MLADI LEVI 2016
They say fear is hollow in its center and around it there is nothing.
But that’s not true. Fear is here, it is palpable. It’s felt in the rhythm of our breath, our heartbeat, in our sweaty palms and uneasy stomachs. It seeps deep into society’s pores, clouding, obstructing us from seeing ourselves in the light of the future. We live in dark times of cruelty. On the cynical relation between political power and trade, people’s lives and human dignity are made disposable. What not too long ago seemed unimaginable, impossible, bygone, is turning into images of everyday life. How quickly does the human eye adapt to the twilight, glazing over or in powerlessness simply closing the shutters of consciousness?Perhaps theatre is the very medium where we no longer wish to dream a world that isn’t there, or avert our eyes in escapism. It’s a space we enter consciously, where time can be slowed down and things seen from up close, even the smallest ones. Where we can quiet ourselves, breathing the same air as the protagonists at the same pace, taking in their stories, becoming their part.
That is why this year’s festival again differs from those of the previous years, offering in addition to the artistic programme more room for lectures, discussions, walks, and the collective contemplation of our possible futures – with the conference Ready to Change and the artistic-exploratory Summer Lab: Toxic Tour on the Ljubljana Marshes.
Nigerian poet Ben Okri wrote: »Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart bigger.« The stories of this year’s festival are concrete, each one a light-crack that just might invoke a different view, a perpendicular thought.
But whether we immerse ourselves into the fates of individuals or communities, delve amidst strange cave denizens or the sounds of the subaquatic realm, all the stories, for now, remain without epilogue. It’s up to our wakefulness and courage to create a new, better one.
Nevenka Koprivšek
FESTIVAL PROGRAM
FRI. 19.8.
9.30 p.m. / SMEEL
Opening party
DJ Bakto,
DJ Udo Brenner
FRI. 26.8.
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.