Franz Pocci, Célia Houdart: OPEN THE OWL (FR, SI)

Director Renaud Herbin found his inspiration for the performance in the inventory of the Ljubljana Puppet Theatre, and thus Open the Owl is based on the play The Owl Castle, created in 1936 by Slovene puppeteer Milan Klemenčič, along with miniature marionettes made for the play. Célia Houdart upgraded Franz Pocci’s The Owl Castle, a story of Knight Chukolov who has been turned into an owl and would not be redeemed until he looses all his feathers, into a text which exposes even more the timeless topics of metamorphosis, greed, possession, insanity.

Open the Owl represents – apart from its exceptional artistic value – a wonderful theatre collaboration: generational, cross‑border, genre … as well as collaboration with the audience. Open the Owl is a multi‑layered story and offers multiple points of view to the audience, as the theatre literally expands, opens up, displays before the audience. So many layers mean walking on thin ice, but when everything works out, it’s a treat. The mystery of theatre revealed to the audience.

Directed by: Renaud Herbin
Dramaturgy: Mateja Bizjak Petit
Scenography: Mathias Baudry
Light design: Fanny Bruschi
Sound design: Morgan Daguenet
Artistic advice: Nino Laisné
Proofing: Metka Damjan
Assistant: Chloé Delaby
Performing: Maja Kunšič, Iztok Lužar
Stage manager: Luka Bernetič
Light technician: Niko Štabuc
Stage hands: Luka Moškrič
Puppets production: Iztok Bobič, Polona Černe, Zala Kalan, Zoran Srdić, Marjetka Valjavec, Sandra Birjukov, Špela Ulaga, Olga Milič, Tereza Andrůšková
Set production: Christian Rachner, Pierre Chaumont

Performance features the chanson: Tout fout le camp

Produced by: Lutkovno gledališče Ljubljana
Co-produced by: TJP – Centre Dramatique National D’Alsace

60 minutes

Performance is in Slovene with English surtitles.

Foto: Jaka Varmuž

Ticket booking and information: info@bunker.si, +386 51 269 906

Siniša Labrović: FISHING and STORM IN THE GLASS OF WATER (CR)

Siniša Labrović works mainly in the fields of body‑art, performance and visual art. In Ljubljana, he is best known for his actions and installations in the field of visual arts – he is currently part of the exhibition Heavenly Beings at the Museum of Contemporary Art, and he recently had an independent exhibition at The Match Gallery. Through his work, he addresses the ambiguous and painful aspects of society, such as nationalism, the vampirisation of the Catholic Church, reality shows, the understanding of the past, and also the media degradation … His most notable project globally was stado.org, a reality show with sheep. He dressed up the island of Goli otok (Naked Island), sang the text of Gloria magazine to the sound of gusle, licked the feet of the audience … All his projects have a very clear point, but at the same time they are very open to interpretation, as he does his part and leaves the interpretation to the audience.

He will carry out two performances in Ljubljana – both with extremely suggestive titles, which makes a more detailed description almost redundant. Fishing is a durational performance, which means you can catch it any time of the day or follow it all 7 hours, whereas Storm in a Glass of Water is a one‑off event.

Author and performer: Siniša Labrović
Producer: Alma R Selimović
Produced by: Bunker, Ljubljana

Foto: Tanja Radež

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

Marko Bulc: THE FIRST ALTRUISTIC PERFORMANCE (SI)

Monday, August 27 at 8.00 p.m. (Slovene version)
Tuesday, August 28 at 8.00 p.m. (English version)

Marko Bulc is a Slovene theatre director. The driving force of his work is exploring ever new territories, ever new fields of self‑challenge: apart from his directing work, he is also a playwright, actor, teacher, performer, explorer … 12 years ago, Mladi Levi Festival already hosted his Study for the Last Egoistic Performance. This time, he is returning with The First Altruistic Performance. The participatory mono‑performance The First Altruistic Performance is an interactive performance, but every participant here feels as comfortable as one feels at guided tours, where the protocol is very precise. During the 8 scenes, Bulc is constantly changing his position, and with it the position of the audience. And just like the cut‑off legs of the chairs, the audience is constantly losing their ground to the performance – their roles, their tasks. Bulc is also losing his own ground, because a performance on altruism – or artivism – is a constant confrontation with one’s own work, with the work of others, and with the possibilities of art in general. He did not save the world with his altruism, but he made a good performance. Is that enough?

Director, choreographer, stage designer, costume designer, light designer, music author and musician, text writer, and performer: Marko Bulc
Technical director: Igor Remeta
Production of scenography: IKEA, Igor Remeta, Duško Pušica
Produced by: Bunker, Ljubljana in the frame of the Urban Heat project
Producer: Alma R. Selimović
Public relations: Tamara Bračič Vidmar
Performance made possible by: Ministrstvo za kulturo RS, Mestna občina Ljubljana, Urban Heat, Evropska unija – program Ustvarjalna Evropa

60 minutes

Foto: Nada Žgank

Ticket booking and information: info@bunker.si, +386 51 269 906

Leja Jurišić, Marko Mandić: TOGETHER (SI)

Six hours on stage together; Leja Jurišić, a hurricane of the contemporary dance scene, embodying feminism and engagement, who shifts between performance, dancing and choreography with ease, and Marko Mandić, one of the leading actors of National Theatre Drama Ljubljana, who also triumphs on other stages and other theatre territories, and is known for his phenomenal use of the body as his acting tool.

The premise of the performance: Jurišić and Mandić, together on the stage for 6 hours with the sound of randomly played songs from their combined playlists. They were preparing for the performance together with the director, Bojan Jablanovec, and it is accompanied by live text by Semira Osmanagić, who also initiated Together. The premise is simple but uncompromising – six hours! What is »together« in this performance, anyway? Six hours is enough time to go through almost all dichotomies, and also to realize that the basis for togetherness, for cooperation – is to share time and space. Because when we are together, we are sharing everything.

Created by: Leja Jurišić & Marko Mandič in collaboration with the director Bojan Jablanovec and writer Semira Osmanagić
Produced by: Pekinpah & Via Negativa
Co-produced by: Kino Šiška

360 minutes

Foto: Matija Lukič

Ticket booking and information: info@bunker.si, +386 51 269 906

Uroš Kaurin, Vito Weis: HERO 2.0 – The Show of All Shows (SI)

Sunday, August 26 at 9.30 p.m. (Slovene version)
Tuesday, August 28 at 6.30 p.m. (English version)

Uroš Kaurin and Vito Weis confront their biographies in the show, so no spoilers here. Let’s just say that they are indeed performers of all performers, and – together with the dramaturgical eye of Katarina Stegnar – authors of all authors as well. Artists of all artists. And also – Young Lions of all young lions.

Hero 2.0 is the second performance in the Hero series. In Hero 1.0, Kaurin and Weis believed that we need superheroes to save the world, so they tried to be superheroes, of course, or at least they believed they can be super, even if the world doesn’t need them. Or they actually were superheroes, it was just that the world did not ask to be saved. But all superheroes are saving the world first, and then themselves. First, they fight for the world, and then for the audience. And Hero 2.0 is not just a candy for the audience. It is a gigantic delicious cake, which the audience can drool over and feast on. They give us everything – and more … This time, there is no limit for idealism, only the two performers remain, and they let the stage and each other drain them completely – for us.

Authors: Uroš Kaurin, Vito Weis
Created by: Uroš Kaurin, Vito Weis, Katarina Stegnar, Boris Bezić, Lea Čehovin
Produced by: Moment Maribor
Co-produced by: Zavod EN-KNAP

75 minutes

Foto: Nada Žgank

Ticket booking and information: info@bunker.si, +386 51 269 906

Fleur Elise Noble: ROOMAN (AU)

Fleur Elise Noble is an Australian director, creator and performer. Her work draws from studies of visual arts, physical theatre and community work. She uses a variety of media in her work: drawing, painting, sculpture, puppetry, animation, film, performance, dancing … Her first major production was 2 Dimensional Life of Her, and she’s coming to Ljubljana with her second major project, Rooman.

In this performance, where it is impossible to distinguish projection from reality and scenography from drawings, we fall into the Alice’s (or Fleur’s, in this case) dream hole, into which the protagonist constantly wants to return, as in her dreams she has fallen in love with Rooman – a kangaroo man. In her dreams, her love wanders around the archetypes of love. Which topic is even more eternal than love? Unrequited love. Where do we like to return to the most? To dreams. What’s the point of being awake if everything is more beautiful in dreams? It is the eternal question of the theatre. They say that reality is wilder than any art or any dream, but how to defeat dreams that are so beautiful and where we have – love? What do we do when we »arrive at a point in life when one must face the ultimatum – to give up or to wake up«?

Creator, director, designer, dreamer, dancer, drawer, animator, performer, puppet-maker, projection artist: Fleur Elise Noble
Production operator & stage manager: Niccolo Gallio
Sound design: Missi Mel Pesa
Contributing composers & musicians: Sarah Reid, Zaachariaha Fielding, Tim Bennett, Peter Knight, Mal Webb, Missi Mel Pesa (AKA Melbient)
Drawers and animators: Fleur Elise Noble, Tim Bennet, Isobel Knowles
Costume creators: Fleur Elise Noble, Bryony Anderson, Kasia Tons, Sara Yael (AKA Lily Castel)
Puppeteers: Adrianna Navarro, Louise Harte
Set builder and puppeteer: Tony Martin
Producer: Jason Cross, Insite Arts
Local puppeteer: Blaž Andrašek
Building of scenography: Igra, d. o. o., Igor Remeta, Martin Lovšin, Duško Pušica
55 minutes

Foto: Bryony Jackson

Ticket booking and information: info@bunker.si, +386 51 269 906

OPENING OF THE 21st MLADI LEVI FESTIVAL

You are kindly invited to the opening of the 21^st Mladi Levi International Festival, which will take place on the Šentjakobski oder LGL in Ljubljana on August 24, 2018 at 8.00 p.m.

 This year’s festival will begin with the witty performance All the Sex I’ve Ever Had, which is being produced in Ljubljana since the end of July by the artists of the Mammalian Diving Reflex collective from Canada, together with six representatives of the older generation from Slovenia. The latter will openly speak on the subject which remains taboo even for many of the younger generation – sex.

After the performance, at 10.00 p.m., we will meet on Krekov trg in front of the Lutkovno gledališče Ljubljana to continue the conversation on the spicy topic, accompanied by the lively beats of DJ Borka! Delicious snacks will once again be provided by the indispensable ladies from the Activity Day Centre for the Elderly and by the chef Primož Dolničar.

Producer: Mojca Jug
Set and lighting design: Tanja Radež & Igor Remeta

Mammalian Diving Reflex: ALL THE SEX I’VE EVER HAD (CA, SI)

Led by Artistic Director Darren O’Donnell, Mammalian Diving Reflex uses a working method called »social acupuncture«, the belief that the power, potency and significance of theatre can be revived by civic engagement and social interaction as an aesthetic. Mammalian Diving Reflex focuses on participatory processes, working with local communities to create rigorously crafted and provocative performances. Mammalian brings people together in new and unusual ways around the world, to create work that is engaging, challenging, and gets people talking, feeling and thinking.
We all know that today’s attitude towards sexuality is different than it used to be, we also know the statistics on various sexual practices, and this year, on the 50^th anniversary of 1968, we are trying to reflect on the results of the so‑called sexual revolution. But as Dolly Parton used to sing so beautifully, no one knows what goes on behind closed doors, behind specific closed doors. In Slovenia, we have found 6 individuals of the older generation who are willing to talk about sex; their own sex, not just sex in general. Together with Mammalian Diving Reflex, they have transformed their stories into a performance, so that we are able – at least for a short moment – to look behind the closed doors of romance and sexuality of a generation.

Conceived by: Darren O’Donnell
Direction: Darren O’Donnell
Co-direction: Alice Fleming
Performing:Peter Butoln, Ana Jovičević, Jadranka Novak, Srečko Polanec, Pavel Premrl, Nada Tržan-Herman
MC: Lea Kukovičić
Sound designer: Rok Kovač
Production: Tina Fance, Alice Fleming, Annalise Prodor, Melika Ramic
Technical direction and environment design: Alice Fleming, James Mapes
Local producer: Lea Kukovičič
Translators: Gaja Vudrag, Urša Grum
Interns: Sorcha Gibson, Sonja Kovačevič, Chiara Prodi
Subtitles: Lara Jerkovič
Lights: Janko Oven
Local technical support: Igor Remeta, Grega Mohorčič

120 minutes

Performance is in Slovene with English surtitles.

Foto:  Taku Kumabe

Ticket booking and information: info@bunker.si, +386 51 269 906

Milo Rau: The Congo Tribunal

Pre-event to 21^st Mladi levi festival 2018, in collaboration with Festival Isola Cinema and Kinodvor

Documentary film, Germany, Switzerland, 2017, 100’

9^th June at 12:00, Festival Isola Cinema, Izola

11^th June at 19:00, Isola Cinema in Ljubljana at Kinodvor, Ljubljana

The war in Congo has caused more than six million deaths over the last twenty years. The population is suffering, but the offenders stay with impunity. Many people see this conflict as one of globalisation’s crucial economic distribution battles because the country has major deposits of high-tech raw materials. The director gathers victims, perpetrators, observers and analysts for a unique civil tribunal and creates a detailed and unvarnished portrait of the largest and bloodiest economic war in human history. (more…)

Snježana Premuš: PHYSICAL MANIFESTATIONS 2

April 2 – 4

Choreo‑social project Physical manifestation 2 focuses on the means, methods and modules that think of somatic practice as a material and a system for revitalizing the social body by transforming it into an experiential, participatory artistic event in which both performers and the audience are able to access the principles through experience. (more…)