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SPEAK! premiere at Kunstenfestivaldesarts

The premiere of the new production SPEAK! with Sanja Mitrovic and Geert Vaes will take place on Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Brussels on 9th of May 2013 (BE).

SPEAK! is a performance about the power and virtuosity of public speaking and its potential to shape society. Working with a wealth of historical material, two performers try to win the audience approval. In the end, is there a winner? And if so, who will that be?

In SPEAK!, Sanja Mitrović continues her exploration of various systems of communication. In a set-up that is evocative of a political campaign or an election the audience is expected to vote for its ‘representative’. In their attempts to win over hearts and minds of the viewers, the performers draw from an arsenal of historical speeches. They put to test the recruiting force of these speeches and the affective potential of images they propose. Would the performers be able to stage an image that we can all imagine together? Are we willing to participate in the temporary collectivity that the performance creates?

Together with Belgian performer Geert Vaes, Mitrović explores the capacity of language, and its public performance, to mobilise a society and to create an image of the world that we can share and participate in. Marked by subtle humor, driven by playfulness and shot through with painful moments, SPEAK! is a performance that takes us on an emotional journey through images from our collective history and our possible futures.

Concept/choreography/direction: Sanja Mitrović

Performance: Geert Vaes, Sanja Mitrović

Dramaturgy: Jonas Rutgeerts

Stage and light design: Laurent Liefooghe & Christophe Antipas (LLAC architects)

Sound design: Luka Ivanović

Costume design: Frédérick Denis

Reseach: Friso Wiersum

Different languages, with subtitles in Dutch and French

Duration: +/- 90 min

Production: Stand Up Tall Productions, Amsterdam
Co-production: Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Brussels
Supported by: Beursschouwburg (BE), Pianofabriek (BE), SPRING Performing Arts Festival (NL), STUK Kunstencentrum (BE)

Financially supported by: Amsterdam Fund for the Arts (NL)

Performing Arts Fund (NL)

www.sanjamitrovic.com

World premiere: 9 > 10 > 11 > 12/05/2013 – 20:30

@ Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Les Brigittines (BE)

NL Premiere: 16 > 17/05/2013 @ SPRING Festival, Utrecht (NL)

Performance dates:

17/10/2013 – STUK, Leuven (BE)

Spring 2014 (dates TBC) – Beursschouwburg, Brussels (BE)

28/2 and 01/3 2013 – Toneelschuur, Haarlem (NL)

5 > 6/3/2014 – Bellevue, Amsterdam (NL)

12/3/2014 – Gruitpoort, Doetinchem (NL)

13/3/2014 – Theatre aan de Spui, Den Haag (NL)

15/3/2014 – Corrosia Almere (NL)

26/3/2014 – Rotterdamse Schouwburg, Rotterdam (NL)

Photo credits: Kurt Deruyter

Left for Europe, End Up in Noord

I did not have any dreams when I left for Europe, because my father was working as a migrant worker and picked me up from Turkey. Now I am married, have a nice job and I raise my kids in North-Amsterdam. – Aydin Ure, chairman of S.T.I.S.C.C.A.N Mosque

“Crash Course Chit Chat” searches for the realistic possibility of a future for the European dream. It started by questioning the cliches of old Europeans coming from Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain. Now the project continues in North-Amsterdam with a community project. Left for Europe, End Up in Noord is about the new Europeans.

“Left for Europe, End Up in Noord” is a community project that introduces “the other Europeans”, the new ones that came to live here and their secondand third generation. It aims for getting insight into closed groups with which we normally do not have contact with, not have access to. With this project Sanja Mitrovic wants to give visibility, to understand their point of view, how do they consider themselves as European.

Presentations of the workshops which director Sanja Mitrovic and her actors made in North Amsterdam, are based on their successful performance “Crash Course Chit Chat”, in collaboration with stichting Cleopatra, de Noorderling Vrouwen Club de STISCCAN moskee, de Vrouwenbazaar and the Weekendschool Noord.

The participants – migrant women, men and kids from North-Amsterdam – re-enact their experiences: what did they dream of when they left for Europe? What do think of Europe now? Do they feel new Europeans? Which prejudices and jokes do they have about other Europeans of North-Amsterdam?

Presentations can be seen during the Winters Binnen Festival at:

Mosque

Saturday 15 December

S.T.I.S.C.C.A.N Moskee, Ribesstraat 75, Amsterdam-Noord

19.30-20.00 h

Vrouwenbazaar

Sunday 16 December

De Vrouwenbazaar, Heimansweg 33, Amsterdam-Noord

14.00-15.00 h

Presentation: participants of S.T.I.S.C.C.A.N Moskee, IMC Weekendschool, Vrouwenbazaar, Stichting Cleopatra and Noorderling Vrouwenclub.

Director: Sanja Mitrovic Actors: Geert Vaes, Katja Dreyer, Martijn Groenendijk Production: Elien van Riet Photo: Maaike Koning

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sanja-MitrovicStand-Up-Tall-Productions

https://twitter.com/sanjamitrovic

French Tour Crash Course Chit Chat and A Short History of Crying

From 30th of November till 6th of December we will tour Crash Course Chit Chat and A Short History of Crying in France. First stop is Reims, where both shows have been invited by the Festival Scènes d’Europe.

A Short History of Crying will be shown on the opening evening of Festival Reims Scenes D’Europe, on 30th of November at 21.00. more info on: Reims Scenes D’Europe.

The full cast of Crash Course Chit Chat will join Sanja a day later in order to perform at the same venue on 1 and 2 December, at 21.00. More info on: Reims Scenes D’Europe.

We will be happy to return to the place where the piece was created last Spring and present to the audiences of La Comédie, our generous coproducer, the result of our collaboration.

Sanja and her crew will then travel down South, to the Mediterranean atmosphere of Montpellier, for two more shows of A Short History of Cryingin Théâtre La Vignette, at the Université Paul-Valéry on 4 and 5 December. More info on: Théâtre La Vignette.

PREMIERE Everyone Expects to Grow Old But No One Expects to Get Fired

Bringing together five actors and five recently unemployed textile workers from the Guimarães area, Sanja Mitrovic looks at the larger issue of the current European economic crisis.

The site-specific performance takes place in the production facility at the Lameirinho factory, a major industrial plant in the Guimarães region. In recent years the textile industry, a mainstay of Portugal’s economy, had been weakened by cheaper foreign imports, changes to the customs regime and weak domestic demand. This sector has been amongst those hit hardest by the radically decreased output and escalating unemployment figures.

Everyone Expects to Grow Old But No One Expects to Get Fired unfolds through a series of scenarios based on the real-life cases of the unemployed, developed and performed in collaboration with actors. Against the backdrop of colourful fabrics which get manufactured during the performance, and the pounding machinery creating its own haunted soundscape, these intimate stories reflect upon the social and economic circumstances of unemployment.

Starting from the tour of the factory and ending with a choreography in the final finishing room, the audience is invited to join in this engrossing exploration of the economy and psychology of crisis, its effects on the wider community, and the dramatisation of the lived experience.

PREMIERE: November 15, Lameirinho Factory, Guimarães, Portugal at 21.00 (bus ride starts in front of CCV)

Second show: November 16, Lameirinho Factory, Guimarães, Portugal at 21.00

Two free buses will do the route between Centro Cultural Vila Flor and Fábrica Lameirinho. Transportations leave CCVF at 21.00 and return after the end of the show. The meeting place if CCVF’s Covered Square, in front of the ticket office. The route is part of the show and, therefore, the public will only be able to watch the play if travels by bus.

All tickets may be purchased at the event location, at bilheteiraonline.pt, at the Guimarães 2012 welcome centers and at the Centro Cultural Vila Flor.

Seven Lucky Episodes Regarding Resistance

Performance in which Sanja Mitrović lulls her new born son, Istok, to sleep. In their home in Brussels, she tells him stories about her childhood in socialist Yugoslavia and her misspent youth during the war-torn 1990s. At the same time in Vienna, live on stage, a typist translates these singular bedtime stories.

Through the intimate address of a mother to her baby, Mitrović connects the idea of motherhood with an instinctive desire to rebel against things as they are in the world and with a belief in the possibility of change.

Concept, text, performance: Sanja Mitrović With: Istok Liefooghe, Tatjana Todić

Language: Serbian, with simultaneous English translation

Saturday, 29th of September at 20.30

It’s Not (A) Fair, Tanzquartier Vienna