Two Open Weeks of PLAVO Theatre
Belgrade, July 17 – 30, 2016
Two Open Weeks of PLAVO Theatre is an international practical and theoretical program for people interested in work inside of a theatrical laboratory through specific methodology of PLAVO Theatre.
During Two Open Weeks PLAVO Theatre will open the doors of its theatrical laboratory, which will be an opportunity for participants to meet with its work through series of events: theatre workshops, performances, presentations, demonstrations, meetings, video presentations. The program will be divided into two parts, in two workshops, and participants will have the possibility to participate in the whole program or in the workshop by their choice.
Our aim is to share with participants the idea of theatre as a place of communication, a place of self-researching and a space of open mind where some important things about us and the world that surrounds us could be said.
Participants will be introduced into PLAVO Theatre methodology of work developed through years, which relies on laboratory theatre tradition and on human experience. This methodology puts into the background talent and artistic exhibitionism not only of an actor but anyone who works in theatre and instead it puts forth inner, organic life of an individual which becomes a field of research and improvement.
The program is opened for professional and semi-professional actors, directors, other theatre artists, dancers, as well as theatre and dance students and other people who are interested in theatre or self-research using the theatrical tools.
After years of experience in theatre pedagogy, our program Two Open Weeks of PLAVO Theatre was created out of the need to bring closer our educational work to international participants and to make theatrical laboratory a place of intercultural communication, theatrical exchange and development. The program has been realized every summer in Belgrade since 2004 gathering participants from three continents. From one year to another, the program has been developed and enriched parallel with growth and development of PLAVO Theatre.
Program
• Sunday, July 17, 20:00
Concert, by PLAVO Theatre and welcome dinner for the participants of the first week;
• July 18 – 22, 11:00 – 17:00 with one hour break
Dance of Memory, workshop led by Maša Jelić, actress of PLAVO Theatre.
The workshop will be followed by the additional program:
- July 18, 18:00 - 20:00 Video presentation of the relevant video material from the history of contemporary theatre;
- July 19, 20:00 Ema, PLAVO Theatre performance;
- July 20, 18:00 - 21:00 Open Space, practical or theoretical presentation of the individual artistic experience of the participants, lasting up to 20 minutes each;
(OPTIONAL: participants who wish to present their work should apply in advance.)
- July 21, 18:00 - 20:00 The Seed of Creation, demonstration of the actors’ training by PLAVO Theatre actors;
- July 22, 20:00 Daydream – A Story from Terezin, PLAVO Theatre performance.
• July 24, 20:00 Concert, by PLAVO Theatre and welcome dinner for the participants of the second week;
• July 25 – 29, 11:00 – 17:00 with one hour break
From Myself towards Theatre, workshop led by Nenad Čolić, PLAVO Theatre director.
The workshop will be followed by the additional program:
- July 25, 18:00 - 20:00 Video presentation of the relevant video material from the history of contemporary theatre;
- July 26, 20:00 Ema, PLAVO Theatre performance;
- July 27, 18:00 - 21:00 Open Space, practical or theoretical presentation of the individual artistic experience of the participants, lasting up to 20 minutes each;
(OPTIONAL: participants who wish to present their work should apply in advance.)
- July 28, 18:00 - 20:00 The Seed of Creation, demonstration of the actors’ training by PLAVO Theatre actors;
- July 29, 20:00 - 21:00 Open rehearsal of PLAVO Theatre performance;
- July 30, 20:00 I Sing Like a Bird, PLAVO Theatre performance.
The work will be held in English.
Registration
Registration fees for participants coming from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro, Ukraine, Croatia, Slovenia and Serbia:
Workshop 'Dance of Memory': 55€
Workshop 'From Myself towards Theatre': 65€
Complete program: 100€
Registration fees for participants coming from all other countries:
Workshop 'Dance of Memory': 65€
Workshop 'From Myself towards Theatre': 75€
Complete program: 120€
Note: The number of participants is limited. There is no a specific application deadline. After sending us registration form and getting a confirmation from us about their participation, interested participants should pay the fee to our bank account in order to book their place.
Please contact us for all additional information including registration form, applying for participation in Open Space program or any practical information.
E-mails: plavopozoriste@hotmail.com, plavopozoriste@gmail.com.
Dance of Memory, workshop, led by Maša Jelić, actress of PLAVO Theatre
The workshop consists of introducing of participants into basic principles of actor's work in laboratory theatre:
- body and voice training - overcoming of individual mental and physical barriers;
- work on the actor’s aware scenic presence and leadership - building of the intention and initiative, releasing, activating and leading one’s own energy;
- work with music, song, text, prop and musical instrument;
- work on actor's improvisations and creation of actor's materials, which thematic frame will be defined in the course of the workshop through focusing of the personal reason;
- team building exercises.
It is important for participants to know well by hart:
- a text from a favorite part from a favorite book or their own text (5 – 10 sentences long) in their native language or in English;
- a traditional song from the participant's country.
Participants should have a notebook and wear comfortable working clothes.
The work will be held every day from Monday, July 18, to Friday, July 22, from 11:00 – 17:00 with one hour lunch break. Every evening the additional program will be organized in the form of video presentations, demonstrations of work, performances.
Maša Jelić
actress and teacher, was born in 1977 in Belgrade, Serbia. She has been a member of PLAVO Theatre - theatre laboratory since 2001. Since then she has performed in PLAVO theatre performances: Sarcasticus or Birth of the Virus (2002), Fantastic Gospel According to Virginia (2003), Dialectics of Soul – Study of Freedom (2004), I Sing Like a Bird (2006), The Wizard or Harmonic Cacophony (2007), Dancing With Father (2008), Pagan Phantasma or The Secret of Betrayal (2011, 2012), Concert of Decadence (2011), Ema (2013), The Day of Ahasverus (2014), Daydream – A Sory from Terezin (2016). To broaden her acting work, so far she participated in workshops led by Odin Teatret actors Roberta Careri, Jan Ferslev and Iben Nagel Rasmussen and those led by teachers and former actors of Jerzy Grotowski's Laboratory Theatre, Zygmunt Molik and Rena Mirecka. She assisted PLAVO theatre educational projects, such workshops Contemporary Theatre – The Space of Open Mind, Contemporary Theatre – Mind and Technique and continuous projects Play against Violence and School of Contemporary Theatre. Since 2008 she has conducted a continuous educational programs Contemporary Theatre Workshop and Contemporary Theatre Studio, as well as Workshop of Physical and Vocal Training and workshop Dance of Memory, which is a part of PLAVO Theatre international educational program Two Open Weeks. By the end of 2012, in cooperation with director Nenad Čolić, the actress realized presentation of her acting work titled Between Spirit and Soul, and in 2013 her first solo performance Ema.
From Myself towards Theatre, workshop, led by Nenad Čolić, director of PLAVO Theatre
Participants will be introduced into ideological principles of work through series of exercises aimed at exploring of the meeting point between theatre and ritual, discovering theatre as a personal space and space of human experience, researching of individual archetypes as precondition for creation. The work aims to reveal possibilities for deeper levels of communication in theatre, emphasising free individual existence inside of specific conditions of theatre as a collective space, by discovering ecstatic capacities of human being and overcoming of personal obstructions, such are fears, shame or prejudices, which burden human communication even in everyday life.
It is important for participants to know well by hart:
- a text from a favorite part from a favorite book, or their own text
(5 – 10 sentences long) in their native language or in English;
- a traditional song from the participant’s country.
Note: participants attending both workshops can use the same text and song for both workshops.
Participants should have a notebook and wear comfortable working clothes.
The work will be held every day from Monday, July 25, to Friday, July 29, from 11:00 – 17:00 with one hour lunch break. Every evening the additional program will be organized in the form of video presentations, demonstrations of work, performances.
Nenad Čolić
director, actor and teacher, was born in 1961 in Belgrade, Serbia. Before foundation of PLAVO theatre, he was a dancer in music theatre, one of the founders of Signum Theatre, one of the first independent theatre companies in Serbia where he was actor and dancer, and afterwards he was actor in Dah Theatre in Belgrade. In that period he achieved experience in practical work with Odin Teatret’s actor Torgeir Wethal. In 1994 he starts working as a director, he works in Milan with Italian director Massimo Giannetti, founder of theatre Specchi e memorie, and with him he starts a long collaboration. In 1995 he founds PLAVO Theatre - theatre laboratory, where he has been director, teacher and actor. He has directed all PLAVO Theatre performances which have been performed in Serbia and abroad in numerous theatre festivals. Since 1995 he has conducted various theatre workshops and seminars nationally and internationally like From Myself towards Theatre, Contemporary Theatre – The Space of Open Mind, Contemporary Theatre – Mind and Technique, Two Open Weeks of PLAVO Theatre, as well as continuous educational projects such PLAVO Theatre Group 2, Play Against Violence, School of Contemporary Theatre, Contemporary Theatre Studio.
Performances he so far directed in PLAVO theatre:
Sonnet without a Title (1995), The Magnificent Odyssey (1997), The Incredible Duel (1998),
It Was the Souls’ Wondrous Mine (1999), Oscar Wilde and the Inconstant Prince (2000),
Hypertrophy of Authority or The Man Who Darkened the Sun (2001),
Sarcasticus or Birth of the Virus (2002), Fantastic Gospel According to Virginia (2003),
Dialectics of Soul – Study of Freedom (2004), I Sing Like a Bird (2006),
The Wizard or Harmonic Cacophony (2007), Dancing With Father (2008),
Pagan Phantasma or The Secret of Betrayal (2011 – first version, 2012 – second and third version), Concert of Decadence (2011), Ema (2013), The Island of Flowers (2013), The Day of Ahasverus (2014), Encounter (2014), Hypertrophy of Intelligence or The Creator of the Storm (2014), Daydream – A Sory from Terezin (2016).
Performances
Ema
Scenario and directing: Nenad Čolić
Performing: Maša Jelić
Scenery and costume design: Ivana Čolić
Executive manager: Dubravka Vujinović
‘The performance is inspired by a short story by F.M. Dostoevsky ’A Gentle Creature’, in which the question of human freedom is revealed through the destiny of a miserable woman, who committed suicide by throwing herself out of a window while holding an icon in her hands. Dostoevsky read about the actual event taking place in the newspapers and from that moment on he was haunted by the question: why did a young woman need to do this? My favorite texts from letters of Marina Tsvetaeva are also used in the performance. Those letters were addressed to her female friends. A voice of an apostate and an eccentric of her time speaks out from those letters. We can recognize in them the inner life of a woman and a suffering, uncompromisingly exposed to the eyes of people. Russian songs that are connected to one period of my childhood, which I spent in Moscow, are also utilized as a part of the performance. There are also a traditional Bosnian ‘sevdah’ song, a Mexican traditional song and one of my favorite songs by Janis Joplin.’
Maša Jelić
Daydream
A Story from Terezin
Scenario and directing: Nenad Čolić
With: Maša Jelić, Dejan Stojković, Jelena Martinović, Marko Potkonjak, Ranko Trifković
Scenery and costume: Ivana Čolić
Executive manager: Dubravka Vujinović
Text: Fragments from: the lecture on trial to Eichmann and ‘The Origins of Totalitarianism’, Hannah Arendt; ‘The Karamazov Brothers’, F.M. Dostoyevsky
Music: spiritual and secular Jewish songs, "Träumerei", R. Schumann
‘An actress of PLAVO theatre had in her family experience of encounter with consequences of suffering of the Jews. Her grandparents were Holocaust survivors. This left a mark in her childhood memories which she wanted to translate into the actor’s language. This was an initial impulse for working process which lasted more than a year and which soon included other theatre members. The result was a performance Daydream – A Story from Terezin, an attempt to sensitize Jewish question through a different relation of Jews to Christ and with a different outcome. It's a fictional story from Terezin concentration camp, well known by detaining of prominent members of the Jewish community. We placed Hannah Arendt, Karl Marx, Jesus Christ and Barabbas, as some of the most famous Jewish representatives in that imaginary story and made a scenic-musical piece based on spiritual and secular Jewish songs. Working on this performance was a kind of our debt to humanity, in which history full of tragedies there is one so incomprehensible place such as the Holocaust.’
Nenad Čolić
I Sing Like a Bird
Scenario and directing: Nenad Čolić
Actors: Jelena Martinović, Marko Potkonjak, Maša Jelić, Dejan Stojković
Scenery and costume design: Ivana Čolić
Executive manager: Dubravka Vujinović
Instructor of classical Indian dance: Violeta Purhmajer (Venurati)
Music: Traditional spiritual music of ancient India – Bhajan; W. A. Mozart: Symphony No. 40; Prince: 'Te Amo Corazon';
Dances: Classical Indian dances: Bharata-natyam, Rajasthan;
Text: H. Hesse – 'Steppenwolf', 'Essays', 'Pilgrimage'; I. Heilbut – 'Mission of Hermann Hesse in Our Time'.
‘…I Sing Like a Bird is an adventure of a group of artists who do not leave their ground but go on a pilgrimage following the footsteps of Herman Hesse and so arrive to the magic theatre where everything is possible, under condition that you previously leave your problematic personality in the cloakroom. It is possible to erase the boundaries between culture and spirituality, it is possible for joy to oppose to the centuries of fighting, it is possible for emancipation to develop, in spite of xenophobia and possessiveness.
I Sing Like a Bird is a process of meditation within which we tried to influence the cliché of our mental and body system that has been shaped by coordinates of European tradition. Following the traces of our writer we also set off towards the East. We learned and acquired basic knowledge in the field of Indian traditional and spiritual music and Indian classical dances Bharata-natyam and Rajasthan. For us, it was an important acting and human experience. It helped us enter a different civilization space where we encountered many principles and laws we had known little about up to then. It all enriched our lives very much and changed our attitude towards the theatre work...'
Nenad Čolić
PLAVO Theatre is a theatrical laboratory which ideology is based on principles established by reformers of XX century theatre - Constantin Stanislavsky, Antonin Artaud, Jerzy Grotowski, Eugenio Barba and Odin Teatret, as well as Italian director Massimo Giannetti. Theatre which exists with the idea to serve theatre, not to be its servant, theatre which explores deeper levels of human communication, theatre which has the idea of moving boundaries of human perception, theatre which lives the utopia of reconciliation of anthropology and society, and theatre which presents a critical attitude – these are our basic premises. We are a group of people who, cherishing a seed of anarchism in ourselves, use theatre as a place which has credibility and in which some serious things about the world that surrounds us could be said. In the middle of our attention is man as a human being. Even an actor is a human being and afterwards an actor. Theatre is a place of human touch with life, not with its imitation.
PLAVO Theatre was founded in 1995 in Belgrade. So far PLAVO theatre realized 23 theatrical productions which were presented in many festivals in Serbia and abroad, over 200 educational projects for the youth, organized 7 international festivals in Belgrade and established cooperation with numerous institutions, organizations, donors, embassies, government and civil sector in Serbia and internationally.
In December 2015 PLAVO Theatre celebrated 20 years of work and existence as independent theatre.
In its range PLAVO Theatre has a wide spectrum of activities, which could be divided in three basic categories:
• Creation and presentation of theatre performances based on laboratory work;
• Theatrical pedagogy: education of all interested in researching approach to theatrical work through theatrical workshops, seminars or longer continuous pedagogical processes. Special emphasis is put on educational work with the youth with the aim of opening of their horizons for new prospective about arts and culture in general. Other important aspect is using of possibilities of laboratory theatre in development of civil society in work with vulnerable groups where renewing power of theatre could be felt in the wider community.
• International cooperation (organizing of international meetings and festivals, organizing of residential programs for theatre artists, organizing of international projects of theatrical education for young theatre artists).
www.plavopozoriste.com
Some impressions of participants of the program in previous years:
Ana, actress, Croatia
The most important lesson I learnt was that the obstacle is always mental one – body is always more endurable that we think.
Joanna, actress, Poland
I was day after day more and more fascinated and involved with the work. I started to little understand how important it is for me searching myself through theatre and asking myself why I'm doing it…
Irena, student, Serbia
What I learnt... Many things, but I think I couldn’t express them by words right now.
I remembered myself. Something like that. I remembered myself who was forgotten for a long time, myself who I thought that I lost long time ago.
Josipa, dancer, Croatia
… People from Plavo theatre succeeded to motivate me to try to overcome some of my performing habits and limitations… I have never worked with songs, resonators and isolations of the movements the way we did it in the workshop…
Jana, dancer, Czech Republic
… One of the most important things I have learned about art was to see that … you have to be ready for changing and re-evaluating for all the time. It doesn’t mean to be confused, it means to be open for things around you as well as things inside of yourself…
Simon, actor and musician, Germany
...Towards the end of the workshop From Myself towards Theatre I thought – and still think, without exaggerating – that it was one of the rare workshops that really made sense to me… We were not taught a lot of exercises, but touched one simple thing out of different perspectives which is the phenomena of a highly elevated attention necessary to work, or what director calls ‘trance-like intention’. We were encouraged to touch every day a kind of limit, a very personal one, and to do one step further.
Leonardo, actor, Italy
… Looking behind at the work in Belgrade, I perceive today that what I have been taking part was something characterised by a constant fresh and positive intensity, an embrace of strong energies…