Bitef

Bitef’s Silver Anniversary

Founded in 1967, Bitef has survived a whole quarter of a century in spite of wars waged around the globe; now it needs to weather a civil war in its native country □ In the course of those twentyfive years it encountered difficulties in its country and its city but it accepted those challenges and, more often than not, emerged from the battles more respected and better liked a As a festival of new world theatre tendencies, Bitef has kept pace with the tumultuous evolution of the performing arts, from the revolutionary Sixties to the Seventies when avant-guarde research made its way into repertory theatres to the Eighties, the decade of postmodern theatre expression to the early years о this decade which brings us to the end of the twentieth century and the end of the second millennium, the artistic outlines of which are still hazy a Bitef 91 was originally conceived as the Belgrade audience’s new Rendez-vous with the directors and companies who had left their mark on its twentyfive years a However, as the selection of productions proceeded, it became increasingly evident that the shape it was taking had nothing to do with an artificial synthesis of the past and was once again acquiking features of an exploratory Bitef with productions representing the latest theatre trends in Yugoslavia and

worldwide □ Young directors practically imposed themselves on the Bitef selectors and offered us a chance to ask: what is the theatre fin de millénnaire? □ Among them, there is only one veteran: Yuri Liubimov with his Theatre Na Taganke who had their international festival debut at Bitef in 1976. It was a memorable event both for the heretical Theatre Na Taganke and Bitef itself □ Boris Godunov testifies to the vitality of the generation represented by Yuri Petrovich at this year’s Festivala To mark its silver anniversary Bitef shall organise, during the first festival weekend, YU-Non-Stop, a selection of productions of the youngest generation of Yugoslav directors whose artistic aspirations are based on the best Bitef traditions □ Bitef s antitraditional tradition has been preserved. It is such Bitef that Mira Trailovič, its originator, conceived in 1967 and then pursued and fought for. We dedicate this silver Bitef to her memory □ Aware of the time we live in, we shall not mark the jubilee with pomp and fanfare. It will be just another regular festivala And we shall consider the constancy of the productions high quality as the Muses’ birthday gifta Jovan Cirilov