performed by Bitef Dance Company members: Ašhen Ataljanc, Nikola Tomašević, Strahinja Lacković, Miloš Isilović, Uroš Petronijević, Ana Ignjatović Zagorac, Nevena Jovanović, Milica Jević music: Borut Kržišnik, Milko Lazar stage manager: Ljubomir Radivojević light: Dragan Đurković sound: Miroljub Vladić costume designer: Maja Mirković assistant to the costume designer: Biljana Tegeltija Bojanić ballet teacher: Marija Janković concept, choreography, stage design, light design: Edward Clug
“The idea of doing Divine Comedy in a form of dance seemed to me like a suicide, a very tempting one... Ironically I found my motive in Dante's very own 'suicidal attempt', to walk the realm of death while being among the living. I wonder if he would do it again today and what God's realm would look like. The structure of the poem would probably be the same: there would still be three different levels of the soul’s condition, maybe he would add some modern, more sophisticated sins which would modify the order of the original sins based on their gravity. Time would change a lot of things but I am convinced that it would never change his love for Beatrice. I would want to bite a piece of Dante's love, chew it for hundreds of years and then swallow it slowly and fall into a long sleep.” (Edward Clug)
Bitef Dance Company performed Othello at last year's THEALTER, and their latest piece again turns to a literary classic – the result is a highly visual, absurd, surreal, reduced, and at times hypnotising production.
Romanian-born Edward Clug has been working in Slovenia since 1991, where he became the ballet director at the Slovene National Theatre in Maribor in 2003. He graduated as a ballet dancer, but throughout the past ten years, as a choreographer, he has created a very unique choreographic style, combining elements of classical ballet and contemporary dance. As a consequence, the Maribor ensemble has been invited to a number of renowned theatre festivals throughout the world, while Clug himself has also been invited to stage new works for several ballet companies in Europe.
The Belgrade-based Bitef Theatre encourages and promotes new theatre trends and styles. Bitef Dance Company is its latest initiative which was established two years ago and has since produced nine dance productions, toured the region and had the opportunity to work with famous Serbian and foreign choreographers.
Performance
Details
