Bitef

IS IT EASIER NOT TO BE?

77 This year’s Bitef is a product of extreme uncertainty, which has been affecting the cultural stage in Belgrade and Serbia for almost two years. Even though the festival will soon be celebrating five decades since its establishment and has weathered political, economic and other storms, this year it faces, for the first time, the prospect of self-abolition. The offer/pressure brought to bear on Bitef to abolish itself has evidently replaced more conventional forms of censorship and the poor economic performance has become the excuse for substituting elite culture for mass entertainment - wherever it is possible and where there is no resistance and the resistance is mostly wanting because we are all accomplices albeit only a little. So that now we are where we are, shamed by the insignificance of our “case” in the face of much more important topics “which are our livelihood" or perhaps due to the wrong choice of a (useless) profession when the times are “hard” as the politicians tell us, all we can do is sit and wait. And here we are, heads bowed, waiting for “this”, whatever it is, to go away so that “that” whatever it is, can return as we slowly pass into oblivion or, even worse, the self-oblivion. Baudrillard talks about oblivion like the slow and violent demolition of memory and the spectacular advertising, transition from the historical to the advertising space - the media. This is how synthetic memory is created relieving us, first and foremost, of the obligation of the real event, i.e. Revolution... I might say that something similar has already happened to the Serbian culture. It has slid into oblivion and become a helpless object of the superficial media treatment which creates the illusion of revolutionism completely absent from the real life. Those with some entrepreneurial spirit readjust with the speed of lightning to the concept of “creative industry” in “creative” Europe. The others, those less creative or less enterprising, await media-mediated selfoblivion in the expectation of a budget exceeding the notorious 0,6%. Win-win all around, in other words.

And now, a few words about Bitef brought forth under the above-described circumstances. Although the festival has seen its share of circumstances and “circumstances” since its inception in the distant 1967, these circumstances are quite unique. The selection was done under highly unprofessional conditions, with an amorphous budget tending to increase and decrease according to the context within which it was discussed. The truth is that it was more than halved during the last two years. As I write this introduction I am still not sure what budget will be at the disposal of Bitef although it is to open in two and a half months I am, therefore, not able to explain the production selection in any detail because we are still fighting for some of the selected productions. Regardless of their final number, they will be only about a half of what Jovan Ćirilov and I wanted to show and which would not have presented any problem just a few years ago. The international participation this year is largely owed to the charitable spirit of foreign cultural centres and personal contacts and the curators' private visits abroad. Is that how a city, i.e. a state festival should function, which, whatever some may think about it, is one of very few international reference points of the Serbian culture? This brings us back to the already hackneyed question: what is the Serbian culture? Is the reduced budget its only problem? Or are the budget beneficiaries also part of the problem? Does Bitef need to/should fill in the vast empty space generated by the restriction of the manoeuvring space of other cultural

institutions? Does one have to expect from Bitef - because the international exchange of Belgrade theatres has been abolished during the regular season - to become well-nigh the only link with the world and the only source of international information rather than have it positioned precisely as a modern theatre festival equally interested in the local and international audiences and entitled to a more narrow focus and thematic analysis of modern performing practices.? These are only some of the questions which this year's festival is bound to raise... I should like the outstanding productions of great theatre companies and artists like Gob Squad, Kernel Mundruczo, Jernej Lorenci, Borut Šeparović, Oliver Frljić, Tomi Janežič and other festival participants to bring to Belgrade, in addition to their indisputable artistic values, a little bit of daring and encouragement to revolt which has always been the fundamental substance of Bitef. I should like this selection to restore the belief that theatre is not just a costly and unnecessary entertainment intended for a few fans, but the indispensable warning issued to the society that its strength is in non-submission, disobedience, boldness and unbending before the authorities. And most of all, the courage to ask questions which nobody else wants or dares to raise. Especially when the answers are right before our eyes... Anja Suša Curator

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SELECTOR’S ANNOTATION

47 BITEF 13