DRUGAJANJE 2015
Teenage years used to be the period in which an individual’s identity was formed. Today, identity is no longer something formed, but rather a dynamic process, intertwining throughout one’s life in an ever new ensemble. In the cacophony of identity choices, there exists a risk that a choice deafens us or that the choices become categorical, as if there is no more time or will for the entire range between black and white. This is why art is important; a field of the undefined, where new choices emerge, and where lives and identities are beyond categories, beyond dichotomies.
This year’s program of Drugajanje festival invites for a reflection on identities and on experiencing of identities outside the centre, be it sexual, political or locally-global, be it a perception of a different Maribor, as in the guided tours by Peter Šourek, an experience of disillusions of a generation, full of expectations by Beton Ltd. collective, or two stories,bildungsperformances of growing up, MDLSX and Parallel.
Who are we, what are our desires, who are others? From a perspective of identification with another, experience of another, not only a better self-understanding emerges, but also creativity and empathy. And this is precisely the perspective that we want to explore with Drugajanje festival; not only a perspective of arts and cultural education, but a perspective of experience as well, where anyone, faced with the stories of others, can find his place in the world – his identity.
more about drugajanje
Since 2001 Bunker is organizing Drugajanje festival in Maribor. It started on the initiative of the headmaster of a high school II. gimnazija Maribor Ivan Lorenčič and it grew into a permanent and fruitful partnership between Bunker and the school and also built a very successful bridge between Ljubljana, the capitol of Slovenia and Maribor, the second largest city in Slovenia.
Drugajanje is a concentrated short contemporary arts festival organized in collaboration with secondary school in Maribor at their theatre and at other venues in Maribor. The focus is on performing arts, especially contemporary theatre and dance. The festival was founded with the purpose of bringing the young generation and the whole city some fresh and vibrant performance art. At the same time it enables Slovene performances to spread out from Ljubljana, where most of the national contemporary scene is being produced.
Contrary to the belief that special performances for the youth should be produced for the youth, Drugajanje has always had a strong artistic contemporary profile and the program through the years always consisted of state-of-the-art contemporary theater and dance.
In the last years the festival has developed from a Slovene focused to internationally focused festival in terms of geographical distribution and has also had a shift in the format: from merely presenting finished works of art to youth and other inhabitants of Maribor we have started developing more process oriented festivals that strongly takes into consideration the festival’s home: Maribor.
