Bitef

★ This year Bitef offers as a novelty an attempt to re-contextualise its original slogan which persisted as its subtitle for all of its 47 years. Born in 1967 together with Bitef at the time of the theatre neo-avant-garde which left a forceful mark on the early editions of the festival, the slogan, as the time passed, lost its original meaning and just as the neo-avant-garde has become history or grown into a mainstream, so has this slogan become a sort of a museum of neo-avant-garde, a reminder of a moment in the 20th century theatre history often causing confusion and misguided expectations in the perception of present-day Bitef. Desirous of according to New Theatre Tendencies, a slogan of major symbolic significance for the Yugoslav theatre and culture in general, a new meaning linking it up with our time and turning it from a display piece into a tool helping to understand better the theatre of today, Bitef selectors have tried to tackle it differently, hoping that this approach will survive into the

future. The abovementioned slogan is intended to apply only to a few productions in the main programme, which in one way or another promote the present-day theatre discourse (aesthetic or thematic), which focuses on research and is willing to provoke and re-examine the established conventions in the theatre and the society where such theatre operates. This year we have chosen as a new theatre tendency the lecture-performance genre, very much present in the performing arts in the last twenty-odd years even though it draws its roots from the performance arts as far back as the 1960 s because this procedure still awaits its theoretical definition. „Lecture-performance is a characteristic of modern art. Different definitions of this phenomenon have circulated around during the past twenty years and this lack of consensus suggests that we need a more accurate conceptual definition of this notion. In this relatively young genre artists work in the field between lectures and performances, in search of creative ways to include traditional methods of artistic communication when presen-

enting themselves to the audience. This method includes elements of self-reflection, discussion, performance or action. A lecture-performance can address different subjects - from artistic, scientific or personal research to social, pop-cultural to political. The genre also asks of artists can participate in the writing of their own history.“ Alain Badiou says that the 20th century may be considered the century of the theatre as an art because of the growing role of the director, whereas the 21st century is, according to theoretician Aldo Milohnič, the century of a close encounter among the director, the choreographer, the performer and the lecturer. In its main programme this year Bitef will present three projects which can be defined as belonging to lecture performance genre. These are The Battlefield of Memories 1914-1918 by Hans-Werner Kroesinger and Regina Dura, Past Is Present by Corinne Maier and On Trial Together by Ana Vujanovič and Saša Asentić.

1 From the catalogue Lecture Performance, 2009, Kölnische Kunstverein, Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade

25

New Theatre Tendencies

48 Bitef 14