Bitef

This year’s BITEF bears a clear imprint of the 21 st century. Decades blend together yet in the art periods are, as a rule, reckoned in decades. In the century behind us expressionism, surrealism, the theatre of the absurd, theatre postmodernism... The 39 £ k BITEF clearly shows what the 21 st century is in the theatre. This is not by accident since we have already reached the middle of the first decade of the 21 st century. It is not easy to say what the characteristics of this art are but they are undoubtedly different from those we had the opportunity to see during the last century. TOWARDS THE FAIRYTALE Deeper meanings are hidden in the fairytales I heard in my childhood than in the truths that life has taught me. Schiller AND BACK However, when the spectators see the productions of Goebbels, Pollesch, Alvis Hermanis, DVB, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Diego de Brea, Zurovac, the Swiss trio Metzger, Zimmermann and Perrot, they will be able to glean at least one of the chief features of the 21 st century theatre. It is the undaunted search for new forms, at times very daring, maybe even unlikeable to some, because theatre is an art which flatters no one. Since it is a daring art, ever pushing the frontiers of the most diverse scenic expressions, I took care to select the best and the most professional examples of that art in the world. These are not experiments, these are the results. Two years ago, when BITEF put forward Brecht’s hypothetical thesis that “the future of the theatre is in philosophy”, I, needless to say, doubted that it could be the absolute truth. Today, it seems to me that this year’s productions show that theatre has come very close to philosophy without becoming less of the theatre for that. The 39 BITEF will mark in its own way the anniversary of the birth of the great fairytale writer Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) who was for every child, and that includes this year’s BITEF authors, a writer after his or her own heart,. Since life is not a fairytale, the theatre is not a faiiytale either and so BITEF’s subheading is On the trail of the fairytale and the anti -fairytale. Directly inspired by Andersen are Andersen’s Dream, a production from his native Denmark by our long-time friend and great artist Eugenio Barba and our production, No Name: Sneiana by young Bojan Djordjev, just as probingly following the trail the fairytale and that of the anti-fairytale. Other productions also contain elements of artists’ everlasting yearning for the impossible, an adult fairytale, and a meeting with what can be. anything but a fairytale. Two productions form the frame of this year’s programme. They are, in Jean Vilar’s words, “of exclusive quality yet art for everybody”: Foramen Magnum of the famed Kibbutz Theatre from Israel and Douar, a specific urban fairytale, a hip-hop dream dreamt by lads from French and Algerian suburbs. S BITEF on Film is dedicated to Andersen as well as the workshops, seminars, symposia, exhibitions, that is everything that accompanies the BITEF main stream. Jovan Ćirilov Artistic director and selector