Première of the International Co-production at the Bitef Festival
The slogan of the 65th edition of the Bitef Festival, which is taking place from 23 September to 2 October in Belgrade, is “We – The Heroes of Our Own Labour”. Bitef will tackle the issue of work in modern society, labour rights, the labour market after the pandemic, but also the issue of work in the actual performing arts. Along with seven chosen productions from Germany, Mexico, France, Serbia and UK, Belgrade audience will be able to see two productions by the Mladinsko Theatre, both co-produced by Maska Ljubljana in the scope of The New Post Office Programme: Solo by Nina Rajić Kranjac and Crises by Žiga Divjak. The latter will have a world première at the festival. There’s a great interest for both shows; the tickets sold out three weeks prior to the festival opening.
The festival public will first see Solo (Thursday, 29, and Friday, 30 September), followed by Crises (Friday, 30 September, with premiere on Saturday, 1 October).
Žiga Divjak and his team deal with the potentials and distresses of crises – most of all the environmental one – affecting our lives, and explore the human capacity for collaboration. Ivan Medenica, the festival’s curator, says the performance was deliberately put at the end of Bitef because it expands the topical frame of the main programme: it tackles not only the social issues related to work but also the philosophical phenomenon of crisis. And, even more importantly, it offers light at the end of the tunnel: it doesn’t stop at the negative aspect of crises but shows that a crisis can also be a stimulus and open up a new perspective.
The text was devised among Žiga Divjak and the creative team. The cast includes Sara Dirnbek, Iztok Drabik Jug, Klemen Kovačič, Draga Potočnjak, Katarina Stegnar, Vito Weis and Gregor Zorc; the text is narrated by Blaž Šef, the dramaturg is Goran Injac, the set designer Igor Vasiljev, the costume designer Tina Pavlović, and the sound designer Blaž Gracar. The show was co-produced by The New Post Office (Maska and Mladinsko – Ljubljana), Bitef (Belgrade) and Udruga Domino (Zagreb) as a part of the project ACT — Art, Climate, Transition, a European cooperation project connecting art and activism with ecology and just transition. After last year’s premiere at the steirischer herbst ’21 in Graz, this is Žiga Divjak’s second international premiere in Mladinsko’s (co-)production.
The end of the month will be marked by another foreign tour: on Monday, 26 September, Bad Company, conceived, directed and performed by Vito Weis, co-produced by The New Post Office and Moment from Maribor, will be performed in German National Theatre, Timisoara, Romania (next year’s Cultural Capital of Europe), at the Eurothalia Festival.
After returning to Ljubljana, new missions await us, first of them being the first première at home: Women as Lovers by Elfriede Jelinek, directed by Nina Ramšak Marković.