After a small break for INmusic festival in Jarun lake of Zagreb in Croatia, which was a surprising an unexpected music experience, I am back in Maribor, figuring out our schedule during summer, with some interesting things going on.
We are in the middle of LENT festival, the “biggest” and most “elaborate” event of Maribor let’s say, so up to this moment I and Coline have had some presentations about Greece and France respectively, a presentation of our small but aspiring aunt Rosa (i.e. Luxembourg) library and one more kids’ workshop coming on the way. All of this happening within the frame of ART-KAMP, a side project of LENT taking place in Mestni park, where many different organizations and individuals connect and offer –mainly – artistic activities to kids and adults as well as information about their organizations and their activities, all of this accompanied by some music and dance performances from local artists and also intercultural presentations of folk dances and traditions from various countries, everything with free entrance of course.
It is nice and enjoyable to see Maribor finally a bit more alive and kicking, a bit more cheerful and playful and honestly, a bit more crowded since I had the sense that summer would be quite dreary to be around here – so LENT spiced things up a little bit.
The highlight of my “LENT- experience” was of course our theater of the oppressed performance, since it was also my first time performing in a forum play, which took place in a very nice and well-hidden courtyard just in the center of Maribor. The emotions: surprisingly, no anxiety or stress at all, it was really enjoyable and productive, since there were not so many but still quite powerful and interesting interventions by the spect-actors; it was always insightful to see and observe the turning out and the development of the dialogue between the oppressor and the oppressed, where the audience took the place of the second one, giving a new direction and trying to find a getaway for this oppression. We maybe didn’t succeed into changing the world or finding concrete solutions on how to tackle sexism and gender-exclusion in the workspace – which was the main focus of the play in this case; but in some way, with small steps, we managed to open an on-going dialogue regarding the situation which is clear and present and also to keep in our minds that we can and we should show intolerance when something like this is happening to us as immediate receivers.
Another highlight: the in-residence of Gallery K18, artist Milos Tomic, a respected and inspiring multimedia artist, who focuses, among other things, in stop motion animation technique. We had the chance to meet and collaborate with him, an experience offered us a great induction in stop motion, a technique that I am as familiar as I am with nuclear physics, but although I didn’t know what to expect at first, it was a real eye-opener and his direct and approachable way of explaining things made it much easier for me to get a grasp of some basic principles when applying and using stop motion. Definitely a worth-mentioning encounter! So now, I am more than excited and looking forward for the upcoming 7th stop trik festival in October.
With this and that, June is over, quite rapidly again.
Let’s see what July brings.
Se vidimo,
Sofia
