Orbis Pictus conference

Food for Thought event of the Orbis Pictus conference (scholars having dinner with theatre makers)

"Swashbuckling dishes: Pirates, Politics and Promises" Jörg Wiesel meets Sanja Mitrovic

Jörg Wiesel is a guest professor at the Freie Universität Berlin (Institut für Theaterwissenschaft). Last year he finished his habilitation about pirates and his book will be published next year. He is working at the University Of Art in Basel (University of Applied Sciences in Nortwestern Switzerland, fhnw). His teaching fields there are fashion-design, theory and performance.

In the late evening afterthoughts will take place in Theatre Frascati. Afterthoughts and food for thought are 'living knowledge installations'.

Date: 25th of October
Place: Amsterdam

Actual Theatre

Intensive workshop for the third year of the Mime department students at Amsterdamse Hoogeschool voor de Kunsten.

Will You Ever Be Happy Again? Dutch tour

After the international premiere during the BITEF Festival in Belgrade, as a part of the special program of the 42nd BITEF festival "TRUTH IN THEATRE", "Will You Ever Be Happy Again?" has it’s Dutch premiere at Hetveem Theatre, on Thursday 23rd of October. This performance was preceded by the Hetveem Research project culminating in the public presentation at Hetveem Theater in March 2008.

Dates: 23 October (Dutch premiere + afterpary DJ’s Sinisa Mitrovic and Vladimir Tupanjac with their eclectic electric & bastard disco & special guests)
24 October(with debate moderated by dr.Dragan Klaic)
25 October at 20.30
26 October at 16.00
Place: Hetveem Theater, Amsterdam
www.hetveemtheater.nl/makers
Language: Serbian and German spoken, Thu 23 and Fri 24 Oct Dutch subtitles, Sat 25 and Sun 26 Oct English subtitles.

further dates: 6 Nov 20.00 uur Kristallnachtremembrance De NWE Vorst, Tilburg (NL)

The interview "Voetbalvreugde en oorlogsherinneringen" by Laura Karreman you can read in Dutch at http://www.hetveemtheater.nl/content/interviewsanjamitrovic.html

Discussion after the performance "Will You Ever Be Happy Again?"

After the Dutch premiere of “Will You Ever Be Happy Again?” the post-performance debate IN/BETWEEN mirrors of collective history. Thought experiments for Holland, Serbia and Germany moderated by Dr. Dragan Klaic was held in Hetveem theatre.

We are repeating history just as the history seems to repeat itself. Is there a hope to survive one’s own history? Can we learn from the history and find out more about where we are at the moment?

The idea of the discussion was to reflect upon the role of the history today.

Date and place: 24th of October 2008. Hetveem Theatre, Amsterdam
Moderator: dr. Dragan Klaic
Participants: Drs. Hanco Jurgens, Igor Dobricic, Sanja Mitrovic, Felix Ritter

Dr. Dragan Klaic is writer, theater scholar and cultural analyst. He led the Theater Instituut Nederland (1992-2001) and now serves as a Permanent Fellow of Felix Meritis Foundation in Amsterdam. Fields of interest are: international cultural cooperation, interculturalism, cultural systems in Europe, cultural memory. Culture and globazation, sustainability and expanded typology of cultural organizations. He is initiator and Chair of the European Festivals Research Project (EFRP - www.efa-aef.org). Dragan Klaic’s Specialties: experienced leader of complex international research projects; analyst, commentator and avisor in cultural affairs; trainer, mentor, coach and conference key note speaker..
www.draganklaic.eu

Will You Ever Be Happy Again?

“Are we ever going to be happy again?,” the German population asked themselves at the end of the Second World War. A significant part of the Serbian population is facing the same question in the wake of the new millennium. The Germans called that moment "hour zero", to symbolize their desire for a fresh start. But this appeared to be an illusion, because one can’t escape one’s own history; one can only hope to survive it.
"Will You Ever Be Happy Again?" is a piece for one Serbian and one German performer. Developed around authentic autobiographical accounts of its performers, "Will You Ever Be Happy Again?" employs documentary strategies to explore how nationality influences one’s personal identity. This issue has been acutely pertinent to both Serbia and Germany, which, at different points in their national histories, have been perceived in negative terms within the international community. "Will You Ever Be Happy Again?" is structured as a succession of performative situations, based, amongst others, on childhood games, primary school classes and sporting events. The performers' personal and collective memories outline the narratives of good vs. bad, of victim vs. criminal, and how these distinctions can easily be turned upside down. The German performer relates his family memories, the period after the Second World War and the Cold War era. The Serbian performer reflects on her childhood in the 1980s, the ethnic conflicts and disintegration of Former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and the recent experience of becoming a Dutch citizen. Counter–pointing and mirroring each other’s cultural and historical backgrounds, they attempt to approach the problem of self–representation, the way one looks at the other, and the urge to see oneself through the eyes of another.

"Will You Ever Be Happy Again?" is poised between documentary material and its theatrical interpretation. Shifting from a straightforward address to allusion to quotation, and relying on an oblique exploitation of historical images and poetic expressions, the work swings from research to a ritual game that creates imaginary parallels between the two countries, repeating History just like History always seems to repeat itself.

Concept and direction: Sanja Mitrovic
Performers: Jochen Stechmann, Sanja Mitrovic
Dramaturgy: Felix Ritter
Light design: Erik Gramberg
Sound design: Vladimir Rakic
Costume design: Dejan Dosljak
Artistic advisor: Vladimir Tupanjac
Stills photography: Sjoerd Kelderman

Co-produced by: CZKD, Beograd http://www.czkd.org/aktuelno.php?lang=en and Het Veem, Amsterdam http://www.hetveemtheater.nl/eng/frames.php?frame=dates

Supported by: BITEF Festival (http://www.bitef.rs/en/festival/predstava.php?pid=16) and Pact Zollverein, Essen
Many thanks to: Shady Lane Productions, Glasgow

Performance WILL YOU EVER BE HAPPY AGAIN? is a part of the COMMUNITY OF MEMORY project produced by Center for Cultural Decontamination and supported by Erste Foundation, Ministry of Culture Republic of Serbia, Belgrade City Council – Department for Culture and Swiss Embassy in Belgrade.


Dates: 26 (premiere at BITEF festival, with aftertalk)
27 September BITEF Festival at 18.00, CZKD (Center for Cultural Decontamination), Belgrade www.bitef.rs

27 September - round table discussion "Truth in Theatre". http://www.bitef.rs/en/festival/programi.php?pid=3

reprise: 29,30 September at 20.00 in CZKD, Belgrade - www.czkd.org

e-mail address: willyoueverbehappyagain@gmail.com

Residency in Pact Zollverein

PACT Zollverein runs a residency programme, awarded twice yearly by a jury, for the development and realisation of projects and productions, which is open to professional artists from Germany and abroad, working in the fields of dance, performance or media art.

August 2008: artist in residence, three weeks in Pact. In the first week the whole team of "Will You Ever Be Happy Again?" was there as well, working intensively on the preparations for Belgrade premiere.

Team: Jochen Stechmann, Felix Ritter, Vladimir Rakic, Erik Gramberg, Dejan Dosljak, Sanja Mitrovic

INSTED & ITS

From the 23rd to the 28th of June 2008, INSTED organized another INSTED@ITs programme during the 19th edition of the ITs Festival in Amsterdam. All Dutch graduating theatre directors were presenting their performances in a special Directors Route in the ITs Festival. INSTED invited twenty Dutch and Flemish young directors and twenty young international directors to watch these performances and to participate in an active and intensive visitors programme.

The INSTED@ITs visitors programme was scheduled around the Directors Route of the ITs Festival and gave us the opportunity to meet, mingle, party and work with other young directors from different countries, but also with established Dutch directors and international programmers.

After great very inspiring time we had together and meeting many colleagues from all around Europe, in the summer 2008 INSTED asked 4 members to start a letter exchange about their preparation for their performances at the Amsterdam Fringe Festival and BITEF festival in Belgrade, Serbia; Philip Thorne were to exchange letters with Sanja Mitrovic and Øystein U. Brager with David Overend. You can read the letters here on Will You Ever Be Happy Again? blog, or find them on http://www.insted.eu/ and on http://oystein.ulsberg.no/blogg/insted-letters/.

The letters were also printed in little booklets Unique correspondence. Four young international directors exchange their experiences during the process of making a new theatre piece.