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Beton Ltd.: ICH KANN NICHT ANDERS, Dvorana športnega društva Tabor, 24.8.2016, 19. mednarodni festival Mladi levi

Couch Theatre – View shows online

Because there is the new #coronavirus around and because we #stayathome, we decided to post links to full length videos of our shows or other events on social media so that you could watch it right from your couch. We are collecting these posts here, so you don’t lose track.

#theatrequest #couchtheatre

  1. // March 14, 2020

Nine years ago, we invited the British art collective Station House Opera with the director Julian Maynard Smith (Artsadmin’s production) to create a wonderful community art event in Ljubljana with many local collaborators and volunteers. It was titled DOMINOES.

We share with you this video that vibrates with us in these weird yet interesting times of today – together we can do it. 💜

LINK: https://vimeo.com/29250411

When the first domino falls …

#mladilevi #festivalmladilevi

2. // March 16, 2020

Bunker’s most performed productions are the LYRICAL MOMENTS IN THE CITY, which were created by Belgian director Dirk Opstaele & Ensemble Leporello together with Slovenian opera singers and musicians Irena Yebuah-Tiran, Katja Konvalinka, Diego Barrios Ross, Jure Počkaj and Jure Vlahovič in 2011! It was premiered at the Mladi levi Festival, and has since surprised thousands of people on the streets of Ljubljana, Vienna, Hanover, Berlin, Budapest and many festivals…

We invite you to watch this great video – it will definitely make your day better 😊

LINK: https://vimeo.com/29750720

#mladilevi #festivalmladilevi #lyricalmoments

3. // March 17, 2020

BETON Ltd. offers a video of their performance ICH KANN NICHT ANDERS

This is a performance meant for the times like now!

Enjoy it!

»The world around us is saturated with change, and if there is one constant, it is currently uncertainty. We anticipate changes, but it is not yet clear what they might be. One of the possible strategies to combat the deafening noise of the world is to retreat into one’s own world. Not to surrender, but to defend one’s own intimate territory against the outside world. A retreat into intimacy, where freedom is possible and where utopia is – now.«

LINK: https://vimeo.com/196423778

#betonltd #contemporarytheatre

4. // March 22, 2020

Nowadays, when news are so heavy and the color of reality is turning gray, we invite you to stay away from everyday life with us for an hour, and plunge into the colorful world of glamour – watch a performance by BETON Ltd.: EVERYTHING WE’VE LOST, WHILE WE’VE GONE ON LIVING! You can do it right from your couch!

»Bold glamour and exquisite show; grandiose buildings and the time when anything is possible; is that merely a dream from the past? What were we born into and what kind of circumstances did we grow up in? What should we have done, but haven’t? What should we have contemplated, but haven’t? We have been neither rational nor responsible. That’s because instead of thinking about results, we’ve been making performances. Just as if our entire life – while lived – was replaced by a false freedom, in which others get to say whether sometime in the near future we’ll turn into citizens at peace with the world, desperate individuals and/or migrants in a place far away.«

LINK: https://vimeo.com/80451611

They created it in 2013, yet it is still so alive!

#couchtheater #stayathome #betonltd

5. // March 27, 2020

Today, on the International Theater Day, we share with you at the Couch Theatre the first performance by the newly formed BETON Ltd collective: SO FAR AWAY Introduction to ego-logy!

“They had the money, not too much, but enough. They dressed in about the same way. They didn’t hide anything. They were without a past, without tradition. They took out trash, walked through errands, slammed the door. Their childhood memories were similar, as were their paths, the prospects for the future, which they seemingly chose for themselves, were almost the same, so they belonged to their time. They felt good in their skin. They were relaxed, at least they tried to be. They had a sense of humor. They were far from stupid. They were in love with freedom. It seemed to them that the whole world was made to their liking. They lived in full accordance with their desires and their dispersion was unmistakable. They felt like the masters of the world. “

LINK: https://vimeo.com/35696208

#betonltd #performance #couchtheatre

Katarina Stegnar, Branko Jordan, Primoz Bezjak, Stane Tomazin, Mateja Benedetti, Jure Vlahovic, Janez Weiss, #deadtongues

6. // April 3, 2020

This weekend we are releasing an extremely up-to-date performance at the Couch Theatre, the anti-celebration titled IF YOU ARE HAPPY.

It was created by an interesting collective of artists: Andrej Jus, Ana Duša, Spela Frlic, Natasa Živković, Polona Janežić and Brane Zorman

“The performance If You’re Happy is a cultural and artistic anti-celebration. If celebration seeks to celebrate the illusion of a country, worth of dignity, anti-celebration examines what this dignity represents and what are its foundations. If the celebrations in our country are censored, it is precisely the opposite with anti-celebrations: they speak about the issues that the censors are trying to remove from celebrations. If celebration consists of a well-defined protocol, anti-celebration is charged with the experimental and ritual character.” Andrey Jus, director

Anti-celebration If you are happy was created four years ago but the words are the same… they will probably be the same in the future of the future of the future… 😉

LINK: https://vimeo.com/162352647

#couchtheatre #ifyouarehappy #performance #anticelebration

7. // April 10, 2020

Today, at #couchtheatre we offer a real treat – a show created jointly by the Betontanc collective and the Latvian collective Umka.lv: SHOW YOUR FACE! 😎

The show premiered in 2006 and then toured many countries around the world for 11 years, we have seen it on the stage of the Old City Power Plant – Elektro Ljubljana many times!

The play was directed by Matjaž Pograjc, live music was contributed by Silence and Uģis Vītiņš, performers were Katarina Stegnar, Daša Dobršek, Branko Jordan, Branko Potočan, Primož Bezjak, Andris Kalnozols, Marcis Lacis and Gints Sirmelis

Collaborators: Ira Cecic, Maja Vižin, Matea Benedetti, Tomaz Strucl, Bunker, New Theatre Institute of Latvia

LINK: https://vimeo.com/54925389

Theatre is a medium that we need to follow live, be present in it so we can experience it, feel the magic of the moment, but in the meantime, we decided that at least a little magic that can reach us through screens is better than nothing …
until we meet again in the theatre! ❤

Stay healthy! #stayhome #couchtheatre

8. // April 18, 2020

Today in #couchtheatre we are presenting the performance I SAY WHAT I AM TOLD TO SAY, created by the Beton Ltd. collective in 2012.

With a hunch of what is to become … 💜

»The world outside is slipping irresistibly; in precisely this glide, a different kind of rumor emerges, speaking from several perspective types, where none of the votes prevails… “I have my faults, but changing my tune is not one of them. I have only to go on, as if there was something to be done, something begun, somewhere to go.” (Samuel Beckett: Unnamable) The basic premise is completely Beckettian: from a dialogue to a monologue, from a monologue to solitude.«

LINK: https://vimeo.com/52072989

Katarina Stegnar, Daša Doberšek, Branko Jordan, Primož Bezjak, Jure Vlahovič, Janez Weiss, Sonda, Bunker, Anton Podbevšek Teater

We wish you a pleasant weekend 🍀 #couchtheatre

9. // April 26, 2020

On this pre-holiday Sunday we are sharing with you a video of a solo performance DOUBLE GAME in which the author Katarina Stegnar deals with the big theme of ecology in a fun and smart way.

»It isn’t possible. It isn’t possible for me to react in any other way but with bitter cynicism, when I hear about the plan to save the world. The plan, which is full of diagrams, pictures and numbers, the scientific plan, the factual plan. On the other hand I know, me, Katarina Stegnar, that the cynicism is only a bad defence mechanism protecting me from doing what I have to do. It is necessary for people to know that such a plan exists. It is my duty. It is my calling. In fact I am playing a double agent, playing a double game.«

LINK: https://vimeo.com/68609993

Katarina created this performance in the frame of the network Imagine 2020 – Art and Climate Change in May 2013 and the theme of which she speaks is even more burning and important today.

We wish you a nice evening in company of a double agent 😎 and a great Day of Uprising Against Occupation! ✊

Katarina Stegnar & Katarina Stegnar, Andreja Kopač, Maja Vižin, Igor Remeta, New Economics Foundation

#stayathome  #couchtheatre

10. // 2nd May, 2020

In today’s #couchtheatre we present you an unforgettable dialogue between a renown Slovene philosopher, dr. Renata Salecl and dr. Henrietto L. Moore, british anthropologist.

In an open dialogue on stage they discuss why people seem to be outraged at the impossibility to make significant changes in the way capitalist society is developing while at the same time many people seem increasingly passive when it comes to facing the challenges of our times. How can we explain this paradox? The debate looked at how to challenge the increasing inequality in todays societies, how to deal with global warming, what is the future of Europe and especially how to get people to imagine that change is possible.

LINK: https://vimeo.com/100504602

Salecl and Moore prepared the discussion within the International Forum Still Ready to Change, which we organised in May 2014, in collaboration with the international network Imagine 2020 – Art and Climate Change. They talk about today – the problems and dilemmas are still the same, maybe they just cut a bit deeper.

#readytochange #stillreadytochange

11. // 8th May, 2020

Today in the frame of #couchtheatre we are sharing with you a great lecture by a Lebanese artist and architect Tony Chakar, which was presented in Ljubljana in the frame of the Ready to Change forum and the International festival Mladi levi, August 2016.

The lecture is titled On Possibilities, Unlearning, Undoing and in the introduction we wrote: »In the cacophony of political ideologies and narratives, we sometimes wonder what to believe, how to structure our world. But maybe we’re trying to find order or even »the truth« – and consequently solutions to our grave situations – on a false basis. Instead of searching for the right ideology, the right narrative, a mythology that will suit our belief system, we have to shatter everything and start from new premises. How can »the new« arise from constantly repeating »the old«…?«

LINK: https://vimeo.com/183376624

A beautiful analytical travel through Fairouzes seemingly romantic poem…

#couchtheatre #lecture #readytochange #mladilevi #festivalmladilevi