MLADI LEVI 2015
faith in better times
Each year the Mladi levi festival strives to trace and articulate new trends in the performing arts arena – grasping what is of the moment, which resonates and responds to contemporary social changes. What we also see is that changes either come about very slowly or don’t come about at all: the crisis is deepening and inequalities increasing, equality is further and further eroded; elusive solutions seem impossible to grasp, moving ever further into the distance.
And since fear and hope never dwell too far apart, desires and longing can quickly turn into an instrument of negotiation, manipulation and exploitation. What kind of hope must lie in the hearts of people who risk everything to live in decent conditions, to survive, to cross the borders of the European fortress? How deeply do their lives, desires and talents sink? Why do we choose to avert our gaze?
Sometimes reality can be too horrific to see any beauty in it, to be able to view it from the necessary artistic distance. I’m not sure whether the level of hope correlates with the level of dissatisfaction and despair, but it seems that the longing for and faith in better times somehow permeate this year’s festival programme.
The desire for something to finally happen, the desire to be somewhere else – in a different space, in a different time, in a different body – could be understood as something melancholic, passive and unfulfilled. But it is none other than hope, a theme addressed by several artists in their performances at the forthcoming festival, which we see subtly radiating vitality, persistence and optimism.
In a full-blooded, passionate, humorous manner; drawing from philosophy, Greek mythology, partisan art or personal stories – this is how the artists gather strength and courage, take the time for contemplation and a new momentum, and open up points of view, spaces and perhaps also new forms of resistance.
FESTIVAL PROGRAM
SUN. 23.8.
10 p.m. / SMEEL
Opening party
ABOUT THE FESTIVAL MLADI LEVI
International festival Mladi Levi is one of the more prominent annual events of the Bunker Institute, bringing the most current stage performers from all over the world to Ljubljana every end of the summer, since 1998. It bears a mark of a demanding artistic profile, placed within the arena of contemporary progressive theatre and takes pride in its reputation for discovering young talents. The Festival has a distinctive atmosphere, marked with creativity and vibrant spirit, curious audience and social nature.
Festival Mladi Levi inhabits a place of encounters and surprises, continuously opening up to foreign artists and guests, who take pleasure in art and spread contemporary artistic or social topics in front of one another. It is a place of exchange as well as a cradle of new ideas, friendships and co-operations, which frequently extend beyond the local concepts or borders in the process of their growth.
tickets
Tickets can be picked up and paid for at the box office of the event venue, which opens an hour before the beginning.
