Philippe Quesne: NIGHT OF THE MOLES (Welcome to Caveland!) (FR)

Photo: Martin Argyroglo

Friday, August 19th at 8.00 pm
Saturday, Avgust 20th 2016 at 7.30 pm
The Old Power Station – Elektro Ljubljana 

Philippe Quesne is the founder of the Paris-based Vivarium Studio, a hub connecting artists from a variety of disciplines. He is an editor, the author of numerous performances, spatial interventions and installations, as well as the artistic director of the Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers. His education and primary background are in set design. We’re happy to welcome him to Mladi levi for the third time; following performances L’Effet de Serge and Next Day, he will this year appear with his new creation Night of the Moles (Welcome to Caveland!), a current hit of contemporary theatre and festival stages.

Night of the Moles stays faithful to Quesne’s style – some call it an idiosyncratic one – existential stage études, glitching everyday occurrences, life laid bare without the spectacularization we’ve grown so accustomed to we’re now practically shocked by genuine existence. His latest piece, likewise, delves into the stuff of life: joy, happiness, birth, death; we observe a community of moles in a cave; the moles anthropomorphic, the cave … is it Plato’s cave where the audience joins the protagonists in their distorted view of ideas, a group gazing of shadows? Or is it the underground where humanism and the arts seek refuge, or a shelter for the apocalypse? A fable without a moral.

Performing: Yvan Clédat, Jean-Charles Dumay, Léo Gobin, Erwan Ha Kyoon Larcher, Sébastien Jacobs, Thomas Suire, Gaëtan Vourc’h
Costume design: Corine Petitpierre
Assistant costume designer: Anne Tesson
Dramaturgical collaborators: Léo Gobin, Lancelot Hamelin, Ismael Jude, Smaranda Olcese
Artistic and technical collaborators: Marc Chevillon, Yvan Clédat, Elodie Dauguet, Abigail Fowler, Thomas Laigle
Technical crew: Patrick Bonnereau, Joachim Fosset, Alain Gravier, Pauline Jakobiak, Jean-Christophe Soussi
Scenography: Ateliers de Nanterre-Amandiers: Michel Arnould, Philippe Binard, Alix Boillot, Jérôme Chrétien, Jean-Pierre Druelle, Fanny Gautreau, Marie Maresca, Myrtille Pichon, Olivier Remy, Claude Sangiorgi
Assistance with scenography: Chloé Chabaud, Juliette Seigneur, Amélie Wellan
Seamstresses: Karelle Durand, Lydie Lalaux
Produced by: Nanterre-Amandiers – centre dramatique national
Co-produced by: Steirischer herbst, Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne, La Filature – Scène nationale, Mulhouse, Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, Théâtre National de Bordeaux Aquitaine, Kaaitheater, Centre d’art Le Parvis à Tarbes, NXTSTP (s pomočjo programa Kreativna Evropa/with help of the programme Creative Europe)

90 minutes

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

Druga godba loves Mali: BAMBA WASSOULOU GROOVE

Sogodbe #8 announces 32nd International Druga godba festival with a concert by  BAMBA WASSOULOU GROOVE!

This Easter weekend comes wrapped in vivid colours of Malian dance music – colours that refuse to be dulled by terror attacks or the razor wire of the state. Druga godba’s weapon of choice is music.

As an introduction to the Sogodbe concerts there will be a discussion organized at 7.00 pm in Stara elektrarna, about the musical scene in Mali. Speakers:  Chris Eckman (Glitterbeat), Ibrahim Nouhoum (International African Forum) (more…)

Param dokso: ACROSS ALL BORDERS, Benefit

The Benefit is hosted by Param dokso, an initiative of high school students in Ljubljana. The primary purpose is spreading awareness and educating the general public about the situation on the borders, the countries from which refugees are coming, and the responses to their arrival. All money, acquired with voluntary contributions, will be used to help asylum holders and seekers in Slovenia.

Stara elektrarna (The Old Power Plant) will also be hosting a part of the Benefit’s program:

March 3rd at 6 p.m. :  Andrej Kurnik and Izidor Ostan Ožbolt, lecture (more…)

MENT Ljubljana

Katarina Stegnar awarded the Prešern Fund Prize

photo: Botur Peterlin

Katarina Stegnar, member of artistic collectives Betontanc and Beton Ltd., was awarded the Prešern Fund Prize for her achievments in the field of theatre. Congratulations!

Article in Slovene daily newspaper Delo, 8th February 2016 available here.

IF YOU ARE HAPPY

photo: Tina Kosec and Nada Žgank

IF YOU’RE HAPPY

The repetitive children’s song that was being diligently taught in kindergartens and primary schools, around the time when the idea of liberalism was being born in the collapsing Yugoslavia. I still remember how I tried to “shout my hurray” and create a feeling of that happiness, one of the first indoctrinations of the new, post-socialist ideology.

The performance “If You’re Happy” is a cultural and artistic anti-celebration. If celebration seeks to celebrate the illusion of a country, worth of dignity, anti-celebration examines what this dignity represents and what are its foundations. If the celebrations in our country are censored, it is precisely the opposite with anti-celebrations: they speak about the issues that the censors are trying to remove from celebrations. If celebration consists of a well-defined protocol, anti-celebration is charged with the experimental and ritual character.

I am glad that I had the honour to be directing this year’s anti-celebration. The political leaders, who will carry out social improvements based on its constructive criticism, will be grateful, and so will be the people who may recognize themselves in the mirror of their own miseries and the miseries of the others.

If you’re happy, shout “Hurray”!

Andrej Jus, director (more…)

Peter Kus: WOLFHEART

photo: Peter Kus

The puppet and music project Wolfheart tells a story about the life of a young wolf being separated from his own pack and forced to venture on his own path of life. Along the way he is facing challenges similar to the challenges of the youth in human cultures: He has to say goodbye to the safe haven of his family (pack), start a life counting on experience passed onto him, face the new environment which is foreign and sometimes hostile, overcome fear, be resourceful, gather the strength and courage and start a new life in his own pack. The tale about a wolf growing up is also a tale about ourselves. The original text by Nana Miličinski and Peter Kus was created based on the real story of the wolf named Slavec. Biologists from the University of Ljubljana were following it via a telemetric collar from July 2011 till August 2012 (the project Slowolf) and reconstructed his journey from Slavnik on the Karst in Slovenia to Lessinia in the northern Italy. (more…)

Via Negativa: MANIPULATIONS

photo: Madster

Asking someone to kill his own son is a horrible game to verify the faith. Abraham was ready to pay the price, he trusted the will of GOD, and he was richly rewarded. Today we sacrifice entire national economies, which must pay absurdly high prices in order to regain the trust of imaginary financial markets. It’s the same game. Capitalism is a religion, capital demands trust and obedience. And we hope to be rewarded. After the former Hungarian prime minister publicly admitted that his government “fucked it up, not a little but a lot”, he again succeeded to gain the trust of the Hungarian PEOPLE at the following elections.

WE ALL TRADE WITH TRUST,
WE ALL NEGOTIATE FOR TRUST,
WE ALL MANIPULATE WITH TRUST.
IN THIS GAME, THERE ARE NO INNOCENT VICTIMS. (more…)

BIG BAND RTV Slovenia and BART VAN LIER in Stara elektrarna

photo: Janez Kotar

This will be the debut performance of the Big Band RTV Slovenia in The Old Power Station. The orchestra is performing continuously for 60 years and is one of the oldest ensembles of the kind in the world. This time, the guest of the concert will be the superb Dutch trombonist Bart van Lier, who will also serve as the conductor for the orchestra. (more…)

Bertolt Brecht: A RESPECTABLE WEDDING