Битеф

THEATRE'S ADVENTURE 1967-2006

In the 19605, when Bitef came into being, the then theatres were completing the experiment with the modernistic and engaged theatre; the Seventies and the Eighties were caught up in the post-modernist revision of the modernist coup, and in the Nineties the boundaries between the dramatic and the danced form of scenic expression were resolutely brought down. We are already deep into the first decade of the 21 st century and we still wonder what is the prevalent feature of the new theatre emerged during its first half. Something is happening and we wonder what. Bitef wonders too when it uses the expression new theatre tendencies as the sub-title of its programme for the fortieth time. Is it the new emotional charge which to the 40th Bitef bring Marie Chouinard, Constanza Macras, Josef Nadj, Árpád Schilling and Lotte van den Berg, or the new theatrical imagery of Kirsten Dehlholm, Sonja Vukićević, Guy Weizman and Boni Haver? Or do the two great artists of our time Peter Brook and Maurice Béjart remind us of the truth that theatre does not follow the calendar rhythm and the inexorable change of decades? To make the Bitef programme even more provocative and in agreement with all those who have to give their consent, this spring I invited directress Anja Suša to join the production selection game. 1 give her the f100r... Jovan Ćirilov

Bitef has always been for me one of the key places which shaped my theatrical taste and sensibility. For the generation which studied at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in a closed and forgotten country in the early Nineties, this festival was the only place from which one could take off into the big world, so inaccessible at the time. Without a passport, without a visa, without money, and often even without a ticket, we the then students, like many generations before and after us, stole down the corridors of Belgrade theatres, squinted from the third gallery, balanced on one foot in overcrowded houses, craving to absorb as much of Bitef as possible... It was like a duty-free area, an island of normalcy and beauty in a drowning world. The greatest value of Bitef is precisely that. It has always been a kind of a parallel reality in relation to the prevalent political reality and although it intertwined with it on the stage at times, it nevertheless always managed to soar above it and not let it touch and spoil it. I should like to thank Jovan Cirilov for the great honour he did me when he invited me to cooperate with him in programming Bitef. I am aware of the tremendous responsibility I bear in the light of the important and rich tradition of this theatrical institution not to mention that it is whole 6 years my senior. What makes me happy the most is that I shall have opportunity to learn from someone who knows and understands the theatre so well and so deeply. My contribution to this year-s Bitef is small in quantitative terms because I took office at the time when the programming was largely over. Nonetheless, I hope that Big in Bombay and La Historia de Ronald el payaso de McDonald's (The Story of Ronald, the Clown from McDonald's), two shows undersigned by two of the leading artists of the contemporary theatre and both, by coincidence, Argentines working in other countries, Constanza Macras and Rodrigo Garcia, will contribute to Belgrade audience's insight into the most topical theatrical tendencies which are an inevitable part of all major European festivals. As for the domestic productions and those from the former Yugoslavia, this year's selection may be considered as a joint product. Looking forward impatiently to the forthcoming Bitef, we are already deeply immersed in preparing the next one... Anja Suša