Sreten Asanović, Nomina, Plima, Ulcinj, 2011
By: Ivana Ančić
English version will be available soon.
Srđan Srdić: Espirando (Stubovi kulture, Beograd, 2011.)
By: Leda Sutlović
A relatively unknown writer to the wider Croatian reading public, Srđan Srdić, is the author of the appraised novel The Dead Field and the director of the Festival of Short Stories ‘’The Kikinda Short’’, and the novel Espirando, subtitled ‘’The Songs on Death’’, is his first book of stories. The title of the book, easily translated as breathing or exiling, gives an idea of the main topic, the moment of death. The title is also a term from classical music that describes a special way of interpretation, and the music itself, especially the one on the Mexican border, which helps us understand this mess, is one of the basics and sources of inspiration for the stories.
Srdić’s short prose is not a light read and it is not for everyone’s taste. This thin book of nine stories takes a lot more time to read than one would imagine. These stories are written for a concentrated reader with a high level of tolerance, patience and willpower to understand the thick, sometimes even unreadable text. An involvemnt which, in the end, is highly rewarded. The morbid topic, the death, the moment of taking the last breath, is presented even stronger, more intensive. Testing the limits of reader’s tolerance, Srdić throws sharp, hyperrealistic descriptions of the uneasy situations in life, drawing his inspiration from the concept of classical tragedy and experimenting with the language and form of a short story. As if all of this is not enough, the author makes the text even more complicated to follow by inserting many pop-culture and cultural references that, after a lot of googling, give an extra opinion in combination with the text, a specific experience, even a kind of a semi-blasphemous enlightenment.
The Metal stories
Many of the stories begin with a motto, or small dedications that give a narrative frame to the story. They are mostly references on a certain music and literature. They are as follows: Perry Farrell from Jane’s Addiction, Jesu, Old Man Gloom, Boris Vian, Henri Michaux, William Faulkner and even that Norwegian maniac Kristian Larsson Vikernes, are the ‘’entrance hall of the stories’’ (the story Grey, something gloomy which has a vicious quote by Vikernes at the beginning, when compared to others, seems surprisingly benign). Srdić obviously likes heavy metal music very much (it is really more post-metal, ambient, industrial, but that is not so important) and metal and death go very well together, so it is no surprise that certain songs served as inspirations, or even the basic for the stories or, as the author himself calls it, the sound-capes. Such a story, and after a studious listening and writing, I dare say ,the most glorious story, is Zozobra. The name means a man-like sculpture that is burned each September in Santa Fe in New Mexico, and which is believed to take away all the bad from the previous year in its flames. The band Old Man Gloom, comes from Santa Fe, whose name is really a translation of the zozobra and with whose beautiful poetic reflection to the ‘’song of all songs’’ of the same name, begins the story (it lasts for 27 min and 20 sec, and if you are intended to read the story, first click on to this ). Telling the story about the death of his little daughter whom he refuses to bury, an undertaker relates his stream of consciousness that ends in a horrifying realisation of his tragic attempt to burn her body with his own. The tragic human destiny in combination with an epic composition of the ‘’Zozobra“ of the above mentioned band, gives empathy a whole new level of meaning. Another story, also ‘’directly’’ connected to music, is The Medicine, which tells a story about a young man who obviously has some connection to medicine or helath care, and serves his debt to his homeland in a hospital, where he ‘’buries half of Kikinda in thirteen months’’, but also falls in love with a girl who is terminally ill. The story ends with lyrics from the song by Jesu, taking us into a meditative-melancholy state (for synesthesia click here).
After ‘’honouring’’ his music idols, Srdić turns to literature and creates a ‘’Faulkneresque paraphrase’’, The Rose for Emilija that follows Faulkner’s original, sett after the First World War, in a German family that lives in Kikinda. By creating this small statues to his idols, Srdić does not worry someone will catch the reference or not, which evokes the wish for obscurity and combined with the brutal language sets the author in, obviously craved for, literature underground.
The endlessness of human sorrow
Stories that are not for everyone and that demand a higher level of participation from the reader, with precise dosage of information, so that only somewhere in the middle of a story you start to understand what you are reading. Similar thing happens to the time frame, of which the first and the last one, Mosquitoes and Slow Divers (both have the same motto, lyrics by Perry Farell, frontman of Jane’s Addiction) are set in today’s time, at vacations in Turkey and Greece and the subtext is very up-to-date – from glorification of the accused in the Haag Tribunal to lesbian love. On the other hand, stories like The Homage to the Death of the Best One Amongst Us and The Games on Unhappiness, with topics like destiny of a circus employee and of a dedicated employee in education, give the impression of taking place in an early industrial age, giving these stories a sense of steampunk. Regardless of the lack of a strong basis in a certain time frame, the stories reveal the dark human side, creating their conflicts with the world around them until the moment of realisation of their tragic destiny, the place of no return. With their masterfully built atmosphere, the stories take in the reader, leaving them with a valuable and special experience. Strong, heavy and overwhelming, the stories are just like the music the author likes. Simply genius.
Sreten Asanović, Nomina, Plima, Ulcinj, 2011
By: Ivana Ančić
English version will be available soon.
OSMI I SEDMI PUTNIK, Aleksandar Bjelogrlić, Citadela, Agora, Zrenjanin, 201
By: Dalibor Plečić
English version will be available soon.
Stjepan Gulin, Paz’te sad, paz’te sad (Meandarmedia, Zagreb, 2011.)
Authors: Ivana Ančić
Igor Marojević, Kroz glavu (Dosije, Beograd, 2012.)
Author: Dalibor Plečić
Damir Miloš, Pisa. Povratak (Meandarmedia, Zagreb, 2011.)
Author: Morena Livaković
POLITIČKE I DRUŠTVENE KONSTRUKCIJE IDENTITETA U VIDEO-PERFORMANSIMA NA BEOGRADSKOJ SCENI 1970-ih
Esej Vladimira Bjeličića
Esej u celini možete pročitati na portalu SEEcult.org
Esej Tihane Bertek
Od promatrača do sudionika
GALERIJA KAPELICA I POST-JUGOSLAVENSKI BODY ART (1995–2010)
Esej – Bojan Krištofić
Esej o radovima Šejle Kamerić, Maje Bajević i Nebojše Šerića Shobe
Piše: Slađana Golijanin
ESEJ – Razvaline socijalizma kao inspiracija za muzejske eksponate Mrđana Bajića i skulpturalne dosetke Ivana Fijolića
By: Milena Milojević
Piše: Nino Kovačić
Gostujuća izvedba šibenskog HNK, Pir malograđana, prema tekstu mladog Bertolda Brechta (napisan 1919.) izvedena je po sljedećoj formuli: na Danima satire u satiričkom kazalištu Kerempuh gledamo satiričan komad. Prema reakcijama publike, bila je uspješna, ali teško se oteti dojmu da je smijeh bio formulaično zagarantiran, jer bi takav instruirani moment humora trebao zauzdati spontani smijeh. Je li se možda radilo o “malograđanskom” humoru?
Glumice i to, KNAP, Zagreb, premijera 12.5.2012.
Piše: Nino Kovačić
Glumice i to, nova predstava u zagrebačkom KNAP-u, neobičan su kazališni ‘slučaj’. Naime, predstavu su, dramaturški i režijski osmislile te, naravno, glumački ostvarile četiri mlade glumice. U trenutačnoj opće-društvenoj, pa tako i kazališnoj situaciji, kojom prijete olovni pojmovi poput recesije, prekarijata i outsourcinga (nedavno su najavljena i otpuštanja “hladnopogonskih” glumaca), one su, kako piše u najavi “nezaposlene i pune entuzijazma, odlučile su preuzeti stvar u svoje ruke i napraviti hit!”. Očito sklone postdramskom pristupu izvedbi koji se, između ostalog, bazira na ekipnoj work-in-progress metodi, izvedbenoj anti-iluziji i autoreferencijalnosti, glumice/autorice su se “trgnule” i napravile parodiju o tome kako rade predstavu, po ironičnom ključu: kad ne ide pravljenje predstave treba napraviti predstavu o tome kako se ne može raditi predstava.
“Nije život biciklo”, Biljana Srbljanović, režija: Anselm Veber, Produkcija: Šaušpilhaus Bohum, Nemačka; Sterijino pozorje 2012, selekcija Nacionalne drame i pozorišta
By: Tamara Baračkov
English version will be available soon.
„Grebanje, ili kako se ubila moja baka“, Tanja Šljivar, režija: Selma Spahić, Bosansko narodno pozorište Zenica/Bitef teatar-Hartefakt (Beograd), premijera: 7. septembar 2012. (Zenica), 11. oktobar 2012. (Beograd)
By: Tamara Baračkov
English version will be available soon.
„Sluga dvaju gospodara“, Karlo Goldoni, režija: Boris Liješević, Grad teatar Budva/Srpsko narodno pozorište Novi Sad/Narodno pozorište „Toša Jovanović“ Zrenjanin, premijera: 27. jul 2012.
By: Tamara Baračkov
English version will be available soon.