A show by Alexander Hausvater
Scenography: Zsolt Fehérvári
Light design: Lucian Moga
Music: Yves Chamberland
Costumes: Valentin Codoiu
Choreography: Momo Sanno
Assistant director: Cătălina Baciu
Samira – Andreea Tănase
Amina – Carmen Ionescu
Herak – Constantin Florescu
Vlaco – Liviu Cheloiu
Jela – Elisabeta Rîmboi
Nadia – Ioana Repciuc
Marek – Cătălin Mareş
Soldier – Liviu Pintileasa
Premiere: January 11, 2015, Main Hall
Duration: 1h 30min
The Balkan Women is a multimedia tragedy, a show about cruelty nestled between the centuries, a visual meditation on the human condition as it is revealed only during the darkest scenes of existence.
It is a very politically charged show, as it speaks about the unfathomable drama of the Muslin women in Bosnia during the armed conflict with Serbia, at the end of the 20th Century. It is a show about real events being systematically silenced, not only by the international community, but also – and more importantly – by the victims themselves. The systematic rape of Muslim women by Serbian soldiers under orders, in an unprecedented plan to cause pregnancies in order to raise the Serbian, Christian population of Bosnia are a particularly harsh chapter of recent history, and of the history of human cruelty in general. The impossibility of confessing to these atrocities is written in the very nature of the Islamic faith, as recognizing these events would undermine the fundamental weave of the family under the Islamic cultural paradigm. It is for this reason that The Balkan Women chooses to offer a voice, to highlight this phenomenon, in order to question the silences to which we subject ourselves and the validity of the reasons why we deny ourselves the right to communicate, in all levels of human interaction – from the family to foreign policy.
Theatre is a constantly applied and renewed experiment. Theatre isn’t about answers. The moment I felt I would find all the answers to my questions, I would quit this profession instantly. Theatre is about asking the right questions, about communicating in such way with the spectator – I don’t believe the word `audience` is correct, it implies a passive attitude – that she can interiorize a dilemma, she may leave changed. Messages are for e-mails and Facebook. I don’t want messages, I want questions! I don’t want applause. I want the spectators to react in a more profound way, to want a change in themselves, in their relationships, in their lives.
Alexander Hausvater
Stage manager: Radu Ilicea
Lights: Adrian Dragomir
Sound: Andrei Enache
Video projection: Radu Ilicea