A person has the right to take his destiny into his own hands, in the world as it is at the moment, with full awareness... the selector and artistic director of the Bitef festival, Ivan Medenica, tells us in an interview.
For ART Vijesti, we discuss the concept of the Prologue Bitef festival, the performances seen by the Prologue Bitef audience, as well as the current political events and changes in Montenegro and the way they reflect on the social climate and awareness in the entire region.
This year, given the extraordinary pandemic circumstances, the Bitef prologue was held. One of the key things you said about Prolog is that the Bitef Theater and Mira Trailović Square become Agora. Why is Agora important to today's world?
"Because the agora is synonymous with the gathering of the community in a public, physical space for the sake of exchanging views, dialogue, discussion, questioning, criticism or confirming the values on which that community is based, which are all prerequisites for freedom. The introduction of physical distance as an anti-pandemic measure can be an excellent alibi for the suppression of key institutions of public speech such as the university, theater, assembly, pub...
The Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben wrote inspiredly about the risk to the university in a text with a significant title, Requiem for students: one of his main claims is that physical contact, exchange, is a prerequisite not so much for teaching, but for the development of students, in a community of colleagues, into free citizens... All of us who have had the experience of online teaching on Zoom or similar platforms know that they are a useful tool to maintain the teaching process, but essential interaction in this context cannot be realized. You don't have to be from the theater to know that communication depends not only on spoken words, but also on looks, non-verbal signs and, above all, energy that is realized only in a physical encounter.
That's why I am very happy that, as part of the Bitef Prologue, we managed to put on the square in front of the Bitef theater, which is located between the church where the theater is located, the market and the (ballet) school, so important "topos" of every city core, and the square that carries the name of Mira Trailović, the woman who founded the Bitef festival and the theater of the same name, let's make a real agora. With the Slovenian theoretician and activist Svetlana Slapšak, Maja Pelević discussed here, as part of the Philosophical Theater, what the public sphere will look like after the pandemic, whether institutions will continue to collapse or be reshaped, whether we are witnessing the global growth of totalitarianism, whether will neoliberal capitalism strengthen after the pandemic, or will it finally collapse. I spoke with the leading German theater scholar Erika Fischer Lichte about the aesthetic essence of theater, in which she confirmed her belief that there is no theater without the physical co-presence of spectators and performers. With that, she put a theoretical end to the improvisations about online or digital theater that we have often heard in recent months... We also held an international forum on the challenges and models of financing and management of theaters and festivals in the post-pandemic period".
In two performances of Bitef Prolog, the actors were replaced or partnered by a humanoid robot and a hologram. It seems to me that this does not threaten the traditional notion of a theatrical assembly in which there are (mostly) only flesh and blood actors on stage, but that it offers, in accordance with the zeitgeist, the technological world in which we live, another option. How does it seem to you?
"Yes, I totally agree. My goal was not to offer a "theatre without actors", but only to provoke, encourage thinking about the aesthetic essence of theater in the world of modern technology, one in which man, in the spirit of posthumanism, would no longer be at the center. After all, a play Jeze Valley by the famous director Štefan Kegi, in which the only performer is a humanoid robot, a faithful replica of the German writer Thomas Mele, is a borderline, highly experimental phenomenon in contemporary theater, so as such it cannot be considered an announcement of a new tendency".
Throughout history, Bitef has always been a festival that reflects the world through a social context. It has never been a festival that talks about art for art's sake. What Bitef sees with his rich experience observing the world today
"The thematic arc of the 54th Bitefa, which due to the pandemic was postponed until next year when it will take place in a double edition, combined with the program of the 55th Bitefa, moves from today's biggest challenge, the global ecological crisis, to a post-humanist vision of the world, in the center of which will no longer to be human, and there could be hope that the ecological balance will be restored. Our world, as suggested by the slogan of this year's Bitef, is on the verge of the future. Of course, solving global environmental problems is inseparable from the struggle for new, progressive forms of curbing frenzied neoliberal capitalism ... It is sad that in our part of the world, political struggles are still reduced to religious and tribal conflicts, and we do not see that, with the projects of mini hydropower plants and the high level of air pollution that we have, for example, in Belgrade, these topics are actually , much more concerning.
You were supposed to participate in the FIAT festival in Podgorica in a discussion with the topic: 'Festivals in the age of corona'. On the other hand, Bitef initiated a discussion with the topic 'On the verge of a new theater season'. How do you see the near future of theater in the region in the new context, with all its differences, from society to society?
"There are very difficult times ahead of the theater, both globally and locally. Although it does not leave a pleasant impression, it is certainly possible to achieve physical distance in the auditoriums, but it is a serious dilemma whether this distance will be creatively realized in new directions and choreographies, whether give rise to a new poetics, or it will be reduced to a series of quickly spent tricks. In the conversation with me, Fischer Lichte was very optimistic in this respect, I was not. In any case, what is important is to view the coming period in the development of the theater as short-lived and transitory ... Additional challenges are the financing of theater and culture in the times of a more than certain recession that follows us, as well as the organization of the creative process in the theater.
The pandemic has exposed one of its biggest problems in Serbian theater: the impossibility of ensuring normal rehearsal processes due to the engagement of actors in filming countless series. This is directly reflected in the artistic level of those performances, which is getting lower and lower... We know that this issue is legally regulated in Croatia, that actors are obliged to first fulfill their obligations to their home theaters. I believe that the problem is not so big in Montenegro, because you don't shoot so many series... On the other hand, I don't believe that in any of the countries that emerged from Yugoslavia, the political culture is at such a high level that it is recognized how important contemporary creativity is for society, its emancipation, the development of progressive values, and as was the case in some developed Western countries that introduced special support measures for this sector at the beginning of the pandemic.
How do you understand the new changes on the political scene of Montenegro in the context of the social process in the countries that once made up Yugoslavia?
"As a citizen of Serbia, a country that is rightly considered to have had its own political interests in the elections in Montenegro, I believe that I should answer this question very carefully. However, the change of authoritarian government through a flawless democratic process and that in a part of the world that is not famous according to them, it must be unequivocally determined as a significant success, as "winning freedom".
That goes to the honor of Montenegrins. Also, that would have to be the minimum consensus that well-intentioned observers of your political circumstances should develop. From that initial agreement, a wide variety of disagreements are possible. As a supporter of secular, civil values, I am also disappointed that this political change was achieved with the strong logistics of the church - whatever it is. The situation is thus more complicated when it comes to the Serbian Orthodox Church, because its relationship to Montenegrin ethnicity and statehood is inappropriate for a religious organization, and problematic on other levels as well. Nevertheless, it cannot be ignored that the direct reason for the public interference of the SOC in the affairs of the state was a law that threatens its rights, and citizens of Serbian nationality felt the same way... I hope that, as before in the post-election period in Montenegro, there will be enough wisdom and restraint, and that, after the controversial law is repealed, the SPC will be quietly but irrevocably pushed out of the political decision-making process, because it certainly has no place there. No matter how strange it sounds, even though there are a lot of retrograde and compromised politicians in the former opposition and now the parliamentary majority, I believe that this is, after all, a victory for civil and democratic Montenegro and that the extremist forces will be suppressed sooner or later. After all, the clear position of the winning coalitions that the foreign policy course will not change is already a good sign. Pressures from Serbia, and more from intellectual than political circles, for Montenegro to withdraw recognition of Kosovo's independence are hypocritical, even shameless, because in Serbia we are slowly psychologically preparing for formal or informal recognition of the former province.
Last, but not least, these elections threw into orbit the most gifted politician not only of Montenegro, but of the entire region, Dritan Abazović. His nickname Albanian Chetnik is a great indicator that he is a man on the right path; someone who, with his identity, actions and attitudes, breaks all binary divisions, in a completely Derridian way, disturbs all those who, for personal benefit or intellectual laziness (and, usually for both of these reasons), have entrenched themselves in ideological positions that have nothing to do with the contemporary world ... He can be the harbinger of a new generation of politicians who will begin an important process: economic, cultural and related forms of unification, without a trace of nostalgia and purely on a rational basis, of the countries of the former Yugoslavia, that is, the Yugoslavian sphere, which is largely a historical necessity.
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