Via Negativa (SLO)
Would Would Not
Merlin Theatre, 2008. november 23. (Sunday) 19:00
(120 minutes, without interval. In English with Hungarian translation!
Not Recommended Under 18!)
There will be a post-show talk after the performance!
Performers:
Kristian Al Droubi
Barbara Kukovec
Marko Mandić
Barbara Matijević
Sanela Milošević
Katarina Stegnar
Petra Zanki
Grega Zorc
(Silvia Marchig, Branko Jordan)
Concept and directing: Bojan Jablanovec
Production director: Špela Trošt
Producer: Via Negativa
Coproduction: Glej Theatre Ljubljana, EkS-scena Zagreb
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foto: Marcandrea
Via negativa is an international project of contemporary performing arts, based in Ljubljana since 2002. Our fields of work are theatre and performance, with a focus on the connections between the two.
We consider a theatre performance to be a relationship between the spectator and actor in real space and time. We deal with this relationship as a complex flow of points of view, expectations, judgments, conclusions, recognitions, stereotypes, fallacies, prejudices, tolerance or intolerance, knowledge or lack thereof; all these trigger various emotional, rational or irrational responses. We are on stage in order to trigger this relationship and invent strategies with which to get the relationship’s dynamic running. We work with an actual presence, which is why communication is at the fore of this relationship, before aesthetics; points of view and thought before craft. We feel we are most real when we touch upon something that can no longer be rationalized, when we no longer have to pretend to understand something we do not.
We work as a collective in which each individual fights with his reasons, his body and courage, his imagination and mind, his skills and energy for his own sense and position on stage. This is why each performer in VN is also the author of his or her own performance.
We dedicated the first seven years of the VN project (2002 – 2008) to the seven aspects of man that are commonly known as the seven deadly sins. Our notion is that anger, gluttony, greed, lust, sloth, envy and pride are core aspects of every individual’s identity. Each of these human attributes opens a conflict which is built into the subjective self of each individual: on the one hand, one builds mechanisms and strategies of defense from these negative drives to conform to society’s demands of control and suppression of these drives; on the other, one develops various forms of release, because one cannot stand the pressure of one’s own subjectivity. By combining the materials and performers that have collaborated on Via Negativa these seven years, the eighth (2009) will see the closure of this seven year cycle with the project Via Nova.
Would Would Not (2005) deals in sexual exteriorisation (lust), performance presupposes active collaboration of the audience.
Reviews:
On the pressure of lust. On being torn between satisfaction and suppression. On the rift of identifying with a phallus. On the desire to be a sexual object. On seduction, transforming into self(satisfaction) On stage impotence.
“Two hours of sensational delight. An original and significant manifestation of modern theater that remains true to its origins.” (Delo Ljubljana, 20.12.05)
“To a large degree dependent upon the composition and engagement of the audience. The more inclined the audience is to cooperate, the more interactive the show and also highly more provocative.” (Radio Student Ljubljana, 21.12.05)
“Would Would Not does not conform to the expectations of the “classical” viewer as it imposes a responsibility upon the viewer for the execution of this carefully structured open piece. At the same time, it extends an exceptional opportunity for the viewer to personally experience the fundamental issue of performing arts.” (Dnevnik Ljubljana, 27.12.05)
“What happens when viewers themselves become objects of the gaze and together with the performers find themselves within their own field of perception? Such a situation was created by Bojan Jablanovec in Would Would Not (2005), the fourth event in the series of seven performances of deadly sins named Via Negativa. With this project, Jablanovec abandoned theatre as an art of representation and creation of stage illusion (he ended his engagement with drama theatre when he embarked on the Via Negativa project).”
Barbara Orel: Behind the Back of the EYE. The Configuration of Perception In Modern Slovenian Theatre
“How do you work with the performers?
Every performer in our play is trying to open up a very personal relation of theirs to the theme we are working on. All of these are true stories, because it is started from the task that they have to use themselves as personalities and their body as what presents this person, and to try and work with that on the scene.
One of important Via negative postulates is that we are always trying to find a way how to be real, realistic in a theatre situation. Theatre is a very unreal, arranged situation in which this is almost impossible to realise.” (http://www.javno.com/en/celebrities/clanak.php?id=31899)
Date: 2008. november 23. (Sunday), 7:00 PM
Merlin Theatre, V. Gerlóczy str. 4.
Tickets: Merlin Theatre [+36 (1) 318 9844]
More information: www.vntheatre.com