From Virgin to Maestro: A Hybrid Work of Music, Theater, and Storytelling

Montenegrin women and contemporary women Darinka Matić Marović, a famous conductor and pedagogue, long-time professor and rector of the University of Arts in Belgrade, and Stana Cerovic, the last Montenegrin virgin, were the inspiration for the Slovenian multidisciplinary artist Karmina Šilec for creating a “hybrid work of music, theater and storytelling”.

Slovenian audiences will see the play for the premiere on March 21st in Maribor, while the Montenegrin premiere is scheduled for July 30th at KotorArt.

As the author tells "Vijesti", the initiative for the project with the working title "From Virgin to Maestro" came from the KotorArt festival, after Šilec received an international award for artistic achievements in the former Yugoslavia, named after Darinka Matić Marović.

Šilec met Matić Marović in elementary school, while she met Stana Cerović as a researcher/artist in residence at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. Given that she has been conducting since the age of sixteen, and that she wrote about the virgin phenomenon in her project BABA: A Catalog and Colossal Balkan Fiction (Sanje, 2021), she felt she had something to tell them.

What is the concept of the project inspired by Dar and Stan?

It is a hybrid work of music, theatre and storytelling, which I call a celebration and which is inspired by the idea of ​​a guslar evening: a story-singing, where music and lyrics are so closely connected that their concepts and tendencies often intertwine. The performance follows the basic principles of this form of storytelling. As with guslar songs, it is more about the process of remembering than about hearing something completely new - remembering something we have already heard. The stories of Dara and Stana are also familiar to the audience.

Šilec also drew inspiration from the works Matije Murka, an ethnologist, literary historian and Slavist, who attended high school in Maribor and later studied the oral epic tradition in Yugoslavia. Based on his theory, which was based on testimonies that ordinary people did not distinguish between singing and reciting (singen und sagen), Murko concluded that epics prove a close connection between dance, singing and all types of poetry, because epics contain lyrical, epic and dramatic elements. His findings became the basis for the famous research on oral narratives, which was later expanded by classicists from Harvard University, Milman Pari i Albert LordThe musical part of the performance therefore moves within a limited habitus, in the soundscape of fictional folklore.

What artistic means did you use to connect documentary material with music and stage expression?

I am trying to accomplish the complex task of connecting two diametrically opposed milieus through a constant play of duality. I move between informants and concerts, urban and rural, analog and digital, monophonic and polyphonic. I have chosen two diametrically opposed vocal ensembles: the Kebataola ensemble from Slovenia, which deals with contemporary music, and the Đude vocal group from Kolašin, which deals with traditional music. This leads to the encounter and intersection of otherwise distant musical identities and traditions.

To what extent was Montenegrin traditional music an inspiration in the creation of this work?

Montenegrin traditional music was a key inspiration: I am interested in mixing different musical idioms, different voice colors and vocal entities - combining unique voice types. The focus will be on the continuity of the narrative, on the transmission through words and singing, on the articulation, ornamentation and the reactions of the performer to the audience.

How did you integrate elements of Montenegrin musical heritage into contemporary stage expression?

The gusle is a perfect instrument, an alter ego, because it is close to the human voice. At the same time, it symbolizes male power. This time, women take the position of epic singers. We are developing contemporary versions of the gusle sound, as a symbolic reuse of the folk single-stringed instrument in connection with singing and storytelling. The sound is simultaneously exoticized and deconstructed. In gusle, as in other epics, it is about heroes. Our heroines are Dara and Stana.

What is the role of the Kolašin singing group Đude in the project?

The Đude ensemble contributes to the project with its archaic style of heterophonic two-part harmony in an untempered system, creating a specific layer in the context of other sound structures.

As an artist, what intrigued you most about the fact that Darinka and Stana are contemporaries, both born in Montenegro, but lived completely different lives?

It is certainly exciting to travel through the worlds of two central and seemingly opposing phenomena in Montenegro: one of the most prominent cultural figures, the conductor Dara, and, officially, the last virgin Stana. During the project, I spent a lot of time thinking about how to conceptualize the parallelism of these two such different phenomena: society heroizes one as a symbol of progress, while seeing the other as a symbol of an outdated patriarchal mechanism. What interests me about them is how their phenomena reveal the transformation of the gender order.

In developing the project, I am thinking about how to understand Darinka's position in the society of that time, which was still quite patriarchal. Conducting is one of the last bastions of absolute (male) power: the conductor stands in front of the collective, gives instructions, even orders, has absolute interpretative power, embodies discipline. Darinka Matić Marović was not a feminist, did not express herself in feminist terminology, and even achieved her goals with “totalitarian” strategies. But she opened the door because she knew how to use the system of that time and found a phenomenal formula for combining femininity and a firm hand.

I think that in order to view feminism historically today, it is necessary to talk about figures like Dara, just as it is necessary to talk about Virginians i to silvia with stones and an oven (Virginia Woolf, drowning with stones in pockets) and on Sylvia Plath (suicide by sticking one's head in a gas-fired oven). This narrative also needs heroines who persevere in fully enjoying life and who do not necessarily come from the West.

I'm interested in Stan because virgins in contemporary discourse are often used as an example to break down the binary understanding of gender and show that gender roles are not universal or biologically fixed, but rather socially conditioned.

As an artist, how do you analyze two such strong, yet completely different female destinies?

The basic prism is: how does a woman function in a world where the privileges of public life are more or less reserved for men? I am interested in issues of gender, control of the female body through ideas of purity, the glass ceiling for women in public life.

First of all, I question the functioning of women who use male methods as a category of success. I am interested in this aspect because conducting is historically a male profession (especially during Dara’s career and earlier). The professional habitus of conducting reproduces the cultural model of the ideal male leader. This profession allows for the use of discipline and the demand for obedience to establish a hierarchy in the choir/orchestra, supports demands for homogenization among members, so conductor Dara can be seen in this environment as the “queen of discipline”, the “iron lady”, the “authority”.

Does the project raise the issue of gender equality or is it primarily concerned with freedom of choice?

It certainly addresses this issue. Especially in the case of Stana, it is impossible to talk about freedom of choice. Becoming a virgin may in some cases seem like a personal choice, but most often it is an obligation or a social necessity. It is clear that these women gain a certain degree of independence only after they vow to become men and thereby gain “normal” human rights, which women (were) denied.

To what extent have social rules shaped their lives and how different are they today?

I am interested in the issue of using male resources to achieve certain goals in modern society. How present is this and why do we believe that women can only succeed if they try to break through in “men's shoes”? It is about the desire to achieve the same goals as men and, consequently, to behave like a man. This effort often involves imitating the male model of action. In this way, a woman loses her own value, and the principle of femininity is devalued.

Can Dara's international career be interpreted as a fight against the limitations imposed on women?

The question that constantly preoccupies me is whether the end of the virgin tradition and Dara's social success really mark the end of patriarchy or just its transformation. To take it a step further: did our heroines play patriarchy or did patriarchy play them?

In this process, I try to understand Dara's breakthrough. We know that she used male institutional logic, hierarchy, uncompromising order, perfectionism as a moral value, and the like. Her success is, in a way, based on a strategic identification with an institution that, by its structure and symbolic capital, was defined as a male space. At the time she was active, her entry into that space was more an individual agreement with society than the result of collective change. Society allowed her to stand out as an individual, and within the framework of the project I also consider to what extent this contributed to broader social changes.

Societies often erase and revise painful memories, as well as those that could separate or bring people together. That's why they rearrange stories and history, reshape the past and interpret the present. But everything, sooner or later, comes back. Perhaps the heroines of Dara and Stan are coming back today for a reason.

What message do you want to send to the audience by watching this musical-theater piece?

This is a choregie project in which, in a way, the theatrical and musical elements are de-hierarchized. The elements that make up the choregie are not meant to illustrate or duplicate each other, but to maintain their own identity and not rely on a conventional hierarchy of expression. It is a theatrical project, but without the “traditional” theatrical elements; the drama is expressed through the performance of music, not through acting in the classical sense.

Choregie creates spaces where the viewer's imagination can roam freely. The viewer is left to their own emotions and is not directed how to feel - there are no instructions on how and what to think. As an author of choregie projects, I am most interested in layers of meaning that are not unambiguous. I do not want to narrow the content to a single interpretation. I find it exciting when the known or unknown material from which I build a project opens up the possibility of constantly discovering new perspectives, levels and inner layers.

Do you think art today has a duty to raise issues of gender equality and social norms?

Modern liberal society promotes freedom of choice as one of its most cherished values. Freedom of choice supports a consumerist ideology, in which an abundance of options is considered a sign of progress and prosperity. This extends to essential life issues: choice of profession, worldview, religion, personal style, identity, and even gender identity - not only sexual orientation and practice, but also the right to adopt a gender identity independent of biological sex. Freedom of choice penetrates even the most intimate spheres of life and becomes synonymous with modernity.

The Virgins represent the antithesis of this generally accepted idea of ​​freedom of choice. Although the contexts are different, their lives have parallels with the obstacles that many women still face today when entering areas traditionally reserved for men. Despite modern and liberal circumstances, patriarchal restrictions continue to surface. They are not as explicit as in traditional societies, they are often silent and hidden, but they exist and shape our lives with an invisible hand.

In this sense, Stana-virgina shows that gender non-normativity is not a modern invention, but that it also existed in traditional environments, and thus plays an important role in legitimizing different gender arrangements.

What emotional and artistic significance does this project have for you?

In my youth, Dara was a metaphor for breaking down the division between men and public authority, or positions of power. She probably influenced me by opening a rift that destabilized the social normality of the time. This year's return to Dara also brought me back to conducting. After many years of working in this field, the journey through memories, emotions, and relationships connected my past with the present.

Bold, provocative and often politically engaged projects

Karmina Šilec is a multidisciplinary artist, director, conductor and composer active on the international scene. She is the founder of the Choregie concept - a new musical theatre that combines composing with the stage and performance process. She is the artistic director of the ensembles Carmina Slovenica, !Kebataola! and the New Music Theatre Choregie.

Her projects are bold, provocative, and often politically engaged; they address contemporary social issues, marginalized voices, and issues of Otherness, integration, and healing. She combines music, movement, words, and visual elements into layered, conceptually rounded stage productions.

She has performed at prestigious festivals and stages across Europe, and her projects have been broadcast internationally. She has won numerous awards and recognitions. She has published several books, over 20 CD releases and several DVDs, and works as a professor, artistic advisor and member of international juries. Critics describe her work as powerful, visually and musically impressive world-class theatre.