English Translation of Radmila Stanković’s article on From The Other Side:

Culture

 

BALKAN PLAYS AT LA MAMA THEATRE

A Space for Freedom of Speech

 

We are witnessing our theatres coming under attack, censorship, cancelling, even closure. From the Other Side offers a view of ourselves, through theatre, which is a place of community

 

Radmila Stanković

 

When the curtain rises at Manhattan’s Ellen Stewart Theatre at 8 p.m. on Thursday, December 4th, the main theater of La MaMa, New York’s famed temple of avant-garde art, it will mark the beginning of a theater event titled From the Other Side, presenting a series of events intended to offer a view of contemporary theater art from the territory of former Yugoslavia. This demanding job is being organised by My Balkans foundation along with La MaMa experimental theater from New York, with events scheduled to take place until December 14th.

The founder and director of the Foundation, Beka Vučo explains her motives and aims, which have guided her work over the last two years: “It was quite logical that La MaMa should host these events, a theater that had opened its doors to significant artists and plays from the Balkans for years, and a theater that has also performed multiple times at important festivals and cultural centers throughout former Yugoslavia. Ellen Stewart loved and understood the Balkans, where she had a lot of friends, and she also transmitted that love to her associates who run the theater now, first and foremost to Mia Yoo, La MaMa’s artistic director. At an informal lunch, Mia and I, chatting about this and that, and above all about politics, the Balkans, and theater, came up with the idea to produce a ‘little’ showcase of theater events from this part of the world, which would broach some new topics, poetics, and approaches to theater performance itself and survey the present political context we inhabit itself, through a different lens. That was the beginning.”

Dimitrije Kokanov and Natasha Tripney were Beka’s choice for the selectors’ team. All three of them meticulously analysed the theater scene, from the Vardar river [in North Macedonia] to Mount Triglav [in Slovenia], bearing in mind the rather complex and sometimes strict conditions (artistic, technical, financial, etc.) that had to be observed, without ever forgetting that their selection was intended, first and foremost, for US theatregoers. Vučo emphasizes the extraordinary level of assistance and understanding demonstrated by two important American foundations, along with a series of private individual donations, which allowed this little festival to take place right in the middle of New York. Also, a great job was done by two of the selected groups, Heartefact from Belgrade and Ganz Nova kultura promjene from Zagreb, which managed to secure additional funding necessary for the performances:

“Thanks are also due to Sarajevo War Theatre SARTR, Belgrade Drama Theatre, and Atelje 212, which permitted us to use video recordings of their amazing plays in our Productions on Video segment, as well as to playwrights Maja Pelević, Tanja Šljivar, and Dimitrije Kokanov, who gave us the rights to mount stage readings of their plays. Of course, there’s our host as well, La MaMa, which included From the Other Side in the official repertoire of its 64th season, La MaMa NOW”; Beka Vučo was careful not to forget anyone.

The programming director and co-creative manager Dimitrije Kokanov explained for Radar the significance of this event: “This entire program in New York is intended to attract attention, at least for a moment, to our region, using the voices of theater artists from this part of the world. From the Other Side offers a view from the other side of interests, from the other side of beliefs, from the other side of prejudices. Generating space for freedom to speak out about our experiences is the main idea of our project. The really powerful and rich people are currently less interested in the experiences and perceptions discussed by the artists represented in this program than they are in other, destructive strategies of neoliberal capitalism. The issue of interest is the one that keeps us oppressed, which we must fight wherever we exist. In every part of the program, we sought to highlight the courage required to come to grips, in a responsible way, with highly sensitive but supremely important problems from our past and present, to which theater has always reacted in a timely fashion. Today we witness the fact that our theaters and theater festivals are under attack, censorship, cancellations, even closures. With this project we offer a view of ourselves, through theater, which is a place of community, critical thinking, resistance, the power required for confrontation and fighting for freedom’.

On the opening night of From the Other Side, visitors will see a Belgrade-based production of Doruntina Basha’s play They Are All Gone, directed by Andrej Nosov and produced by Heartefact (Belgrade), SARTR (Sarajevo), and My Balkans (Belgrade–New York). During the festival, the play will be shown five times; the director Andrej Nosov, shortly before leaving for New York, made the following remarks for Radar: “This play is only beginning its international life and it is very significant that one of our first stops is precisely La MaMa in New York. In Belgrade and Sarajevo we did more than great, and now we’re staging it again, but for an audience that doesn’t speak our language, for an audience that is not close to us. That will be a huge thing! Although from the perspective of our situation and everyday challenges, it seems impossible. From the moment we set out for America, I’ve been repeating to myself and others: we have a premiere in New York! And that sounds unbelievable. I admit, I’m super-happy, like a kid – for this is one of those rare opportunities you get, to go some place far and present your work. Also, it’s an exceptional opportunity for us to engage in a dialogue with the audience and visitors at the event.”

Another play to be performed four times will be Things That Burn Easily by the director and playwright Vedrana Klepica, co-produced by Ganz nova kultura promjene from Zagreb in cooperation with Pogon (Croatia) and Artemede (Portugal). Vedrana Klepica likewise spoke for our weekly: “Things That Burn Easily is a project made under the auspices of the Stronger Peripheries residence program that took me to Portugal in winter 2023. I knew that the play I was working on would be premiered both there and in Croatia, so it was important for me to deal with topics that could communicate to both audiences. For years now, Portugal has been one of the worst affected countries in Europe when it comes to wildfires caused by climate change, and the situation in Croatia’s south is getting worse every summer. I spent a considerable amount of time conducting interviews with people from small towns in central Portugal, comparing how different communities, politically as well as emotionally, come to grips with a situation whereby every summer they experience a fresh disaster, and how much responsibility they feel regarding those events. The question that I was really interested in was whether we’re somehow really waiting for someone else to save us. It’s not a documentary drama – I ended up with a fictionalised framework, addressing the main ideas – but I actually found the stories that I collected whilst working on the play too horrific, the stories of people who had lost their loved ones, their homes. Using their stories somehow struck me as exploitatory, emotionally manipulative. I do think that theater certainly needs catharsis, but it is even more important to ask the right questions.”

The segment titled Stage Readings presents a selection of plays representing the formal and poetic traits of contemporary drama identified in a wider European context. Stage readings of three plays translated to English will be directed by directors from New York: The Last Girls in the World by Maja Pelević in her own translation will be directed by Reagan Ellis; Like All Free Girls by Tanja Šljivar, translated by Aida Spahić, will be directed by Tea Alagić, while Dimitrije Kokanov’s All of a Sudden, a River, translated by Matt Robinson, will be directed by Devin Brain.

 

Captions:

New catastrophes: from “Things That Burn Easily”

Problems from our past: from “They Are All Gone”