Are we guilty or innocent? Divadelná Nitra will give the answer
06.07.2012 07:07
The consequences of totalitarian regimes, political deceptions of our time, religious and racial intolerance, disrespect towards man and nature… All that brings out questions of responsibility, moral values, guilt and innocence of contemporary man and society. The Divadelná Nitra International Theatre Festival will run from 21 to 26 September 2012, yet again revealing secrets and raising social and political issues concerning Europe. The underlying theme of the 21st festival edition is guilt / innocence.
Outstanding European and domestic productions present this leitmotif in various forms, such as wrongdoing of the majority against a minority, of the state against its own citizens, authoritativeness of power against individual powerlessness.
"Together with the authors of productions, we shall reflect on the recent communist past and individual and social memory, on the problem of racial superiority or inferiority", Darina Kárová,director of the Divadelná Nitra International Theatre Festival,explains. "We will raise questions about whether art and theatre can help change thinking and values, to what degree an individual can get involved, who is the one to blame and who is the victim of political and social affairs," she adds.
The Divadelná Nitra 2012 also presents its new visual. It is dominated by a cold silvery fish which looks as if it had just got out of last edition's tin or as though it was about to get inside. "First of all, it is a biblical symbol of the poor being fed and their will to seize their destiny, but also a living creature threatened by human activity," Kárová explains.
The festival main programme will feature unique works of theatre-makers from Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, Germany, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Great Britain and Slovakia. Festival visitors will have a chance to see twenty performances.
And it will be up to the spectators, which part of the guilt / innocence motif, conveyed trough artistic testimonies of outstanding European theatre professionals, will resonate with them.
It may be, for instance, the question of what wrongdoings the majority society commits against a minority – that is the focus of the documentary dance performance of an Argentinean choreographer settled in Germany, Constanza Macras, Open for Everything. Or the question of the state being guilty for deceiving citizens by only providing imaginary guarantees and security, raised in the Hungarian production directed by ViktorBodó Anamnesis. A dreadful political failure and authoritarian practices in Belarus are shown in the Russian production Two in Your House of two directors Mikhail Ugarov and Talgat Batalov. For the Slovak part of the programme, the curator – director Marián Amsler – chose, among others, also the production Kukura directed by Rastislav Ballek and expressing sharp criticism of the attitude of general Slovak public toward art and culture.
Festival performances will take place in the Andrej Bagar Theatre in Nitra and Karol Spišák Old Theatre in Nitra.
After last year’s successful cooperation, the festival satellite city will be Košice: on 23 September, the Košice State Theatre will host Constanza Macras’ performanceOpen for Everything.
