Free Theatre presented Belarus in Japan (Photo)

17.03.2009, 15:32

Belarus Free Theatre has taken part in Tokyo Performing Arts Market and presented their plays. At the same time they finished the world premier tour of their play Eurepica Challenge in the Swedish city of Lund.

The terms of holding the largest theatre fair in Asia, Tokyo Performing Arts Market, coincided with Free Theatre’s world premier of Eurepica Challenge in the Sweden city of Lund. Because of that the theatre couldn’t participate in the International program of Tokyo festival, and limited itself to presenting its plays in the framework of Tokyo Performing Arts Market.

At the forum in Tokyo Asian producers and representatives of festivals, as well as European and American theatre personalities, showed great interest in the works of the Belarusian company. The main subject for negotiations was festival, co-production and tour projects in 2010.

Answering the question of Japanese mass media, whether a breakthrough of Belarusian theatre in Asia Natallya Kalyada (Natalia Koliada), director of “Free Theatre” answered: “We think that while the product of the theatre is in demand in Europe, America and Australia, -- it will find understanding in the Asian continent as well. Our aim is to present Belarusian art as widely as possible, and we a successful in that so far.

Today Belarus Free Theatre fully justifies its name of a Global Artistic Ambassador given to it by international cultural philanthropic organisation Art Venture. We hope that the Asian breakthrough of Free Theatre is to take place in 2010.

“In 2010 we plan wide presence at leading Asian theatre markets – in Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and cooperation with leading festivals of South America, where Belarusian theatre art hadn’t been presented absolutely,” Natallya Kalyada summed up the plans of the theatre.

In the same period the cycle of premier shows of the new play Eurepica. Challenge ended in Lund, Sweden. On the next day after the cycle finished, a press-conference was held. Authors of the play, journalists, students and theatre personalities from around the world took part in it.

The main topics of the press conference were modern European challenges and the technology of creation of a large-scale international theatre project. Playwrights who participated in the project and who were taking part in the press conference noted that interest to the subject matter was growing as they plunged into the material, and short plays created by some of them urged them to create larger plays based on that material.

“Reflection on national self-identification provoked by Eurepica project seized me and was not releasing me for all this last year. I created a full-size play on the same topic, which was staged in Bucharest. After that with a group of Romanian playwrights we created a large theatrical project on the same topic, which started its existence on different stages of Rumanian province,” an author Stefan Peka said.

His US colleague Aaron Landsman said that the topic of challenges the modern America faces was a herd one for him: “MY first statement was larger in size than needed, and I wanted to speak about a global man, a man which includes the full range of elements of the modern world. But as I plunged into the topic, my perception changed, and a completely different image of Americans emerged: suffering from difficult multi-level complexes, which does not really correspond to a stereotyped image”.

Composter Sergei Nevski who worked for the play for half a year, was pleasantly surprised by the technological development of the soundtrack of the performance created by him: “I was amazed by the attitude and skill in making of remixes by Dj Laurel and Dj Diesler. The first one surprised with very precise and measured approach to mastering the main music theme of the play, while the second by an amazing sense of humour”.

Receiving congratulations from all participants of the conference on the occasion of the successful premiere of the play Eurepica Challenge, stage director Uladzimir Shcherban expressed a thought that this project has just started its life: “It seems to me that this project has just started its life, and it is too early to strike the results. New challenges appear, the previous ones are transformed, and to keep this topic in the field of art is one of the aims of the modern theatre. Such a difficult topic could reach a viewer easier though an emotion spurred by theatre”.