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Press Releases

Performances of the 3rd Meeting of Young Artists of Southeast Europe (30/08/2019)

3rd Meeting of Young Artists of Southeast Europe
Ancient Drama and Politics
Viewpoints and Approaches 
Performances 

Antigone - 2000 years later
Mess Festival, Ulysses Theatre
Croatia

A few words about the work
We have to speak up about our contemporary times, of course, start a dialogue about the questions which bother and surround us, about the giddiness of people who passionately bow before those who win. On the other hand, we have to speak up, too, about the well-known problem of megalomania and wars, as well as history, which not only defines, but rules our contemporaneity.
 
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Dramaturgue's note
Antigone, a heroine from the times when European civilization was coming agonizingly into being, loves her two brothers equally: the one who fought on ‘the right’ side, as well as the one who was defeated fighting on the other – the ‘wrong’ – side, and she wants to bury him despite the prohibition telling her she cannot. Her story is interspersed with the story of the same people, albeit from a different—contemporary--family, which we developed using authentic documents. A family that wants to bury a son who went missing during the last war, despite all the bureaucratic nonsense and other absurdities which come with such an investigation. Both families are looking for their own shard of Justice in order to find some closure.
 

CONTRIBUTORS
Co-production: MESS Festival, Ulysses Theatre
Director: LENKA UDOVIČKI
Stage Adaptation: ŽELJKA UDOVIČIĆ PLEŠTINA
Costume Design: BJANKA AŽIĆ URSULOV
Set Design: MIRNA LER
Video: MARTINO ŠESNIĆ
Composer: NIGEL OSBORNE
Choreographer: IVANA KALC
Stage Movement: MLADEN VASARY
Light Design: ANDREJ HAJDINJAK
Sound Design: DAVOR ROCCO
 
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Antigone, daughter to Oedipus and Jocasta MAJA IZETBEGOVIĆ
Ismene, sister to Antigone ŽENANA ŽANIĆ
Creon, King of Thebes, brother to Jocasta and uncle to Antigone and Ismene RADE ŠERBEŽIJA
Haemon, son to Creon and Eurydice, betrothed to Antigone ERMIN BRAVO
Tiresias, the blind prophet DAMIR URBAN
Eurydice, mother to Haemon KATARINA BISTROVIĆ- DARVAŠ
Chorus leader JELENA LOPATIĆ
Boy VEDAD SULJAGIĆ

The Family
Mother KATARINA BISTROVIĆ-DARVAŠ
Father RADE ŠERBEŽIJA
Daughter MAJA IZETBEGOVIĆ
Younger Daughter ŽENANA ŽANIĆ
Son ERMIN BRAVO

Chorus
STUDENTS FROM THE ACTING DEPARTMENT AT THE
SARAJEVO ACADEMY OF PERFORMING ARTS AND THE
ACTING AND MEDIA STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF RIJEKA Darja Badnjević, Mak Čengić,
Mirjana Đan, Nika Ivančić, Lovro Ivanković, Aleš
Kranjec, Anđela Kusić, Emir Mulalić, Dina Mušanović,
Nikola Nedić, Maja Ožegović, Mirta Polanović, Dino
Sarija, Tena Antonija Torjanac, Marko Brajić

Duration: 110’ / (There will be a discussion with the participants after the performance
 


The Wound Philoctetes – Post Truth Le(sv)mnos after Philoctetes by Sophocles and Heiner Müller
Sfumato Theatre Laboratory
Bulgaria


A few words about the work
Lemnos and Lesvos are both sites of contestation, where precarious bodies oscillate between spatial binaries such as proximity/non-proximity, inclusion/exclusion. Both Philoctetes and the Refugee are figures occupying spaces of transition and ambiguity that are either tragic or culpable. In much the same way that Philoctetes commits a transgression by stepping onto the shrine of the goddess Chryse, the refugee engages in the transgressive act of arrival, ‘the original sin of migration’. We want to explore the ways in which ancient Greek tragedy can solicit the reader’s critical engagement with the emerging problem of the “intruding” collective body of refugees seeking asylum in Europe. We would like to explore the ways in which the given text can open up the representational potentials of the refugees’ transgressive bodies, while we are also interested in fathoming drama’s potential to create the presuppositions for the publics’ critical engagement with the social, political and cultural aspects of the refugees’ precarious lives.
 
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Director's note
The idea is to find a common point between ancient drama and contemporary politics relating the literary figure of Philoctetes of Lemnos with the present day refugees and asylum seekers who, fleeing war and transgressing Europe’s borders, find themselves alive or dead on the shores of Lesvos. Two inlands, Lemnos and Lesvos. So close. And not only geographically.
 

CONTRIBUTORS
Director: Boris Krastev
Actors: Atanas Petkov, Ivan Nikolov, Deyan Zhekov
Scenography: Gergana Lazarova, Rossitsa Grancharova
Music: Carolina Koynova
Video Technician: Yana Vasileva
Duration: 90’ / (There will be a discussion with the participants after the performance)

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