About Festival 2019

The Mayor of Niš
Darko Bulatović

Niš is a city of rich festival tradition– Film Festival, Literary Colony, Art Colony, and Nisville Jazz Festival are just some of the festival events that affirm and promote the maturity and quality of social and cultural life of the city.

Niš is the intersection of the Balkan and European roads, a city that, due to its ideal geographical position, has been known throughout history as the Gate of the East and West. Such a geo-strategic asset provides great potential for Niš to become a truly recognizable cultural center and a place where various artistic, cultural and value profiles that nourish the Balkans meet. With a good tradition of the international theater festival Theater at the Crossroads, we want to affirm Niš as a recognizable Balkan capital of theatre life where theater lovers will be able to experience the best performances from the whole region and meet the most eminent actors, directors, set designers, costume designers and artists of other profiles. In this way, the City of Niš, the most important regional-administrative, cultural-historical, economic and university center of southeastern Serbia, as well as the National Theater in Niš, want to position themselves as recognizable and leaders of theater art in the Balkans.

Our intention is to encourage dialogue and cooperation with countries in the region through the development of theater and stimulation of the cultural agenda of our city. The real art and sincere emotions it carries along, represent the most beautiful and noble way for the people to approach each other, meet and communicate. With its aesthetic, humanistic, and social role, in the most subtle way art can find similarities and overcome all differences. For the language of art is felt and understood by everyone!

On behalf of all of the citizens of Niš, I warmly welcome to Nis the friends of quality drama art, with the hope that the good and respectable tradition of the festival Theater at the Crossroads will gather us every year on the banks of Nišava.

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About Crossing Borders
An imaginary interview with Nebojša Bradić

What is most striking in marking the culture in our region?
Nebojša Bradić: Metaphorical Crossroads: a promising mix of events with the prospect of becoming an alloy, a search for new people, for the old common cultural space, and an apprehension to say it publicly and falter during opening…

When it comes to culture and cultural cooperation, to what extent have the „ramps“ really been removed – reality shows us that the cooperation, that has been happening in recent years, has mostly been the result of individual initiative and gestures, and not of inter-country programs and projects?

N. B: It is good that these are the gestures of individuals. It is for the purpose of better control of individual crossing of border that the ramps have been lowered. I guess that those who have lowered them, now may have the reasons to be satisfied.

In your opinion, what could really be called the brand of the Balkans and so be placed in Europe and in the world?
N. B: I am not a supporter of the „brands“ culture. I am convinced that true values are one of the most efficient ways to search for and find the road for cultures of the Bakans in the world.

In what way should a significant cultural cooperation in the region be initiated, since we see that today it is easier to communicate and cooperate with the countries in Europe and the world than with the countries that once made up the same country?
N. B: There is nothing new about the need to communicate well, or as you say better, with strangers rather than with neighbors. I wish we had more opportunities earlier to socialize and create with colleagues from all over the world. There will certainly be time for the young to like and want to be with those with whom they can speak without linguistic and political intervention.

How do you see the cooperation of Serbia and the countries in the region, if it is known that in last decades the doors to certain festivals and institutions in the neighbouring countries, have been closed for Serbian artists?
N. B: I like to think that the artist should go where he/she is invited and welcome, both he/she personally and his/her work. After all, Niš festival Theatre at the Crossroads opens its scene to theatres from the region. We develop good relations with the colleagues, so I believe in the possibility that, for example, Yugoslav Drama Theatre will have the opportunity to perform in front of the festival audience in Dubrovnik.

There are many indicators that culture throughout the former Yugoslav territory is completely „networked“ in politics, power and financial power, for unfortunally, one is still begging for culture. The reflection of that lies in the fact that in an environment where one begs for money, the artist cannot really be free and critical, nor can provocative and exciting works be created. If a provocation does occur, it is predominantly an incident. What is your attitude towards this „networked artist“ who has almost become a practice?

If you allow me, I would speak about a different kind of an esentially needed networking of our artists, which are European, world and regional networks within which the artists work, travel and collaborate on joint projects, and whose importance goes beyond the local, and therefore the artists do not have time for politics or begging…

Aleksandar Milosavljević

FOR NEW FRONTS

In addition to good plays, Niš Festival is expected not only to become a relevant cultural crossroads, where the most diverse information about the theatre life of the communities from which the participants come from will cross paths and intertwine, but also to create a solid basis for joint opposition to the ever more dramatic marginalization of culture, which affects not only contemporary creativity, but also serious art festivals, as places that represent that very creation. Consequently, I expect a certain front of solidarity and mutual support to be established. The front that will not be based on simple distribution of productions in a wider region – which is just another form of adherence to the conditions imposed by the imperative of commercialization– but the front that will affirm a truely creative cooperation, which will, in addition to the exchange of information and experience, perhaps lead also to the implementation of joint projects, and co-productions even.

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Dejan Lilić

WHEN  DREAM  BECOMES  REALITY

When you arrive at the crossroads, you have several roads you can take. When you create a play, the roads, options, ideas are far greater. And when the theatre, artists and audience appear at the crossroads, the options are mercilessly infinite.

At the crossroads, you can be completely alone with your thoughts. You can find yourself in a terrible crowd. You can meet dear ones, friends, foes, an old flame and a new crush. You can meet new people, new ideas, new fashion and old clothes. You can stop for a several times or quickly pass through the crossroads. You can stumble or walk boldly, impudently, and proudly. At the crossroads, you can learn something new, but also teach someone something. You can laugh, flirt, imagine … and get angry and be happy.

Just imagine the roads available and what happens when you place at the crossroads a few generations of actors, directors, playwrights, costume and set designers, stage masters of all kinds, an army of theater spectators who cheer up and support…infinite emotions, embraces, laughter, tears, ideas, friendships, future cooperation…THEATRE at the crossroads happens.

They say, be careful what you dream of, it may come true. The dream dreamt by the city of Niš and the citizens of Niš, the theater lovers, came true. All who have the privilege of coming here, to this mythical place, to work, see, and smell the magic of the theater, they all share the same emotions of absolute happiness and great victories. And there is no stronger feeling than the feeling of a winner. And all those who have fully identified and invested themselves in the project Theater at the Crossroads are great winners.

Tuesday, March 12, 2019 is the beginning of a great idea. The beginning of a great vision. The beginning of endless possibilities.

 

 

Dejan Petković

TOWARD NEW IDENTITY

On the hundred and thirty-third anniversary of its existence and deep roots in our cultural identity, Niš National Theater enters and with a noble aim gathers numerous theaters and their fans at the biggest crossroads in the Balkans. On the day of the beginning of the ancient Greek Great Dionysius, the crowds of talented actors/theatre creators will rush to Niš from all over to demonstrate their view on theatrum mundi on the stage of the first Theater Festival of the Balkan Cultural Space – Theater at the Crossroads. Deep connections of this region with ancient and rich heritage, remind us of the significance of the crossroads in the ancient drama. They are the thresholds where the heroes acquired new identities, fulfilling their mission as bearers of renewed consciousness and a more humane view of the world. This festival, conceived as a new and original unification of diverse theatrical aesthetics, as well as crossing of thematic and philosophical preoccupations brought from other areas that relate to the culture of the Balkans, opens innumerable possibilities for a different view of a man, his place and role in the current social and civilization order.