TWO OPEN WEEKS OF PLAVO THEATRE 2022

Belgrade, September 10-24, 2022

Two Open Weeks of PLAVO Theatre is an international practical and theoretical program for people interested in working inside a theatrical laboratory through the specific methodology of PLAVO Theatre. Our aim is to share with participants the idea of theatre as a place of communication, a place of self-researching, and a space of open mind where some important things about us and the world that surrounds us could be said.

The program will consist of two main programs, and two workshops, and participants will be able to participate in the whole program or in the workshop of their choice.

The program is open to professional and semi-professional actors, directors, other theatre artists, dancers, as well as theatre and dance students but also all other people who are interested in theatre or self-research with the help of theatrical tools.

The program Two Open Weeks of PLAVO Theatre was created out of the need to bring closer laboratory theatre work to international and Serbian participants and to make the theatrical laboratory a place of intercultural communication, theatrical exchange, and development. The program has been realized in Belgrade since 2004, gathering participants from three continents.

LOGO CEIDue to the support of the donors who sustained the program, this year there will be support provided (accommodation and travel costs) for participants coming from the Central European region.

 Program

  • September 10, 20:00  Closed session
  • September 17, 21:00 SHEOL/שאול a guest performance by Monika Wachowicz and Jaroslaw Fret, Poland, produced by the Grotowski Institute, Poland.
  • September 24, 20:00 Presentation, PLAVO Theatre

The program will be held in English.

The additional (evening) program is subject to change.

REGISTRATION

Thanks to the support of the donors who sustained the program, we will provide additional support (accommodation and travel costs) for participants coming from Central European countries:

Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, and Serbia. Special support is provided for participants from Ukraine.

Please contact us for information including additional support, fees, registration form, or any practical information. E-mails:

plavopozoriste@gmail.com / plavopozoriste@hotmail.com

Two Open Weeks 2022 Registration form (download link)

Note: The number of participants is limited. There is no specific application deadline. After sending us the registration form and getting a confirmation from us about their participation, interested participants should pay the fee to our bank account in order to book their place.

HELP PLAVO THEATRE AT A PRECIPICE

Dear friends of art,

Our existence as an independent theatre organization has always been a struggle in a country like Serbia, that does little to support culture out of the mainstream, with a population that can barely make ends meet. From the very beginning, we have been operating in survival mode, shifting from one space to another, like nomads. In the past, we were always able to find a way to patch up our finances, mainly by way of various national and international cultural grants.

However, two unfortunate events have brought us to a precipice.

  1. We have been evicted from the space we had rented for the past decade, as the building we worked in with a host of other independent cultural groups was sold by the government to a private real estate developer.
  2. COVID-19 has literally devastated the cultural scene in Serbia, as it has all over the world.

We found ourselves on the street, without any possibility to continue our work. Quitting was not an option, however, we were very lucky to find a beautiful, but run down house in downtown Belgrade, built at the end of the 19th century, perfect for initiating a new independent cultural community in Belgrade.

This is where we need your help. The house requires a lot of adaptation and renovation work, such as fixing the heating, plumbing, electricity and a new floor in one part of the house. We also need to secure resources such as additional theatrical lighting, audio equipment, seating, and curtains in order to be able to stage our performances.

Without these interventions, it is impossible for us to start our work and the clock is ticking. We are literally living on borrowed time and funds.

Dear friends, we invite you to help us create a new home for our theatre and a gathering place for independent culture, where you and all people who hold the arts close to heart are welcome.

To donate, please head over to our GoFundMe campaign page >>

Initiative – Inclusion – Interaction

Contemporary Theatre for Active Youth

 December 15, 2019 – January 15, 2022

 

Erasmus logo

The project Initiative – Inclusion – Interaction, Contemporary Theatre for Active Youth is an international Erasmus+ co-funded project realized by 6 partner organizations from 5 countries – Serbia, Germany, North Macedonia, Poland and Switzerland.

The project is directed towards strengthening of youth through active doing, engagement and exchange using theatre as a powerful tool in social work.

 The project aims at:

  • Raising sense of initiative, engagement and development of active role in society among young people;
  • Contribution to the inclusion of three groups of youth with fewer opportunities – young deaf and hard of hearing youth, young migrants/asylum seekers and young inmates and sensitizing of the majority of population for the needs of those groups;
  • Strengthening capacities of organizations which apply theatrical techniques in the work with the youth.

The project was prepared on the basis of good results of the previous Erasmus+ co-funded project which was undertook by almost all consortium members in 2017 and 2018 titled Theatre – Encounter, Inclusion, Action. New project is a step further into deeper work with young people including youth with fewer opportunities with impacts on local, national and international levels.

The project is in concordance with Erasmus+ Inclusion and Diversity Strategy, as well as with EU Youth Strategy 2019-2027 in areas of social inclusion, participation in civil society, education and training and creativity and culture.

Project coordinator isPlavo Theatre – theatre laboratory, Belgrade, Serbia, and partners are Cultural Association of the Deaf of Belgrade “RadivojPopovic”, Belgrade/ Serbia, Theaterlabor, Bielefeld/ Germany, Intimate Theatre, Bitola/ Macedonia, Jubilo Foundation, Wroclaw/ Poland and University of Zurich/ Switzerland.

After a break with project activities from March until December 2020 caused by Covid-19 pandemic, all organizations have continued their local theatrical work with young people since the beginning of 2021,including students, young deaf and hard of hearing people, young migrants/asylum seekers, young inmates and young people in general. Continuous theatrical work in duration of several months will result inperformances which will be publically presented in all project cities in autumn, as well as within Youth Theatre Festival in Belgrade in October 2021. We are looking forward to a working summer ahead of us with two youth mobility exchanges in Belgrade and Bitola in June/July 2021, and a mobility for theatrical pedagogues in Bielefeld in July/August 2021.

Please, visit the web page of the project.

RITUAL OF INCLUSION

A project against discrimination of people with disabilities

Podržano od strane logo MOS

Plavo Theatre, in cooperation with The Association of Students with Disabilities, with the support of the Ministry of Youth and Sports of Republic of Serbia, in the period from September to December, 2020, realized the project “Ritual of inclusion – project against discrimination of people with disabilities”. The project happened as a natural continuation of the cooperation with ASD, which started in 2019, through a six-day workshop in which the participants were students with disabilities and young people without disabilities. The result was a mutual desire to continue this kind of work.

The goals of this project are to contribute to the inclusion and improvement of the quality of life of young people with disabilities, as well as young people in general, to their active participation and greater visibility in the cultural and public life of the community.

The entire project is designed so that the use of contemporary theatre techniques creates conditions for a deeper interaction of young people with disabilities and young people without disabilities, which we believe is very important for an inclusive approach of the whole project. Through this kind of work and thematic framework that derives directly from their life experiences and situations, young people, participants in the project, are enabled to find their personal expression. In this way, not only do young people with disabilities have the opportunity to share, in a creative way, their views, problems, attitudes on important topics in their lives with young people without disabilities, but they also have the opportunity to guide through personal relationships and, in some way to educate young people without disabilities on all relevant matters related to the population of people with disabilities. This is what we can call knowledge transfer, and it is in this type of knowledge transfer that we see the core of an inclusive approach to work.

The work resulted in a short inclusive documentary “Ritual of Inclusion”, which enabled greater visibility and accessibility of the project results to the general public. The aim of the film is to bring the life of people with disabilities closer to the general public in Serbia, in an interesting and creative way, in order to educate and change discriminatory attitudes about people with disabilities in a relationship of respect and tolerance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5P9EzUhcs0&t=18s

Flow Ability – international session 2018

FROM MYSELF TOWARDS THEATRE – FROM THEATRE TOWARDS MYSELF

FLOW ABILITY – INTERNATIONAL SESSION

July 8-14, 2018 / Belgrade

Flow Ability is a new international training program created in theatrical laboratory PLAVO Theatre for all people interested in working on self-development through theatre, which will be held in Belgrade from July 8-14, 2018.

The program aims at raising the level of our productivity, creativity and precision. It consists of exercises and training which provide participants with knowledge and tools that can help them to enter flow – the state of high productivity, creativity and precision in their work and everyday activities. In that way the flow, a much desired state for all those involved in creative processes/activities, is no longer exclusively a matter of inspiration and becomes knowledge that is in our hands which can be repeated any time we need it.

The work is based on the activation and increasing the capacity of our intention, initiative and energy. Training system that makes it possible consists of three types of trainings and exercises: Human experience exercises, Capacity training and Integrative training.

Flow training system

  • Human experience exercises – exercises that reveal everyday mindset through our personal experience, which prevents us from being able to maximize productivity and creativity.
  • Capacity training – works on increasing and quality of our intention, initiative and energy.
  • Integrative training – introduces us to a state called flow – a state in which we are productive, precise and creative at the same time.

The program is opened not only for people in the sphere of contemporary theatre, but for all those who have a need to enrich their work and everyday activities with greater creative energy and a higher level of productivity, regardless of their profession.

The system of exercises and trainings is based on knowledge and experiences which PLAVO Theatre has developed within 22 years of work and existence in the sphere of theatrical anthropology and work with people through numerous educational projects, as well as projects aimed at individual and social development.

Program

  • Sunday, July 8th, 20:00 Concert of PLAVO theatre
  • Monday, July 9th – Friday, July 13th, FLOW ABILITY international session

15:30 – 17:30 video sessions;

18:00 – 21:00 workshop

  • Saturday, July 14th, 20:00 Performance of PLAVO theatre

 The work will be held in English.

 Registration:

  •  Registration fee for participants from the countries of the region (Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia) – €90;
  • Registration fees for participants from EU countries – €130.

Flow Ability 2018 Registration form

Note: The number of participants is limited. There is no a specific application deadline. After sending us registration form and getting a confirmation from us about their participation, interested participants should pay the fee to our bank account in order to book their place.

Please contact us for all additional information including registration form or any practical information.

E-mail: plavopozoriste@gmail.com 

Participants should learn by hart a text by their own choice (5 to 8 sentences long). Participants should have a notebook and bring comfortable working clothes. 

Leaders of the work 

Nenad Čolić – director, actor and pedagogue, was born in 1961 in Belgrade. Prior to the foundation of PLAVO theatre, he was a dancer, one of the founders of Theatre Signum, one of the first independent theatre companies in Serbia, later the actor of Dah Theater from Belgrade. In that period, he gained practical experience in working with the Odin Teatret actor, Torgeir Wethal. In 1994, he began directing, he worked in Milan with Massimo Giannetti, founder of the Italian theatre Specchi e Memorie, with whom he began a long cooperation.

In 1995, he founded PLAVO theatre – theatrical laboratory, in which he has been a director, pedagogue and actor. He directed all the performances of PLAVO theatre performed in Serbia and abroad at numerous theatre festivals. Since 1995, he has been leading various workshops and seminars in Serbia and internationally such as From Myself towards Theatre, Contemporary Theatre – Space of Open Mind, Contemporary Theatre – Mind and Technique, Two Open Weeks of PLAVO Theatre, as well as ongoing educational projects such as Contemporary Theatre Studio, The Hearing Body, FLOW Ability.

Dejan Stojković – actor, musician and pedagogue, born in 1976.

Member of PLAVO theatre since 2000. He has been a member of PLAVO Theatre – theatre laboratory since 2000. Since then he has performed in PLAVO theatre performances: Oscar Wild and Inconstant Prince (2000), Hirpertrophy of authority (2001), Sarcasticus or Birth of the Virus (2002), Fantastic Gospel According to Virginia (2003), Dialectics of Soul – Study of Freedom (2004), I Sing Like a Bird (2006), The Wizard or Harmonic Cacophony (2007), Dancing With Father (2008), Pagan Phantasma or The Secret of Betrayal (2011, 2012), Concert of Decadence (2011),  The Day of Ahasverus (2014), Daydream – A Sory from Terezin (2016). To broaden his acting work, so far he participated in workshops led by Odin Teatret actor Iben Nagel Rasmussen and those led by teacher and former actor of Jerzy Grotowski’s Laboratory Theatre, Rena Mirecka. He assisted PLAVO theatre educational projects, such workshops Contemporary Theatre – The Space of Open Mind, Contemporary Theatre – Mind and Technique and continuous project School of Contemporary Theatre. 

Test results

We had the opportunity to examine the whole methodology related to the Flow Ability program. The EEG apparatus was attached to one of the subjects before workout, during work and after the workout of the training. The results positively astonished us. The subject was given a certain task to work on before and after the training. There was an increase in productivity and creative finding of the solution by almost 200% while the subject was working on the task after the training. The overall state of the subject also changed (picture 1), as well as his mental performance (pictures 2 and 3). This enabled the subject to perform a greater degree of creativity and productivity.

 

PICTURE 1

EMOTIONAL REACTION

After flow training we clearly see increased emotional reaction quality (horizontal axis). 

PICTURE 2

BRAIN ENGAGEMENT

After flow training we clearly see decreased brain exertion (do more with less brain activity). 

PICTURE 3

COGNITIVE LOAD

After flow training we clearly see decreased brain effort (better output with less strain).

Testimonials

 

Interested in the presentation of the Flow Ability workshop, held in PLAVO theatre, I ventured to apply for the work. The thing that motivated me was the story of the people present at the presentation about the possibility of willingly ‘dropping’ into the Flow, about possibility to be in the state of high concentration whenever we needed it. I was also motivated by recommendation of my good friend who I appreciate and who has been working with PLAVO theatre for several years now.

What thrilled me the most was the full commitment of the leaders of the workshop to transfer their knowledge, to lead us to our personal limits and to show how to overcome them. It is necessary to have a lot of knowledge in working with people to motivate and push them forward, and to achieve it in ‘velvet gloves’. It is especially admirable that they dedicated themselves to each of us personally at the workshops so that the impression was almost of a mentor’s work.

Already after a few terms, I started to grasp the essence. At least for me, this was awareness of acts and processes that I had previously performed without thinking and which disturbed me in concentration and work, which all reflected on quality. I saw how to achieve and create in myself a motivation that would lead me to persist in pushing some work to the end. I saw how a breakthrough occurred to me. It does not mean that I no longer procrastinate, but it is clear to me now where it starts from. When it begins I have a way to be awake and focused on the job in order to leave procrastination for home.

Rade Martinovic

Through Flow Ability, I linked up with my own source of creative energy. My work requires accuracy and speed, and this experience helped me to be more focused, calmer and more productive.

I learned to experience tiredness as a current state that can be overcame by connecting with this source, not only at work, but also in other daily activities.

Jasmina Knezevic

TWO OPEN WEEKS OF PLAVO THEATRE 2017

International training program for performance artists and students

Program

  • July 16, 20:00 I Play Electra performance by PLAVO Theatre
  • July 17 – 21, 11:00 – 16:00 Tuning the Body. Awareness workshop led by Kamila Klamut, Teatr Zar/ The Grotowski Institute, Wroclaw, Poland
  • July 21, 20:00 Doubts and Progress work demonstration by Kamila Klamut and Ewa Pasikowska, Poland
  • July 23, 20:00 I Play Electra performance by PLAVO Theatre
  • July 24 – 28, 11:00 – 17:00 From Myself towards Theatre workshop led by Nenad Čolić, PLAVO Theatre director
  • July 26, 20:00 Sky Jewelled with Stars concert-demonstration, treasury of Serbian traditional songs, by PLAVO Theatre
  • July 28, 16:00 Open Door presentaon of the participants’ work during the workshop From Myself towards Theatre open for public
  • July 29, 20:00 Concert by PLAVO Theatre.

The program will be held in English


Registration

Two Open Weeks 2017 Registration form

Thanks to the support of the donors who sustained the program, we will provide additional support (accommodation and travel costs) for participants coming from Central European countries: Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania,  Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine and Serbia.

Please contact us for information including additional support, fees, registration form or any practical information. E-mails: plavopozoriste@gmail.com, plavopozoriste@hotmail.com.

Note: The number of participants is limited. There is no a specific application deadline. After sending us registration form and getting a confirmation from us about their participation, interested participants should pay the fee to our bank account in order to book their place.


Ja igram Elektru 1, Plavo pozorište, foto Andrijana Pajović
I PLAY ELECTRA, Jelena Martinović, PLAVO theatre

Two Open Weeks of PLAVO Theatre is an international practical and theoretical program for people interested in work inside of a theatrical laboratory through specific methodology of PLAVO Theatre. Our aim is to share with participants the idea of theatre as a place of communication, a place of self-researching and a space of open mind where some important things about us and the world that surrounds us could be said.

NECA
Nenad Čolić, director of PLAVO theatre

The program will consist of series of events: theatre workshops, performances, presentations, demonstrations, concerts, meetings, video presentations. There will be two main programs, two workshops, and participants will have the possibility to participate in the whole program or in the workshop by their choice.

kamila 01
Kamila Klamut, Teatr Zar/ The Grotowski Institute

Beside PLAVO Theatre work and a workshop led by Nenad Colic, PLAVO Theatre director, as a special innovation of Two Open Weeks 2017, participants will have the opportunity to meet with the work of our guest-teacher from Poland, coming directly from the source of Grotowski tradition. It is Kamila Klamut, actress from Teatr Zar/ The Grotowski Institute, who will lead training session in the first week of the program, assisted by Ewa Pasikowska from Teatr Zar

The program is opened for professional and semi-professional actors, directors, other theatre artists, dancers, as well as theatre and dance students and other people who are interested in theatre or self-research using the theatrical tools. The program Two Open Weeks of PLAVO Theatre was created out of the need to bring closer laboratory theatre work to international and Serbian participants and to make theatrical laboratory a place of intercultural communication, theatrical exchange and development.

The program has been realized in Belgrade every summer since 2004 gathering participants from three continents.

CEI logoDue to the support of the donors which sustained the program, this year there will be support provided (accommodation and travel costs) for participants coming from Central European region.

The Seed of Creation – Demonstration of the Actors’ Training

Tuesday, July 19th, 2016, 8 PM

The Seed of Creation

Demonstration of the Actors’ Training

With: Maša Jelić, Jelena Martinović, Dejan Stojković

“There is a form of work which is different from rehearsals, the actor should be confronted with that which is the seed of creation. In body there are certain predetermined forms or details. The first essential point is how to establish a certain number of details and make them precise. Next, you must rediscover those personal impulses, which can be incarnated in these details. To incarnate them means to change but not destroy them.

In the beginning you improvise only the order of details and their rhythms. Then you change the order and the rhythms and even the composition of the details. This must not be premeditated, but dictated by the flow of your embody. You must find this spontaneous line of the body which is embodied in the details and goes beyond them but which at the same time maintains their precision. If this precision is absent, then it is useless, and a result can only be a sort of plasma.

Every authentic reaction begins inside of body, and that which is external, the so called detail of gesture in exercises is only the result of this process. If the external reaction is not born inside of the body, it will always be false, dead, artificial, rigid.

If one retains the precision of the details and allows the body to dictate the different rhythms, continually ordering them, taking another detail as if from the air, who then has been dictating all this? It is not your brain, but nor is it chance, all this has some connection with our life. We do not even know how this happens, but it was the body memory which dictates vivid relations to certain experiences or certain cycles of experiences in our life. The body has no memory. It is memory.

One should seek for the truth, and not for special circumstances.”

Jerzy Grotowski

Demonstration of the actors’ training will be held within international program of theatrical education Two Open Weeks of PLAVO theatre.

Date: Tuesday, July 19th, 2016

Venue: PLAVO theatre, BIGZ building, Boulevard of Zivojin Misic 17, 6th floor

Ticket price: 100,00 RSD.

Ticket booking and information: 061 192 79 09.