Maša Kolar: In the world of lies, the best in that craft survive

The second premiere of this year's Grada Theater, the dance performance "Don Juan", a co-production with the Bitef Theater from Belgrade and the Rijeka Summer Nights festival, performed by the Bitef Dance Company troupe, again brought the famous Croatian choreographer Maša Kolar to the Budva audience.

At the 2010 festival, her play "Othello" (also a co-production of the Grada Theater and the Bitef Theater) was a great success, and the life of this play even after the Budva festival was very noticeable - "Othello" was shown on many other stages and festivals in the region. .

This summer, Maša Kolar received a standing ovation with her version of one of the most popular and intriguing heroes not only in dramatic literature, who has seen numerous performances on world stages, but also on film.

Her "Don Juan", the legendary seducer, who has been written about since 1630 by the most important writers, poets, philosophers - from Tierce de Moline, Moliere, Byron, Hoffmann, Pushkin... to Serene Kierkegaard, Bernard Shaw, Camus... , to whom Mozart also dedicated his opera "Don Giovanni", as she stated in an interview for "Vijesti", she does not rely on any known work, that is, it is based on everything she could find out about him, on the entire literary and artistic the myth of Don Juan:

"The main impetus for approaching this subject began when I realized that Don Juan has not been proven as a historical figure, and that it is not known precisely if he ever existed. It is unquestionable, however, that he existed in the past, that he exists now, and that will continue to exist. Our Don Juan belongs to us, the present and the future. However, he remains what he was, he cannot be different. That urge he carries within him is stronger than himself, and he cannot escape from himself, he cannot to help women, he cannot satisfy that emptiness in his ego, that constant hunger and longing for love, and that, in fact, is the essential drama of this play. Don Juan is a force of nature, and that alone is the master of what he does. The environment marks him, colors him, profiles, and condemns. Society puts him on the throne, gives him the characteristics of a criminal, a sinner, marks him with this or that label, and gives him the authority to do what he does, and he does it best. Don Juan is capable, arrogant, crazy, warm , close, yet impetuous and violent, and also charming and dangerous. Who can resist that language of love, and who manages to say no to that language of conquest?"

However, we saw an unusual story about Don Juan, no matter how well it seems that we know this world adventurer, a lucid and ruthless seducer "born" in Spain, in the Mediterranean?

- There's a lot we don't know - he's a guy who goes through human archetypes, and only from the middle of the XNUMXth century did he get and take on his name Don Juan. He is aware of the accusatory environment that considers him a criminal, he is unable to set limits to his desires, he simply cannot stop. He cares more about conquest than love. He spends everything he can get his hands on and lives the "natural being" philosophy. We don't know how many Don Juans there were before, how many there are today, and how many there will be in some future time, and whether, if someone decides, they might get another name. What is certain is that there are parallel many interesting, Don Juan stories that we are not familiar with, so I used the opportunity to create one of our Don Juans, the special one.

That Don Juan, builds his huge desire to seduce and conquer precisely on the fact that he understands very well that in the world of false courtship and pretense, you can survive only if you are simply better at that craft than others?

- Don Juan is not naive, and he is not innocent. He is a criminal, but also a rebel. He skilfully moves from episode to episode, looking for something different in each one, and shapes his defensive shelter again and again. Don Juan knows he's elusive, he was born that way, and he can't help it. He knows very well how and in what way to get what he needs, and he tries to fill that immense longing for love, that "hole" in himself, every day. And that's not easy... He usually succeeds, because he's a master of his own transformations, but the "hole" is empty again. And that natural force continues on, like some water, some flood that is looking for a way, and always finds it. When the water recedes, as we already know very well, it leaves mud and silt, hardship and sadness, that's why I assume that this play is somewhere dark, and that it does not give excessive optimism.

Do you think Don Juan is a pessimist?

- I think that he is not essentially a pessimist, and that he is only looking for absolute love, absolute eros. That is very hard to find these days. It can only be found when the other person absolutely surrenders to love, finds himself in someone else. And today we are all very selfish and egoistic, and it is difficult for those absolute loves to happen at all.

At the end of the play we see that the woman is also Don Juan?

- I'm a female choreographer, and I couldn't suppress the urge to turn the ending in women's favor.

The hero of Byron's best poems constantly conquers, then "puts away" those women whom he has "spent", he equally plays and fights with all the men in him, with the men around him, but as we have seen, in your version, he occasionally fantasizes about them ?

- I believe that each of us, regardless of gender, regardless of other life positions and circumstances, has some dealings with Don Juan - maybe it is a woman who had a love episode, so she is happy, warm, cheerful or sad, or feels left out...

Some women have several episodes in their love resume, and I think every man, or at least most of them, has some unfinished "business" with Don Juan in him. I think that research should be done in that direction.

Maybe I tried, through our dancing Don Juan, to get some new facets and layers in his character, which is anything but simple.

But his essence remains the same - he is irresistible, and he cannot harm himself or others.