Dance studio "The Crystal Cube of Brightness", Sisak,Croatia
authors: Jasminka Petek-Krapljan and Jasmin Novljakovi�
Dance theatre critic Maja Djurinovic writes about the performance /Vijenac,7.03.2002./
The authors of the performance, Jasminka Petek-Krapljan, art trainer of Dance Studio KKV, and Jasmin Novljakovic, have been working together for many years. They have
developed together successful performances like "The Party", "Cinnamon coloured Room", or "Meeting by Chance".
It's about theatre, with an emphasis on the visual. Beautiful pictures develop in an alternation of light and shadow, photos out of the family album where the memories of a boy are hidden. These pictures, from the beginning, express a helpless sadness about the events to come. There is neither rebellion nor fighting. The transitions are soft without any change in rhythm but ambiguous: an aunt, taking the girls measurements for doing
needlework, and very soon: measuring proportions as a racial test. The story takes a distinct course: we see the narrow room of an air-raid shelter. The suitcases, carefully
packed and carried away, by their scattered content reveal an absurd hope of their owner.
The performance, irrespective of the visible action, through motion and pictures, through an excellent choice of music underlining the seriousness of the events, remained
lyrical and unpretentious. It even acquires a higher dimension by symbolically putting
that packing of suitcases, tidying and taking-care-of-one's-own-things into perspective.
The young Sisak actors work on the limits of verbal theatre and dance, of amateurism
and professionalism, in the shadow of socalled metropolisses, seriously and carefully.
