The panel of judges of the 40th International Festival of Alternative and New Theatre – INFANT, consisting of the members PhD Petar Zec, Chairman, MA Nataša Milović and Attila Antal, has unanimously reached the following decision:
1. The Award for the most successful experiment – a performance as a whole (diploma and prize money) is awarded to the play Rosamunde, by the theatre Hotel Bulić from Croatia.
In this play of powerful actors’ creations and lavish visual beauty, director Senka Bulić has given a suggestive stage depiction of the eternal mystery of the male-female relationship. Actress Tihana Ćulafić in the role of Rosamunde, in an interaction with Marko Cindrić in the role of Fulvio, is stretched by desire between the sensual and the intellectual, the dream-like and the trivial, the strawberries and blood, between the dog and the wolf. The play Rosamunde sensually-cognitively conveys the philosophy of the Nobel Prize winner Elfriede Jelinek through a direction which is well-thought out, sensitive and deeply honest. A consistent inter-play of the stage elements of equal weight – acting, visuality and the sound image – constructs an integrated whole, whose emotional power confronts and brings to the conscious level the deepest instincts, desires and passions through the eternal struggle between the male-female principles in a Strindbergian devouring of genders.
2. The Award for the most original exploration into one of the segments of theatrical language (diploma) is equally shared by two plays:
Drift (or drive) by Kitt Johnson X-act from Denmark and All That Is Wrong, by Theatre Ontroerend Goed and the theatre troupe Laika, from Belgium.
In the play Drift, dancer and choreographer Kitt Johnson, through a reduced performance and an expressive rebellion of the body, in a meticulous and stylistically refined way, has depicted the anxiety of a female libido in the chains of contemporary civilisation. Vagina Urbi et Orbi.
In the play All That Is Wrong, fragile but aware Koba Ryckewaert mercilessly criticises the new world order through simple means of expression – board and chalk. “The medium is a message”.
3. The Award a particular expressivity in the border areas between theatrical and other arts, or creativity in the widest sense (diploma) is awarded equally to the plays:
Now I Am Lucky, by Emanat – Institute for Affirmation and Development of Dance and Contemporary Art, Slovenia, and ‘one mysterious Thing, said e.e. cummings*’, ‘What Can Be Said about Pierre’, ‘Olympia’ by Vera Mantero and O Rumo do Fumo from Portugal.
Choreographer and performer Matija Ferlin, by his body, evokes the spirit of the poetry of Slovene bard Srečko Kosovel. The vulnerable performer’s body, covered in ash, by its virtuosity and power of movement, relives the hell of creation over and over again. The body burns, the body is sacrificed, the body is cleansed. Apotheosis to the word and the body. Art as healing and consecration.
Vera Mantero and her theatrical triptych, through well-thought out dramaturgy of the body, leads us into the world of philosophy, sociology and painting. The Portuguese artist, by a glorification of the body, asserts by her own self that Nudity is not merely nakedness, reincarnating Monet’s Olympia.
4. We award a Special Mention to the IV year students of acting in class of Professor Dejan Cicmilović of the Faculty of Arts in Priština – Zvečan for fostering the beauty of the stage speech (instructed by Professor Andrijana Videnović) and movement (Vera Obradović and Miodrag Krčmarik) in the Shakespeare’s most staged comedy – A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Jury Members:
PhD Petar Zec, Chairman Nataša Milović Attila Antal
Novi Sad, 1st July 2013