškivanja (odatle i dvosmislenost naslova). Među gledaocima sedi glumica koja tumači direktorku ženskog internata i koja s te pozicije – koja se izjednačava (kao i pozicija gledalaca u teatru) s društvom, zajednicom ili javnošću – sukcesivno saslušava nekoliko mladih žena, učenica iz internata, jer je jedna od njih čula iz susedne sobe (i to prijavila nadležnima) – muški glas. U Kuhestanijevoj predstavi sjajno se prožimaju forma i sadržaj: priča o društvu u kom se mnoge teme prećutkuju, guraju pod ćilim, o njima se šuška, šapuće i priča u poluglasu, artikulisana je u formi scenskog saslušavanja. Uz malo kritičarskog domaštavanja, moglo bi se reći da ova predstava obnavlja drevnu persijsku tradiciju kazivanja priča i tako se nadovezuje na liniju bazičnih civilizacijskih narativa, koji nas od grčke mitologije, preko Biblije, dovode do srpske epike iz srednjega veka i Priča iz hiljadu i jedne noći. Predstava (Sa)slušanje označava prelaz iz drevne prakse pripovedanja u aktuelnu tematiku, jer ona tretira pitanje položaja žene u današnjem Iranu.

Izazove muslimanskog sveta, između ostalog i položaj žena, tematizuje i predstava Sneg čuvenog Talijateatra iz Hamburga. Ona je takođe zasnovana na „epskom“ materijalu, romanu Sneg turskog Nobelovca Orhana Pamuka. Njegov istovremeno glavni junak i narator, kojeg još zovu Ka (jasna aluzija na junaka Kafkinog Procesa), kreće na „epsko putovanje“ u zavičaj, vraća se iz Nemačke u Tursku, gde postaje učesnik i svedok oniričnog kolopleta dramatičnih događaja u kojima se, na više ravni, prelama sukob između islamističke i sekularne Turske. Od ove građe, mladi berlinski reditelj turskog porekla, Ersan Mondtag, stvara vrlo ironično političko pozorište, s elementima treš poetike, koje se duhovito poigrava prepoznatljivim elementima turske kulture, u rasponu od derviških plesova do arhitekture parnih kupatila.

Ako se ovde podvuče crta, može se zaključiti da svih šest predstava povezuje pojam epsko (u njegovim različitim značenjima). Kao što je istaknuto, u svim predstavama preovlađuje epski, pripovedački modus predstavljanja, a ne dramski; većina njih uzima građu iz epova, romana ili, najšire gledano, mitova; dobar deo predstava ima i epsko trajanje, a koje ih podvodi pod koncept „durational performances“. Kada se tome doda činjenica da je okretanje ka epskoj građi, zapravo, jedno specifično „putovanje“ u prošlost, te da efekat dugog trajanja stvara i posebno psihofizičko stanje kod publike – neku vrstu omamljenosti, halucinacije – onda se sustiču svi argumenti kojima se objašnjava slogan 51. BITEFA – „Epic Trip“.

„Epic Trip“ na 51. BITEFU završava se predstavom Istrebljenje, takođe u režiji Ersana Mondtaga, po tekstu Olge Bah i u izvođenju Koncertteatra iz Berna, Švajcarska. Tekst ove veoma mlade autorke tretira odnose u grupi mladih ljudi koji iskušavaju i zloupotrebljavaju sve slobode savremenog zapadnog društva, proživljavaju ekstazu, ali ih to ne ispunjava već, naprotiv, razvija strah, nesigurnost, bespomoćnu čežnju za iskustvom stvarnosti. Reditelj je ovu priču preneo iz savremenog enterijera u prostor neke bizarne, rasturene pastorale, s veštačkim jezerima, livadama i divljim životinjama, dok su protagonisti obučeni, od glave do pete, u kostime koji predstavljaju gola ljudska tela, što sve zajedno stvara utisak krajnje treš scenske poetike. Svet ovih mladih ljudi jeste jedna spektakularna arkadijska laž – nalik savremenom zapadnom svetu beskonfliktnosti i blagostanja (za one privilegovane)… Reditelj Ersan Mondtag (pravo ime Ersan Ajgun) mlad je (29), turskog porekla, rođen i živi u Berlinu, i najveća je zvezda u usponu pozorišta na nemačkom govornom području (dve njegove predstave, uključujući i bernsku, učestvovale su na vodećem nacionalnom festivalu, Teatertrefen), ali njegov rad još uvek nije poznat široj međunarodnoj javnosti. Učestvovanje čak dve njegove predstave na 51. BITEFU biće prvo veliko međunarodno predstavljanje rada ovog talentovanog mladog umetnika, za koga smo sigurni da će veoma brzo ostvariti i svetski uspeh.

Predstava Istrebljenje sjajno završava „epsko putovanje“, koje čini suštinu dramaturgije 51. BITEFA: od kosmogonijske vizije nastanka sveta, one iz grčke mitologije, sa svim užasima, strahovima, nadama, radostima i ushićenjima koje je ona sobom nosila, do totalne dekadencije tog sveta, prikazanog u vidu jedne rastočene, impotentne i treš pastorale.

Ivan Medenica, umetnički direktor BITEFA

EPIC TRIP

 – A word from the Artistic Director –

One of the principal events of the 51^st BITEF and indubitably its biggest attraction is the production of Mount Olympus by the renowned Belgian director Jan Fabre. The production lasts 24 hours without intermission and is based on the Greek mythology in its totality, as articulated in Homeric epics and tragedies by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. It uses a very specific theatre language which could be subsumed under the broadest possible definition of the physical (rather than dance) theatre: a group of some thirty supreme actors and dancers perform multiple episodes of a physically and even spiritually highly demanding choreographic score remindful of ancient rituals, modern sports or military ‘drills’, recovered ancient sculptures or frescoes, Dionysian orgies… In terms of its sensitivity or spirituality, the production is above all the renewal of the Dionysian cult in a modern key, with everything in it that is horrifying, seductive, dangerous yet above all beautiful, thrilling and cathartic: as such, Mount Olympus is a majestic ode to life.

Its duration would present a challenge to the audience of any historical period and any culture, and it is beyond doubt a major challenge for modern spectators in the Western world whom the modern media and the consumerist lifestyle have fully “calibrated” for visual effects, short formats, speedy rhythm, i.e. changes… In this sense, a durational performance, which requires us to surrender to its rhythms and energy waves and, in forceful togetherness with other spectators and performers, to shed daily and all those other shackles imposed on us by civilisation for centuries, ergo, such a performance is a compelling civilisation alternative to our lives and to the world marked by selfishness, superficiality, hastiness, rashness… In this specific shared experience, in this civilisation alternative to modern experience, one recognizes its social significance, i.e. its political nature. This interpretation is in line with Hans-Thies Lehmann’s claim about performance forms and ways of communication between performers and spectators as a specific manifestation of the political nature immanent in postdramatic theatre. The production arrives at BITEF as one of the most significant theatre achievements of the early 21^st century: prominent Belgian critic Freddy Decreus has stated that as of now the theatre history will be divided into the period before and after the production of Mount Olympus. Note should be made that due to its high organisational and financial requirements, it went only on a few tours before Belgrade and those were to world theatre centres.

 Mount Olympus has determined both main streams in the 51^st BITEF programme: the aesthetic and the thematic one. As we emphasized last year, contemporary performing practices do not accept “spontaneous” references to the notion of “new” anymore, as it used to be acceptable in the (modernist) times of BITEF inception, but impose a requirement of selecting one or more concrete aesthetic phenomena which can nowadays be regarded, if not “new”, then surely still radical, provocative, emancipating and political, in the broadest possible sense. Last year, we stayed true to the great anniversary celebrated by this festival of “new theatre trends” by drawing the line and confirming the variety of forms in the contemporary performing arts, which in the local context is still not self-evident: drama theatre, contemporary dance, documentary theatre, lecture-performances, etc.  This year, as announced back then, the aesthetic focus sharpens. In order to adequately map and contextualize the aesthetic phenomenon, we are again organizing a theoretical debate, which this time, however, welcomes not only the world’s most eminent theatre scholars (Maria Shevtsova, Georges Banu) but artists as well.

Aesthetically, the 51^st BITEF marks an important tendency in contemporary performing arts: durational performances. In addition to Fabre’s stage spectacle, the phenomenon is also observed in Quizoola!, by the celebrated British company Forced Entertainment to be shown on the Prologue Day, immediately before the festival opening ceremony and Mount Olympus. It is a production which in its original version also lasts 24 hours but the BITEF artistic-production team seized the opportunity offered by the company and opted for an abridged version lasting “only” six hours (the decision has been reached due to our realisation that regardless of the artistic and conceptual justification, it would be too radical and challenging for the audience to be offered as many as two 24-hour-long productions). As its title suggests, the production is conceived as a never-ending quiz competition (remindful of the film They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?) with relatively short scenes and two alternating and switching actors who interpret words they draw out. Due to the outstanding improvisational skills of English actors, combined with the choice of words, the production is very witty yet imbued with keen political awareness and very poignant. It was scheduled for the Prologue Day for two reasons: as a tribute to the British company as one of the first to address the performing forms that came to be called durational performances and because fifteen years ago they toured Serbia although not on the occasion of BITEF. We could have chosen another, more recent “durational performance” of the same company but we deliberately chose this one to emphasize another specific aspect of time in theatre: long duration of not only one performance (24 hours) but the long life of one and the same production (several decades). Another fact worth mentioning is that Quizoola!, although based on improvisations, has been changing throughout the years of its existence, adjusting to the new problems in the world.

The Bible, the First Attempt of the SNG Drama in Ljubljana, directed by the renowned Slovenian director Jernej Lorenci is also relatively long (over three hours), but it belongs to the other, thematic stream of this year’s BITEF. As it has been noted, the stream also derives from the production of Mount Olympus: Fabre’s production is based on the Greek mythology in toto; Lorenci’s is based on the Bible. In both cases, therefore, the reference is to the basic mythical narratives of our Western civilisation. At the 51^st BITEF, Lorenci appears with yet another production: a festival coproduction which BITEF Theatre is preparing in cooperation with the National Theatre in Belgrade, and which is to have its opening night during the festival. It will be staged in two parts in the same evening: the first part in the National Theatre on the “Raša Plaović” Stage, while the second one will be seen at the BITEF Theatre, which, in terms of venue and concept, is an original approach, at least in our context, and fully in line with the BITEF tradition. The most important thing regarding the aforementioned concept is that the production whose working title is Kingdom of Heaven is based on the Serbian epic literature. Therefore, like Lorenci’s other production and like Mount Olympus, this one is also based on major epic narratives, which in this case have taken shape in the epic literature.

These three productions are the cornerstones of the thematic stream of the 51^st BITEF which comes down to shifting the focus to “great narratives” as Lyotard would put it, i.e. the key tales on which our civilisation is based. The choice of the theme was motivated by the realisation that Frances Fukuyama’s „end of history“– a utopian and meanwhile largely relativized projection of a non-conflict, post-cold-war epoch dominated by the unquestionable values of the liberal democratic world – has definitely not happened. Quite the reverse: we are re-living very intense historical moments marked by the global crisis of capitalism and vicarious democracy, a proliferation of wars and conflicts the world over and the refugee catastrophe. At an age like this, it seems that the time has come to return to the indubitably most significant great narratives. These narratives have, historically speaking, shaped our world, which is presently undergoing one of the biggest crises in modern times. This shift is all the more necessary as we had a long period of addressing „personal as political“, the principal ideological concept of the second wave of feminism, and scientific and political projects which have emerged from it. Of course, this does not mean that the concept of „personal as political“ has been rejected, but only that the contemporary experience takes us back to the “classical” political problems we naively believed we had overcome.

The link between both of the Lorenci’s productions and, up to a point, the Fabre’s, is their common quality of not being dominated by the dramatic mode (or representation) based on constructs of the story, conflict and character, but rather by the one based on the narration. In other words, the emphasis is on the act of onstage narration, on its meaning and equally, or perhaps even more so, on the auditive, on the energy and generally speaking, on purely physical aspects of the stage speech. This is particularly evident in The Bible, the First Attempt, both monumental and minimalistic, which can be seen as a stage essay or experiment in power and recital of the biblical text in modern theatre… Both the long duration of these productions and focusing the spectators’ attention on different aspects of stage narration with the emphasis on its physicality, correspond with the political nature of performing arts which, according to Lehmann, characterizes the postdramatic theatre. That political nature is not found in the content of the production but in the manner of its rendition. Concretely, the attention directed at listening is a political and in the broadest sense, civilizational alternative to the world of easy, quick, trivial and undemanding visual information.

A production which fully focuses on listening has an appropriate title – Hearing. The production by Amir Reza Koohestani, a young Iranian director, has already achieved considerable success at the leading world festivals. It is structured as a hearing based on listening and eavesdropping (hence the ambiguous title). An actress seated in the audience plays the head mistress of a girls’ boarding school and thus, by her position equalised (like the position of the spectators in the theatre) with the society, community or the public, conducts a hearing of several young women educated in the boarding school because one of them has heard (and reported to the relevant authorities) a male voice from an adjoining room. In Koohestani’s production, the form and the content interlace splendidly: a story about a society in which many themes are glossed over in silence, swept under the carpet, rumoured, whispered and told softly, is articulated as a staged hearing. With a leap of critic’s imagination, one could say that this production brings back to life the ancient Persian tradition of story-telling and links up with the line of basic civilization narratives which take us from the Greek mythology to the Bible, and then even further, to the medieval Serbian epics, and The Thousand and One Nights. Hearing marks the transition from the ancient practice of story-telling to modern themes as it addresses the position of women in modern-day Iran.

The challenges of the Muslim world, including the status of women, are also the subject of Snow, a production of the celebrated Thalia Theater in Hamburg. It is also based on “epic” material, i.e. the novel Snow by the Turkish Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk. His main character and the narrator called Ka (clear allusion to the main character in Kafka’s Trial) sets off on an “epic trip” to his fatherland, returns from Germany to Turkey, where he becomes a participant of and a witness to an oneiric web of dramatic events reflecting at a number of levels the conflict between the Islamist and secular Turkey. Ersan Mondtag, a young Berlin director of Turkish origin takes this material to build a highly ironic political theatre with elements of trash poetry which cleverly toys with recognizable elements of the Turkish culture, from dervish dances to the architecture of steam baths.

If one draws the line here, one can conclude that all six productions share the notion of epic in its various meanings. As has been mentioned, the epical, narrational mode of presentation rather than the dramatic one prevails in all the productions. Most of them take their material from epics, novels or, in broader terms, myths; a number of them are of an epic duration too, thus conforming to the durational performance concept. If one adds to this that resorting to epical material is, in fact, a specific “trip” to the past and that the long duration puts the audience in a unique psychophysical state, a kind of dizziness, hallucinations, then all the arguments explaining the slogan of the 51^st BITEF: Epic Trip are there.

The Epic Erip at the 51^st BITEF ends with the production of The Extermination, also directed by Ersan Mondtag, based on the text by Olga Bach and performed by Konzert Theater in Bern, Switzerland. The text of this very young author addresses the relationships among a group of young people who test and abuse all freedoms of the modern Western society and experience ecstasy which, however, does not bring them happiness, but provokes fear, insecurity, helpless longing to experience the reality. The director has moved the story from the modern environment to the space of a bizarre, collapsing pastoral with artificial ponds, meadows and wild beasts, where the protagonists are clad, from head to toe, in costumes representing naked human bodies. It all creates the impression of extreme trash stage poetics. The universe of these young people is a spectacular Arcadian tall tale similar to the modern Western world free of conflict and brimming with well-being (for the privileged ones)… The director Ersan Mondtag (true name Ersan Aygun) is a young man (29) of Turkish origin, born and living in Berlin, and is the brightest rising star of the German-speaking theatre world, (two of his productions, including the Bern one, participated in Theatertreffen, the leading national festival). The broad international audience, however, is still not acquainted with his work. These two productions at the 51^st BITEF will be the first major international presentation of the work of this gifted young artist who will, we are positive, shortly score the worldwide success.

The production titled The Extermination represents a splendid end of the “epic trip” to which comes down the dramaturgy of the 51^st BITEF: from the cosmogonic vision of the origin of the world in the Greek mythology with all its horrors, fears, hopes, joys and ecstasies to the total decadence of that world shown as a disintegrated, impotent and trash pastoral.

Ivan Medenica, BITEF Artistic Director

Glavni program / Main programme

 696  Forced Entertainment (Šefild, Velika Britanija): QUIZOOLA!; režija: Tim Ečels / Forced Entertainment (Sheffield, United Kingdom): QUIZOOLA!;  directed by Tim Etchells

697  Troubleyn / Jan Fabre (Antverpen, Belgija), Jeron Olislahers, Jan Fabr: Olimp u slavu kulta tragedije – predstava od 24 sata; koncept, režija i scenografija: Jan Fabr / Troubleyn / Jan Fabre (Antwerp, Belgium), Jeroen Olyslaegers, Jan Fabre: Mount Olympus to Glorify the Cult of Tragedy – A 24h Performance, concept, direction, and set design by Jan Fabre

698  Slovensko narodno gledališče, Drama (Ljubljana, Slovenija), kolektivno autorstvo: Biblija, prvi pokušaj, režija: Jernej Lorenci / Slovenian National Theatre Drama (Ljubljana, Slovenia), collective authorship: Bible, the First Attempt, directed by Jernej Lorenci

699  Narodno pozorište u Beogradu i BITEF teatar (Beograd, Srbija): Carstvo nebesko, režija: Jernej Lorenci / National Theatre in Belgrade and BITEF Theatre, Belgrade, Serbia: Kingdom of Heaven, directed by Jernej Lorenci

700  Thalia Theatre (Hamburg, Nemačka), Orhan Pamuk: Sneg, režija: Ersan Mondtag / Thalia Theatre (Hamburg, Germany), Orhan Pamuk: Snow, directed by Ersan Mondtag

701  Mehr Theatre Group (Teheran, Iran), Amir Reza Kuhestani: (Sa)slušanje, režija: Amir Reza Kuhestani (Specijalna nagrada Jovan Ćirilov) / Mehr Theatre Group (Tehran, Iran)  / Amir Reza Koohestani /امیر رضا کوهستانی (Special Award Jovan Ćirilov): Hearing, directed by Amir Reza Koohestani

702  Koncertteatar (Bern, Švajcarska), Ersan Mondtag, Olga Bah: Istrebljenje, koncept i režija: Ersan Mondtag / Konzert Theater (Bern, Switzerland), Ersan Mondtag, Olga Bach: The Extermination, concept and direction by Ersan Mondtag

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