Bitef

TRAGICOMEDYA TRAGEDY OF OUR TIMES The Bitef selectors honour the tradition of finding a new motto for the Festival each year. The first ever motto was given to 4 Bitef 70: Classics à la 70s. The motto is arrived at through the choice of participants and performances. It mainly refers to the main programme of the festival, but it also incorporates all the side programmes of Bitef.The Motto will symbolise the whole season until the next festival. It is a product of careful consideration and selectors' intuition and their experience as audience members. Sometimes, it is necessary to uphold a rather unpleasant festival subtitle. Furthermore, the motto is not a statement, it is a provocation. We asked the participants of this year's Bitef what they thought of the motto under which their work would be performed. Here is what they said:

peals to us. It is simply a way in which both those who do it and those who watch it, accept it are deluded, right? Performer acting comically is very comical, that is tragicomic... and to think about it suffices to make us forever hate each other, and generally: WHAT DO I KNOW? At the time of post-post happenings if only our life/ and society/ were post-modern and then the speech would again be clear and clean, with the final emphasis on the truth about which perhaps only I do not even think anything, andr. urban AURÉLIEN BORY & PHIL SOLTANOFF > > > » > An excerpt from a Skype conversation between Aurelien Bory »> (Toulouse, Prance) and Phil Soltanoff (New York, USA); »> »> Aureliem Phil, Is MORS OR LSSS INFINITY a Tragicomedy? »> »> Phil: Yes. I would say Yes. My answer would be yes. But the »> interesting part of the question to me is not so much what category »> MORS OR LSSS INFINITY might fit into, but the fact that MORS OR » > LSSS INFINITY is a hybrid work and when I look around at the work »> of artists today, almost every work I see is a hybrid work. There » > is nothing that I see in a Gallery space or in a theatre space or > > > in a dance space that is purely a painting or sculpture. Or purely » > a dance or purely a piece of theatre, but it has taken some other »> form and mixed it to make something new. And I think, in that » > sense, MORE OR LSSS INFINITY is a very contemporary tragicomedy. I »> think it says something else about how artists are mixing.,. That » > the world is a mix. That the world is a mash-up of things, and I » > think in some way that makes us a very contemporary collaboration. »> That we are smashing together different forms. So that's my answer. »> » > Aureliem I like that. »> »> Phil So. Let me ask you. Is MORE OR LSSS INFINITY a tragicomedy? »> » > Aureliem Actually, I would say that we try to make something from » > what is normally not possible to mix. Its not possible to mix very »> contemporary arts, sculpture, very serious minimalist art, with » > humor« Sol Lewitt (with 2 t , and not Le vit ) and Keaton for » > instance. So, this blend of seriousness of the form with the »> stupidity of situations, is a very good dialogue« The fact is that »> we have mixed some elements that normally don't fit together. It »> gives a place for the unknown, which is the touchstone of each » > creatlon«Maybe at the origin of tragicomedy, it is the same » > thing? It doesn't fit together. Tragicomedy is a mix, and it has »> produced some great pieces of art. So, no doubt that it is a great »> genre. Definitely I would prefer to talk about MORS OR LSSS » > INFINITY as a tragicomedy rather than as a circus form. »> » > Phil I feel the most interesting work comes when artists take two » > things that couldn't possibly have any relationship to each other > > > and try to find the relationship between them. »> » > Aureliem Exactly, Phil. Theater is the art of relationship.

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