On Sunday,July 14th, starting at 9PM, the play Enabled Theatre, written and directed by Haris Pašović, will be performed in Budva on the stage behind the “Stefan Mitrov Ljubiša” Primary School. It is the co-production of: The “Theatre City” Budva, The Serbian National Theatre in Novi Sad, The Sarajevo “East-West Centre” and The Dance Academy “Tala” from Zagreb.
The play came to be as a result of the work on the project “Enabled Theatre”, co-financed by the European Union as a part of the “Creative Europe Programme”. While trying to realize their original idea, the artistic and project team took the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the work of certain institutions that are of paramount importance and should be given even more attention in the future. In other words, they participated in the workshops at: The Budva Daily Centre “Biseri”, The ŠOSO “Milan Petrović” Novi Sad and also at the Sarajevo institutions that are in charge of caring for the persons with disabilities: The “Pazarić” and “Mjedenica” Institutes. The prevailing idea was for the team to understand on the fundamental and human level the lives of the users of these institutions and their families as well as the difficulties they face in everyday life.
On his personal experience and the idea to tackle this important topic through the artistic expression, the writer-director Haris Pašović says the following : “I grew up in Sarajevo near a school for the persons with disabilities. Those were my peers whose world was intertwined with mine on a daily basis. What I mean by this is that me and my friends would always greet them and their parents who walked them to school. They would sometimes even visit us in our homes. That was what I would call a spontaneous, subconscious “inclusion”. In my neighborhood also lived a family with parents who had a speaking disability, while the children didn’t. Another neighbor had a walking disability. My street was really a world of its own, you could see a mixture of different people and personalities there. The rich, the poor, different nationalities, the women who brought fresh milk to us in the morning and even a pick-pocket were all a part of our community. I think that this diversity greatly influenced the way I see the world even now. The thought of directing a play about the life of the persons with disabilities was on my mind for a very long time and I finally managed to realize my idea. What I wouldn’t like is for it to be understood as an activist play. My goal was to dig deeper into their world which is truly fascinating and understand them at a more metaphysical level rather than the social or psychological one only”.
Along with the writer-director Haris Pašović, who is also in charge of the costume design together with Minja Davidović, the authorial team involves: Ivana Jančić (scenography), Dr. Dejan Sredojević (stage speech), Larisa Lipovac Navojec (choreography), Matija Molčanov from Budva (piano) and Dino Šukalo (music for the play).
Cast: Gordana Ðurđević Dimić, Lidija Stevanović, Sanja Ristić Krajnov, Jelena Antonijević, Mina Pavlica, Marija Feldeši, Milan Kovačević, Marko Savković, Vukašin Ranđelović, Aljoša Ðidić, Aleksandar Sarapa and Rade Perović.
The re-run of the play Enabled Theatre will take place on July ,15th, on the stage behind the “Stefan Mitrov Ljubiša” Primary School at 9PM.