Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Showcase 2015
International Theatre Institute Croatian Centre
Croatian Theatre
Showcase 2015
Zagreb, April 17 20, 2015
www.hciti.hr
PROGRAMME
PROGRAMME
INTRODUCTION
Honored colleagues, dear guests,
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Welcome to Zagreb, to the 10 Croatian Theatre Showcase, where we want to show you some
of the best theatrical and dance performances created in the production of Croatian theatres and
independent groups.
The performances have been selected based on the attractiveness and excellence of the
themes and poetics of Croatian theatre, and they are sure to be interesting and informative to foreign theatre professionals as well.
Croatian theatre is not well-known on the global stage, so the Showcase is an opportunity to
increase its visibility beyond our borders. We hope you will help us accomplish that.
The Zagreb Youth Theatre will present as many as three shows, which is indicative of its diverse
and high-quality repertoire, making it one of the best repertory theatres in Croatia.
Christopher Columbus (1918) is an early expressionist play by Croatian literary icon Miroslav Krlea (1893-1981); through this staging, it communicates intensely with our present and confirms its
universal character. The show Lamb by the creative duo of director Anica Tomi and dramaturge
Jelena Kovai tackles the issue of the flip side of World War One in Zagreb via a strong social
context, while How We Survived by Bosnian-Herzegovinian director and MESS art director Dino
Mustafi, partially based on the essays of famous Croatian writer Slavenka Drakuli, draws a comparison between the era of socialism, the war of the nineties, and the contemporary period of
transition through the fates of eight women.
The &TD Theatre was a cult theatre in the sixties that brought new avant-garde pieces to the
Croatian theatre scene; nowadays it is open both to young directors and experimental projects and
will showcase two plays: In The Blink Of An Eye, an auteur project by Bobo Jeli, a director famous
for introducing documentarist approaches to Croatian theatres and creating the dramatic material of his shows through the work process itself, and The Flood, a play by Miran Kurspahi, a young
director whose theatre leans toward socio-political issues, with the play drawing inspiration
from the 50-year anniversary of the Great Flood of Zagreb in 1964. Two parallel stories from
different generations interweave in the play.
The Croatian National will also present one of Miroslav Krleas plays, Vujak, which belongs to his second playwriting phase, tackles the social and national issues in the twilight
days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, through a realist-expressionist discourse. Vujak is the
name of a backwater, primitive village where Kreimir Horvat, a journalist and intellectual,
goes to escape the hypocrites and philistines of the big city, but soon comes to realize that
the countryside is even more crooked and bestial.
We also have two contemporary dance productions in store for you, with their phenomenological approach more akin to non-verbal theatre than to the classical notion of dance theatre. They are set in the attractive, modernist facilities of the Zagreb Dance Center, which was
created by renovating an old movie theatre in the center of Zagreb.
If you are interested in childrens theatre, you will have the opportunity to see two plays
in one of the most agile childrens theatres in Croatia, the Mala scena. One of them is a free
adaptation of Ottfried Preusslers cult play The Little Witch, steeped in circus poetics, while the
other one tackles the issue of prejudice towards anything different by playing with clichs.
In addition to our main program, we will present the Drame.hr web-portal through a discussion with two young playwrights, Ivor Martini and Lana ari, and on Saturday we will see
the promotion of the only dance magazine in Croatia, Kretanja (Movements), with the latest
issue focusing on the status of persons with disabilities in dance art.
We wish you a pleasant stay in Zagreb, hoping that our selection of shows and events will
provide you with an impression of the theatrical, dance and dramatic trends in Croatia.
eljka Turinovi
Artistic Director of the Showcase
Move-r
Friday,
Friday,
Miroslav Krlea
Christopher Columbus
Director: Rene Medveek
Cast:
Christopher Columbus: Kreimir Miki
Admirals Phalanx: Sreten Mokrovi, Zoran ubrilo,
Maro Martinovi
Sailors: Pjer Menianin, Damir aban, Filip Nola,
Kristijan Ugrina
Slaves: Danijel Ljuboja, Frano Makovi,
Jasmin Telalovi, Petar Leventi
Dramaturge: Jelena Kovai
Set Design: Tanja Lacko
Costume Design: Doris Kristi
Score: Matija Antoli
Percussion performer: Nenad Kovai
Friday,
In the last hundred years, the borders in which we live have changed several times. The Earth has patiently suffered all our revolutions, as if she really believed us when we said we knew the answer to the question:
Where to? Today, when we live in a declaratively unified Europe, but at the
same time witness dissolutions undermining that same unity every day,
the answer to the question Where to? seems to be impossible. And even
though we seem to be moving forward, we keep finding ourselves surrounded by the Old.
Jelena Kovai, from the performance program
It is hard to imagine any premiere this season in Zagreb, in fact in all of
Croatia, overshadowing Christopher Columbus, directed by Rene Medveek
at the Zagreb Youth Theatre, with the inspired Kreimir Miki taking the lead
role and almost the entire male section of the ensemble providing a humorous performance. It has been a long time since weve seen a show
with such spirit and simple magic in these parts.
Tomislav ade, Jutarnji list
Other events
Saturday, April 18, 2015
12.00 pm
Zagreb Dance Centre
05:00 pm
11.00 am
Croatian Centre of ITI, Basariekova 24
10:00 am
The drame.hr web portal was created through an initiative of students and graduates of the Academy of
Dramatic Art in Zagreb. Through their practical work,
they noticed a need to present the texts of Croatian
playwrights and increase their public visibility, in order
to encourage new performances, readings and usage
of their texts. This portal contains both plays that are
as of yet unperformed and unpublished, and those
that have already been staged and/or translated, as
well as information about their authors.
Drame.hr publishes the texts of students or graduates
of drama academies, plays awarded in renowned
state or private competitions in Croatia or ab- road,
and other plays that pass the selection process of our
editors.
The drame.hr project will be presented by its founders and prominent young playwrights Ivor Martini
and Lana ari.
Kristina Gavran
The Flood
Director and Dramaturge: Miran Kurspahi
Cast: Dean Krivai, Lana Bari, Sven Jakir,
Iskra Jirsak and Franka Mikolaci
Music: Nika Marinovi
Photography: Damir ii
Graphic Design: Lana Hudina
Producer: Petra Glad
Production: KUFER and the University of Zagreb,
Student Center, Culture of Change, &TD Theatre
With the support of: The City of Zagreb,
the Croatian Ministry of Culture,
and the Kultura Nova foundation
Photo: Damir ii
Bobo Jeli
One would say that Marko is a successful person. School and college graduated on time, job good, in a respectable company, well-paid, and
the rest career, girlfriend, friends all but perfect. He, like many, has
had his share of problems, professional or private, but, whatever it was,
he always felt capable and skilled enough to handle it. But now, he has
come across something big and painful, something he has never encountered, not in this scope. On the verge of despair, he calls his best
friends, a seemingly conventional married couple, intending to confide in
them and ask for their help
From the performance program
Jelis latest show presents the audience with a true little masterpiece of
the theatre of the socially repressed body, a body which pours out of the
performer in a way entirely different to the text not only as a neural
symptom, but as a sort of stifled cry, a call, an unspoken stream of longing of the inner world.
Nataa Govedi, Novi list
Photo: Damir ii
Jelena Kovai
The Lamb
Director: Anica Tomi
Production: Zagreb Youth Theatre, Zagreb, Croatia,
MESS- Scena Mess, Sarajevo, B&H; BITEF Theatre,
Belgrade, Serbia
Cast: Dubravka Kovjani, Ivana Krizmani,
Vedran ivoli, Enes Salkovi
Music: Nenad Kovai
The political potential of this show is more present in the respect towards
human (especially childrens) traces and documents, than in the repeated
emphasis on the extent to which a battlefield inevitably causes the annihilation of everything that makes us human. The play leaves some room for
improvement in the performance materials, but even in this form it offers
a high-quality piece of performance ethnography.
Premiere:
December 5, 2014 at the Sarajevo War Theatre
in Sarajevo, B&H
January 15, 2015 at the BITEF Theatre in Belgrade,
Serbia
January 23, 2015 at the Zagreb Youth Theatre,
Zagreb, Croatia
Running time: 1h
Based on the motifs of the essays of Slavenka Drakuli and actresses stories
How we survived
Director: Dino Mustafi
Cast: Katarina Bistrovi-Darva, Nataa Dori,
Jadranka oki, Doris ari Kukuljica, Ksenija
Marinkovi, Ura Raukar, Lucija erbedija,
Nina Violi
Musicians: Mate Matii and Stanislav Kovai
Dramaturge: eljka Udovii Pletina
Set Design: Dragutin Broz
Costume Design: Doris Kristi
Composer and song author: Mate Matii
Choreographer: Irma Omerzo
Miroslav Krlea
Vujak
Dramaturge: Vlaho Bogii
Composer: Mitja Vrhovnik Smrekar
Set Design: Aleksandar Deni
Costume Design: Ana Savi Gecan
Lighting Design: Son:Da
Condition Trainer: Marinko Petrievi
Directors Assistant: Paolo Tiljari
Costume Design Assistant: Antonija
Jaki Doroti
Set Design Assistant: Ante Serdar
Premiere: December 30, 2014
Cast:
Characters in the Prelude:
Polugan: Bojan Navojec
Dr. Zlatko Strelec: Nika Kuelj
Venger-Ugarkovi: Livio Badurina
Boss-redactor: Damir Markovina
ipui: Ivan Glowatzky
Proofreader: Alen alinovi
Kreimir Horvat: Silvio Vovk
the Croatian dance scene. It primarily acts as a place that provides logistic support to dance groups and projects as well as
a source of information and a way of joining the international
network on the level of the ITI Dance Boards. Thus, tours of
our groups were successfully realized in Mexico, Peru and
Cyprus. Thanks to the Dance Board, the celebration of Dance
Day on April 29 has become a true holiday in the Croatian
dance calendar. What we consider the most valuable result
of the work of our Dance Board is the launching of the magazine for Dance Art Kretanja (Movements, 2002), published
twice a year, as well as the publishing of the Guide to Croatian Dance. The guide was published in English only and it is
a valuable asset anywhere where there is an interest and
need for information as it contains all the addresses, contacts and repertoires of the contemporary Croatian dance
scene.
Since 2001 on, eljka Turinovi has been leading the Croatian Centre of ITI as its President, while Dubravka ukman acts
as Administrative Assistant in the Centres office and Matko
Boti as expert collaborator. According to current Centre regulations, the Managing and the Supervisory Board meet
three to five times a year. The Annual Assembly is held in
the month of January.
ACTIVITIES OF ITI
THEATRES / Venues
INFO
Hotel JADRAN
50 Vlaka St., ZAGREB
phone: +385 1 4553 777
e-mail: jadran.reservations@hup-zagreb.hr
web: www.hoteljadran.com.hr
&TD THEATRE
25 Savska St., ZAGREB
phone: +385 1 459 35 10
e-mail: itd@sczg.hr
web: www.itd.sczg.hr
MALA SCENA THEATRE
2 Medveak St., ZAGREB
phone: +385 1 4683 352
e-mail: info@mala.scena.hr
web: www.mala-scena.hr
ZAGREB DANCE CENTRE
10 Ilica St., ZAGREB
phone: +385 1 4833 083, +385 1 4621 967
e-mail: hipp-tsp@zg.t-com.hr
info@plesnicentar.info
web: www.plesnicentar.info
ZAGREB YOUTH THEATRE
7 Teslina St., ZAGREB
phone: +385 1 4872 561
e-mail: helena.braut@zekaem.hr
web: www.zekaem.hr