ScriptedReality: THE PIECE CONCERNING THE QUESTION OF PURPOSEFULNESS (DE)

Photo: ScriptedReality

Friday, August 26th, 9.30 pm
The Old Power Station – Elektro Ljubljana

ScriptedReality is an open collective, appearing on this occasion with a line-up consisting of Tilman Aumüller, Christopher Krause, Arne Salasse and Ruth Schmidt. The collective features members of various backgrounds who originally met in Giessen, a global centre for aspiring theatre contributors. Their name references a TV genre, appropriated by the creative squad to be mirrored into a contradiction of its essential ideological narrative.

In the performance, one they refer to as a theatre essay, the collective addresses the purpose of arts and economics, questioning whether they have an external purpose or appear intrinsically self-serving. The subject matter is the economic doctrine or philosophy of Friedrich Hayek, its consequences on the contemporary state of the world. Following an introductory explanation, the collective (along with the audience) embarks on a joint exorcism of Hayek’s doctrine and the painting of a new plan. A bold strategy, fit for young lions in an era where the dominant narrative of neoliberal economics presents itself as immutable.

Authors: Tilman Aumüller, Christopher Krause, Arne Salasse, Ruth Schmidt
Dramaturgical advice: Jacob Bussmann
Translation: Aran Kleebaur
Co-production: Hessische Theater Akademie, Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, ScriptedReality
Translation into Slovene: Ajda Šoštarič

100 minutes

The performance is in English with Slovene surtitles.

Free tickets, but you can support our festival with voluntary contributions. More information and ticket booking: +386 51 269 906, info@bunker.si.

Beton Ltd.: ICH KANN NICHT ANDERS (SI)

Photo: Toni Soprano

Friday, August 26th, 8 pm PREMIERE
Saturday, August 27th, 9 pm
ŠD Tabor

The authorial poetics of collective Beton Ltd. (Katarina Stegnar, Branko Jordan, Primož Bezjak) is characterized by a search for intimate entries into the global issues – their position is often personal – a search for new, hybrid forms of performing, and a mastery of performing techniques. Ich kann nicht anders is their fifth performance, where the counterpoint between the total intimacy and the echoes of the global events reminds us of a thesis by Croatian philosopher Srećko Horvat, that the real revolution is always a revolution of everything, all social interactions, even the most intimate ones.

The world around us is saturated with change, and if there is one constant, it is currently uncertainty. We anticipate changes, but it is not yet clear what they might be. One of the possible strategies to combat the deafening noise of the world is to retreat into one’s own world. Not to surrender, but to defend one’s own intimate territory against the outside world. A retreat into intimacy, where freedom is possible and where utopia is – now.

Devised and directed by: Beton Ltd.
Performers: Katarina Stegnar, Branko Jordan, Primož Bezjak
Music: Dead Tongues
Scenography: sonda4, Toni Soprano
Costume design: Mateja Benedetti
Sound design: Jure Vlahovič
Dramaturgical collaborator: Urška Brodar
Technical director: Andrej Petrovčič
Technical collaborator: Martin Lovšin
Executive producer: Maja Vižin
Produced by: Bunker, Ljubljana
The performance was made possible by: Ministrstvo za kulturo Republike Slovenije, Mestna občina Ljubljana
With help of: Elektro Ljubljana, d.d., Slovensko mladinsko gledališče
Thanks to: GT22, Športno društvo Tabor, Aljoša Cetinski, Mini Teater, Uroš Kaurin, Nathalie Horvat

75 minutes

Performance is in Slovene with English translation.

Free tickets, but you can support our festival with voluntary contributions. More information and ticket booking: +386 51 269 906, info@bunker.si.

No!Training Lab: VARIATIONS TO SLOWNESS: TIME-OUT 2 (SI)

Photo: Sunčan Stone

Thursday, August 25th, 9 pm
The Old Power Station – Elektro Ljubljana

The team of the performance Variations to Slowness: TIME OUT 2 coalesced around the creative and exploratory process sparked by Katja Legin. Within the framework of the No!Training Lab, the authors, all of them accomplished Slovene dancers, choreographers and performers, engage in dialogue with the novel Slowness by Milan Kundera in a three-year-long multi-phase work of art.

Slowness was the first novel Milan Kundera wrote in his second language, French, launching him into the unexplored terrain of »exile arithmetic«. The collective of the performance likewise ventures to lands unknown, a new language, undertaking the challenge of staging a novel in dance performance form. At times, they enter the novel’s narrative, as if possessing the spirit of the characters and the scenes, yet never sliding into the banality of enacting the story, illustrating the characters or recounting their fates. Instead, what they trace are the dynamics of the protagonists’ longings, their internal motors, and their constantly elusive pleasures. On the very axis of slowness-quickness, Kundera, and to an even greater extent the performance, materialize the issue of pleasure.

Authors and performers: No!training Lab (Barbara Kanc, Barbara Ribnikar, Jan Rozman, Kaja Lorenci, Katja Legin, Nataša Živković)
Live music: Joži Šalej
Sound design: SZ3
Lighting design: Tomi Janežič
Costume design consultant: Marina SremacScenography and costume design: No!training Lab
Produced by: Studio za raziskavo umetnosti igre
Partners: Zavod Federacija, Španski Borci, PTL, Flota, Nagib

70 minutes

The performance is in English.

Free tickets, but you can support our festival with voluntary contributions. More information and ticket booking: +386 51 269 906, info@bunker.si.

Smaal Tokk: concert (SI)

Photo: Miran Bratuš

Tuesday, August 23rd, 8.30 pm
Park Tabor

Smaal Tokk hails from Wajdušna, one of the few Slovene towns that (colloquially) starts with the letter W. A portent of the quirky singularity of this enigmatic musician, flashing ironically the image of a gangsta rapper, spitting with a delivery reminiscent of spoken word laid over beats somewhat alien to hip-hop. A pleasant change, nonchalant licks devoid of pretentious gangsta rap posturing or the brutal expressiveness and critical furor of rap. Smaal Tokk excels in the domain of the homely – wife Radmila, the torrent of bills, the everlasting conflict between home team and those other guys, the art of producing offspring … He eludes definition, standing neither for parody nor self-seriousness, uncannily endearing; walking the razor-thin line between pop entertainment and subtle social criticism. Perhaps that’s the space where his message best resonates? Or perhaps there’s no »message«, only the straightforward account of a man whose chief advisor is his wife, whose anger most easily flares at those who are grumpy just because.

Band
Vocal: Smaal Tokk
Keyboards: Marko Boh
Bass guitar: Klemen Kotar
Percussions: Enos Kugler – bobni
Flute, back vocals: Blažka Oberstar
Tenor saxophone, back vocals: Ana Šimenc

The concert is free.

Mallika Taneja: BE CAREFUL (IN)

Photo: David Wohlschlag

Tuesday, August 23rd , 7.30 pm
Thursday, August 25th, 7.30 pm
Glej, the Theatre

Mallika Taneja is an Indian actress and director, described by a professor of the Kirori Mal College as an artist characterized by a precise attunement to the world, sensitivity to injustice and a refined awareness of social and personal space.

Be Careful, a miniature perhaps deserving the feminist label, deals with the concept of women’s safety. In part, it participates in the current heated and difficult struggle against assaults on women in India, where the perpetrators and silent majority regularly shift blame onto the victims, perhaps the way they dress or present themselves. Taneja scorns this logic and – just as her own person, too – exposes it bare; ripping pretence from the hypocritical dominant discourse by chanting titbits of advice given to women online on the subject of being prudent, staying safe. Clothes (or the absence thereof) are essential carriers of political and identity markers. What do Taneja’s have to say?

Devised and performed: Mallika Taneja
Production Support: Suhasini Taneja
This performance was first created at the Tadpole Repertory as part of their show ‘NDLS’.

30 minutes

The performance is in English.

Free tickets, but you can support our festival with voluntary contributions. More information and ticket booking: +386 51 269 906, info@bunker.si.

Maria Lucia Cruz Correia and Benjamin Verdonck: THE SECRET EXPERIMENTAL OBSERVATORY FOR GLOBAL MATTERS (BE, PT)

Photo: Benjamin Verdonck

August 22nd at 9 pm, August 25th at 8.30 pm, August 26th at 9 pm at The Old Power Station – Elektro Ljubljana 
August 23rd at 8.00 pm at Park Tabor

Maria Lucia Cruz Correia is an artist at the crossroads of visual arts, performance, interventions and environmental issues. She develops methods of participatory action, considering the potentials for paradigm change. Benjamin Verdonck will be Mladi levi’s guest for the third time. The foundation of his theatre projects, public space interventions and publications is the exploration of the modes of operation that can provide ways out of hyper-production and incessant mobility.

Cruz Correia and Verdonck will set up their headquarters in Ljubljana, lay down the blueprint of their mutual endeavour and then execute a daily artistic action for four days, presenting it to the festival audience each evening. They operate on the premise that change is possible, that even micro-change and mini-gestures matter, and that it is essential to think about what comes next, not only what is. Glimpses of the future without apocalyptic baggage.

Devised and presented by: Maria Lucia Cruz Correia, Benjamin Verdonck
Local producer: Mojca Jug
Technical  implementation: Grega Mohorčič

The interventions are in English.

More information: info@bunker.si, +386 51 269 906.

Anestis Azas & Prodromos Tsinikoris: CLEAN CITY (GR)

Photo: Christina Georgiadou

Monday, August 22nd, at 7.30 pm
The Old Power Station – Elektro Ljubljana 

Clean City by Anestis Azas and Prodromos Tsinikoris, directors vacillating between Greece and Germany, challenges the rhetoric of »cleaning« that manifested at the pinnacle of the Greek crisis, blaming migrants for all the »dirt« in society. They address it in literal manner, seeking to answer who in fact cleans the city in concrete reality. The result is a documentary performance portraying five cleaning ladies that came to Greece from Albania, South Africa, the Philippines, Bulgaria and Moldova.

A performance illuminating the invisible workers of the world who keep the globe spinning while at the same time paying society’s debt – incurred in return for the chance to partake in the prosperity of the Greek milieu, multiplied by the recent crisis crashing first and foremost on their shoulders. A poignant performance, sobering yet full of humour, for the protagonists’ vitality is unbreakable, their sacrifice translating into an investment in the future generation: progeny. Their fates express a certain universality, not due to the ubiquitous presence of the cleaner’s profession but because their tribulations are so often reminiscent of our own personal trials.

Research, text and direction: Anestis Azas, Prodromos Tsinikoris
Performing: Mabel Matchidiso Mosana, Rositsa Pandalieva, Fredalyn Resurreccion, Drita Shehi, Valentina Ursache
Dramaturgy: Margarita Tsomou
Set and costume design: Eleni Stroulia
Assistant to the set costume designer: Zaira Falirea Oblikovanje svetlobe/Lighting design: Eliza Alexandropoulou
Music: Panagiotis Manouilidis
Video: Nikos Pastras
Assistant directors: Ioanna Valsamidou, Liana Taousiani
Production manager: Vasilis Chrysanthopoulos
Video appearance: Nelly Kambouri
Puppet construction: Yiannis Katranitsas
Coproduced by: Onassis Cultural Centre – Athens, Goethe-Institut (v okviru projekta EUROPOLY/in the context of EUROPOLY project)
Touring support: Onassis Culturall Centre – Athens

75 minutes

The performance is in Greek with Slovene and English surtitles.
Translation of the performance: Polona Vozel

Free tickets, but you can support our festival with voluntary contributions. More information and ticket booking: +386 51 269 906, info@bunker.si.

Penny Arcade: LONGING LASTS LONGER (US)

Photo: Penny Arcade Archive 

Sunday, August 21st, at 8.00 pm
Monday, August 22nd, at 9.30 pm
Glej, the Theatre

Penny Arcade is a genuine superstar of the Warhol Factory. Since her stardom scintillates far beyond Warhol’s universally allotted 15 minutes, she continues to look like a million bucks, her performances, poems, texts and public appearances offering a delightful mixture of witticism, humour and profound insight into the nature of being human. She sparkles with one-liners in the style of »Mediocrity is the new black. «, »Hope is a killer. «, or »I didn’t have children. I don’t take hostages. «

Memory likes to play tricks on us, painting the past prettier than it was. Penny Arcade, though, can’t be fooled. She’s seen everything there is to see, always maintaining her distance. When she recounts the past decades, she treats them in the finest shades of stand-up ridicule and vivisection. When she laments the changes of the day, she doesn’t sound embittered but rather wishful for the younger generations to experience what was possible to her: a fulfilling, free and vibrant life. A living legend in dialogue with the rock and roll music of the recent past.

Conceived, written and performed by: Penny Arcade
Co-directed and designed by: Steve Zehentner
Produced by: London Artists Projects

70 minutes

The performance is in English.

Free tickets, but you can support our festival with voluntary contributions. More information and ticket booking: +386 51 269 906, info@bunker.si.

Robertina Šebjanič & Miha Ciglar: SUBAQUATIC SOUNDSCAPE (SI)

Photo: Robertina Šebjanič

August 19th – August 28th, sound installation
Foyer of the Old Power Station – Elektro Ljubljana 
Monday, August 22nd, 7.00 pm, performance
Friday, August 26th, 3.00 pm, talk
The Old Power Station – Elektro Ljubljana 

Despite the broad availability of popular aquatic sounds, the vocalizations of whales and dolphins or the calming sloshing of waves, we aren’t really aware that the underwater soundscape is as rich as the one heard by terrestrial creatures above water. Aside from the fascinating diversity of marine sound, sonic pollution caused by humans is sadly already changing the soundscape of the waters and even the communication of its inhabitants.

The creative and exploratory work of Robertina Šebjanič has been focusing on living systems, with particular attention to the exploration of (under)water fauna, whereas Miha Ciglar deals with the development of novel instruments in search of new possibilities for audio expression. Using hydrophones, Šebjanič captured the underwater sounds of various seas to prepare her installation, a subaquatic soundscape that will be joined by Ciglar’s audio performative interventions. Let us listen to the ocean, then, not under the anthropocentric guise that its sound is the splashing of water against rock, but hearkening, instead, deep underwater.
 
Author: Robertina Šebjanič
Performance: Miha Ciglar
Technical support: Slavko Glamočanin
Produced by: PRAKSA – Agencija za sodobno raziskovalno umetnost, Bunker, Ljubljana
Partner:  Galerija Kapelica, Zavod Kersnikova
Local producer: Katarina Slukan
Festival technical support: Jure Vlahovič

More information: info@bunker.si, +386 51 269 906.

Ludomir Franczak: THE RECOVERED ONES (PL)

Photo: Maciej Zakrzewski

Saturday,  August 20th, 9.30 pm
DUM

Ludomir Franczak is a Polish visual artist, director, curator and more. He’s most interested in the subjects of memory and identity, portrayed in the form of complex hybrids of visual art, history, literature and approaches distilled from performance arts.

The historical origin point of Franczak’s performance are the fates of those Germans who were, in the wake of then-new post-2WW border delineations between Germany and Poland, forced to abandon their homes and leave for Germany. In the Slupsk city archives, Franczak uncovered manuscripts of their biographies, seeing them no longer as a faceless mass he could relate to only in historical terms. Ludomir describes The Recovered Ones as a personal atlas, a performance that crafts its story from the remnants of history’s material artefacts. Naturally, the stories he puts together are constructs, something conveyed already by the set of the performance which is literally being built as it goes. And yet, let’s not forget, history, too, is – a construct.

Screenplay, directing and scenography: Ludomir Franczak Glasba/Music: Marcin Dymiter
Costume design: Magdalena Franczak
Voices: Irena Jun, Andrzej Golejewski, Stefan Filipowicz, Mateusz Nowak, Dorota Lesiak, Katarzyna Duma, Magdalena Franczak, Wiktoria Wrzyszcz, Emil Franczak,
Produced by: Centrum Rezydencji Teatralnej, Scena Robocza
Slovene translation: Petra Meterc

70 minutes

The performance is in Polish with Slovene surtitles.

Free tickets, but you can support our festival with voluntary contributions. More information and ticket booking: +386 51 269 906, info@bunker.si.