{"id":294,"date":"2016-04-08T16:29:43","date_gmt":"2016-04-08T16:29:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/10\/?p=294"},"modified":"2022-05-22T10:00:29","modified_gmt":"2022-05-22T10:00:29","slug":"contours-of-losses-in-sarajevo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/10\/contours-of-losses-in-sarajevo\/","title":{"rendered":"Contours of Losses in Sarajevo"},"content":{"rendered":"

53rd edition of MESS international theatre festival in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Hercegovina, September 28 to October 7, 2013.<\/p>\n

Zala Dobov\u0161ek<\/strong> and Matti Linnavuori<\/strong>[1]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

\"ZalaDobovsek_bio-8x6\"\u00a0\"Livanuori\"<\/p>\n

Matti<\/b>: Dear Zala, you and I, along with Liljana Mazova of Macedonia Fyr, were the critics\u2019 jury at MESS, the Bosnian festival of experimental theatre. Not only we, but also the main jury and the spectators\u2019 votes, concluded that the seven-hour Seagull<\/i> from Novi Sad, Serbia, was the best performance of the 2013 edition. Since its Chekhovian director, Tomi Jane\u017ei\u0107, is from your home country of Slovenia, let me ask you a simple question: why The Seagull<\/i> and not, for example, Booty Looting<\/i>, directed and choreographed by the Belgian Wim Vandekeybus?<\/p>\n

Zala<\/b>: Well \u2026 I believe that as jury members at theatre festivals, we are always and every time captured in some kind of half personal, half professional dilemma about whether to evaluate certain performances (and their authors) independently from their previous projects, or to put all of them together in a wider context.
\nThe truth is that both performances\u2014The Seagull<\/i> and Booty Looting<\/i>\u2012were amazing and special in their own way.<\/p>\n

\"Jakov
Jakov appears from amidst the carefully seated spectators in the Serbian “Seagull.” Photo by Velija Hasanbegovi\u0107<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Matti<\/b>: The director of The Seagull<\/i> seated every spectator individually, on a makeshift auditorium built on all four sides of the stage proper. The seating arrangement was, coincidentally, identical with the Romanian Seagull<\/i> by the Russian-American director, Yuri Kordonsky, with the Timisoara German Theatre (see Critical Stages 9).<\/p>\n

The director was very much involved in what took place on the stage. He commented on the choices available to the actors in various scenes, which had been rehearsed with psychotherapeutic methods.<\/p>\n

Zala<\/b>: But in the context of both directors and all the performers (the ensemble), we could roughly say that Booty Looting<\/i> is just another (good) performance in Vandekeybus\u2019s career. Which is great, but we could also say that from this perspective, Vandekeybus in Booty Looting<\/i> uses some of his well known, perhaps \u201cverified\u201d approaches. The production is good, it\u2019s excellent\u2014but not really radical.<\/p>\n

\"The
The many faces of Birgit Walter (standing right) are being sought after in “Booty Looting.” Photo by Velija Hasanbegovi\u0107<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Matti<\/b>: Yes, a word in between about Booty Looting<\/i>. Its characters yearn to be famous artists, and will steal the work of others, e.g. their dead relatives. Perhaps it is my northern background which made me enjoy the production so much. At home, experimental theatre tends to achieve conclusions which everyone already knows and accepts. It tends to serve more for strengthening the spirit than for risking that one will make new discoveries. That is why I value MESS: its selection gives us unforeseen thoughts, both aesthetically and content-wise. Sarajevo, seems to me to be a place for different ideas to cohabit.<\/p>\n

Zala<\/b>: On the other hand, The Seagull<\/i> intrigues us on totally different levels; not only because the performance is great, it\u2019s also unique and\u2014if I may say so\u2014it \u201csubdues\u201d contemporary institutional theatre (which is, in this case, somehow \u201ctraditional\u201d yet extremely experimental) to a totally different place and perception. The Seagull<\/i> is full of questions and hypotheses about contemporary interpretations of classic playwrights\u2014such as Chekhov, questioning the acting in theatre, time in theatre, and especially as a research attempt at building some kind of illusory community for seven hours, some kind of strong union between performers and audience which lasts from beginning to end. The key to finding quality communication in the so-called \u201ctriangle\u201d between actor, director and spectator is, in my opinion, superbly achieved. And I would have the same opinion even if director Tomi Jane\u017ei\u010d were not from Slovenia (ha, ha).<\/p>\n

\"Jasma
Jasma Duri\u010di\u0107 (right) as Arkadina in “The Seagull.” Photo by Velija Hasanbegovi\u0107<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Matt<\/b>i: The beginning of the third act was particularly impressive. It was the only phase of the performance to take place in the auditorium. The actors were seated silently in a row all along the stage, in front of a wall. Those who had lines to speak were behind the wall, unseen by us, and when these invisible voices spoke of someone, a spotlight singled him or her out from the row.<\/p>\n

I must say that cigarette smoking during the performance was so uninhibited that I saw everything with only a hazy brain for a few minutes after each interval. And they were not herbal cigarettes either! It is difficult to imagine this Seagull<\/i> getting guest appearances in the European Union; one could, with good reason, sue it for exposing its spectators to a serious cancer hazard.<\/p>\n

Zala<\/b>: Cancer hazard \u2026? Ok, Matti, you know how much I like your way of being cynical!<\/p>\n

Matti<\/b>: Just in case that was a compliment, let me add that the Sarajevo Siege Museum takes pride in the fact that cigarette production never ceased during the three-year siege, even under the most severe conditions. Smoking was not perceived as an enemy within.<\/p>\n

Zala<\/b>: But let me proceed with our discussion. I would like to ask how you experienced the festival\u2019s performances that where highly connected to the local, social, cultural and political issues, or to the history of the war. We don\u2019t have to discuss actual performances (or we can), but I\u2019m wondering how you feel and understand that kind of theatre: let\u2019s say, the performance The Finger<\/i> (Prst<\/i>), by the Kosovo-born Doruntina Basha and directed by Ana Tomovi\u0107 for the Heartefact Fund and Bitef Theatre in Belgrade, Serbia. In the end, I literally couldn\u2019t speak because for me it was such a heartrending experience. I really had the feeling that although I have never gone through war, I was somehow related to the theme and dialogue. Maybe also because of the fact that some kind of war atrocity could easily have happened to me, had I been born in some other part of ex-Yugoslavia, and not in Slovenia. And I didn\u2019t have to read the surtitles. I don\u2019t want to get banal; but in that kind of sensitive and yet so critical a performances, it\u2019s such a tremendous pity that the relation of the \u201cactor-spectator\u201d to those who should really get to know with the story, is somehow strongly broken because of the way of it is represented . On the one hand, we all want to spread our local\/national important issues or achievements to others; on the other hand, we somehow know in advance that this is a lost battle. You know what I mean? Or: do you think this is always a matter of one\u2019s sensibility and potential for erudition?<\/p>\n

\"Milica
Milica Stefanovi\u0107 (left) as the young widow and Jasna Duri\u010di\u0107 as the boy’s mother in the Serbian production of “The Finger.”
Photo by Vanja \u010cerimagi\u0107<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Matti<\/b>: I think that the war in The Finger<\/i> is not Balkan-specific. However, the play helps understand how far-reaching the shadow of the many Balkan conflicts is. Basha\u2019s (b.1981) play won the Heartefact competition as the best new socially engaged text in 2011. It is a series of conversations between a middle-aged mother and her daughter-in-law. They are preparing a meal to welcome a man, son of the mother, husband of the other, who went missing in the war years ago. The women compete with each other as to who loved him best. Only a side remark reveals that the young man was not the only person taken by force from his home that day, but the old tyrant husband disappeared as well; no one misses him. Two dream sequences break the realistic dialogue: both women get to speak to a salesperson, who will, if not fulfill then at least listen to their innermost wishes. The script leaves it to the director to decide, if a third actress should be introduced as the fairy godmother, or, as in Ana Tomovi\u0107\u2019s production, the mother and daughter-in-law actually take a moment to listen to each other, doubling as the salesperson. The hostility between the characters becomes even more meaningful the way Tomovi\u0107 arranges the scene. Also, it is beautiful how traditional values are woven into the play: the women cannot simply walk out of each other\u2019s\u2019 lives, because it would be a disgrace for a newlywed to return to her parental home. With its grave tone, The Finger<\/i> also made me aware of the fact that so many local productions are very noisy, and even when the noisiness is hilarious and inventive, it can become overwhelming. I just mention The Secret of Raspberry Jam <\/i>(Tajna d\u017eema od malina<\/i>), by Karim Zaimovi\u0107, directed by Selma Spahi\u0107, who is the artistic program manager of MESS: The furniture hanging from the ceiling, the actors balancing themselves acrobatically, and the spectators lying on cushions so as not to break our necks.<\/p>\n

\"Acrobatic
Acrobatic acting hanging from the ceiling in “The Secrets of Raspberry Jam.” Photo by Velija Hasanbegovi\u0107<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Zala: <\/b>In conclusion, I would like to share a reflection of MESS as a good and tight festival of various genres of the performing arts, or even more: a good gathering spot for different cultural ways of understanding art, theatre. I must say I was thoroughly surprised by seeing theatre groups from Spain, Italy, Columbia, and to realize what styles are appreciated in their own countries. At the beginning I was quite (let\u2019s not say positively<\/i>) shocked, seeing all those affective emotions, overdose talking, screaming, crying. But in the end you sometimes realize that some performances can be an ideal indicator (mirror) of the shape of some nation\u2019s mentality. The way they understand the (making of) theatre tells us more than anything else \u2026<\/p>\n

\"In
In the Columbian production, “The Material Authors,” three young men happen to kill their landlord, and hiding the deed becomes difficult when a sister of one of them comes by to cook for them. Photo by Vanja \u010cerimagi\u0107<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n

\"Livanuori\"<\/p>\n

<\/a>[1] Matti Linnavuori<\/strong> (b. 1955) edits the Performance Reviews for Critical Stages<\/i>. At home in Finland, he contributes regularly to Parnasso<\/i>, a literary journal. He has written and directed several radio plays for YLE, the Finnish Broadcasting Company.<\/p>\n

\"ZalaDobovsek_bio-8x6\"
\nZala Dobov\u0161ek<\/b> (b. 1983), Slovenia. Theatre critic and dramaturg. She writes for the Slovenian daily Delo<\/a> and works as s practicing dramaturg in different theatres. She is a PhD student at the Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television (AGRFT) in Ljubljana, focusing on documentary theatre.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9<\/strong> 2014 Zala Dobov\u0161ek and Matti Linnavuori
\nCritical Stages\/Sc\u00e8nes critiques<\/em> e-ISSN: 2409-7411<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This work is licensed under the
\nCreative Commons Attribution International License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

53rd edition of MESS international theatre festival in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Hercegovina, September 28 to October 7, 2013. Zala Dobov\u0161ek and Matti Linnavuori[1] \u00a0 Matti: Dear Zala, you and I, along with Liljana Mazova of Macedonia Fyr, were the critics\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":302,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-performance-reviews","","tg-column-two"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/10\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2016\/04\/ZalaMatti.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7qGU1-4K","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":713,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294\/revisions\/713"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}