| David Ives: Philip Glass kupuje komad kruha (Philip Glass Buys a Loaf of Bread) Actors: Philip Glass - Dean Kriva�i� First woman - Zrinka Ku�evi� Second woman -Ana Franji� Baker woman - Maja Kova� Video: Damir Kantoci Original music: Matija Dramaturgy: Mario Kova� Coreography & directing: NOVA GRUPA Main idea of performance is to play with minimalism and repetition of Glass music and try to incorporate it into everyday situation. Also, we wanted to experiment with actors body and voice and try to turn it into both musical instrument and dancing (moving) object both following the rhythm and tempo of music by Philip Glass. David Ives (contemporary american dramatist) chose bakery as a setting for normal situation where Philip Glass (as a leading character in the play) is buying a loaf of bread. Several sentences are used in order of performing that operation and while Philip and Bakery Women are doing that, two other ladies are gossiping Philip in the other corner of the bakery shop. Those sentences are performed in a still (Butoh like) movements and in extreme slow-motion so that audience can notice mehanism of combining spoken words with movements. After all sentences are spoken, the bell rings and forces actors to move in a straight line where they throw out pieces of sentences, single words or just letters to the audience while at the same time they produce machine like movements made of those everyday normal movements they did in first part of performance. Behind them, a movie projection is shown (sort of experimental montage) of those very pieces they are saying and throughout the performance projection and actors are performing very same movements and voices made entiraly of those couple of sentences used in the first part. Everyday movement and speech is cut up in the same way that composer Philip Glass used to cut up melodies and rhythms and turned them into his own music. The result is fast and extremelly precise both musical and theatre performances (sort of happening concert). The music used as a background is DJ's mix of Glass music and modern electronic music with drum'n'bass feel. At the end, the bell rings once more time, and brings actors back to the bakery, back to the everyday situation. |
| Radovan Iv�i�: Sun�ani grad (The Sunny Town) Actors: Young man: Marijan Mihaldinec Young girl: Ana Franji� Old fisherman: Dean Kriva�i� Chorus: Maja Kova� Zrinka Ku�evi� Tihana Dasovi� Mario Kova� Maksimilijan Ru�inski Tehnics: Damir Kantoci, Bojan Vukovi� Directing, costumes, scenography, coreography: NOVA GRUPA Every war brings only destruction and death. Hidden behind patriotism and nationalism lies ghost of terror which comes with the war and destroys everything in site. The play 'The Sunny Town' starts right after the war has taken place. It is a simple pacifist poem about young people who survived the clash and who are trying to build new and improved society. Power of good words, strong rhythm and faith will help them in that quest. The piece of world famous surealist Radovan Iv�i� is full of magical scenery and vivid rhythm which helps actors to perform a 'symphony of words' and blend it into strong positive force. The perfect society in which all people and animal will live united may be utopia but we believe that it is more noble to work and strive for impossible cause then to give up and live every day in a nightmare. |
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| WHAT DOES FUTURE BRING US? -nothing at the moment- |
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| WORKS SO FAR: *performance 7 tableta za spavanje (7 Sleeping Pills) (performed 14 times) *happening Zagreb/Zadar vs Rio performed at Zagreb Urban Festival and ZadARSnova festival in Zadar in 2001 (performed 2 times) *performance Philip Glass kupuje komad kruha (Philip Glass Buys a Loaf of Bread) (David Ives's text) performed at many festivals and happenings in Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovinia, Serbia, Canada and France (performed 34 times) *performance Sun�ani grad (Sunny Town) (Radovan Iv�i�'s text) performed at many festivals and happenings in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovinia, Iran, Canada, Serbia and France **performance Svijet nije dovoljan (The World Is Not Enough) performed at demonstrations against American invasion of Iraq (performed 2 times) *performance �ohari (Cockroaches) (Stanislav I. Witkievicz's text) performed at couple of festivals in Croatia and short-listed among 10 or so best non-institutional plays in the country (performed 6 times) |
| Stanislav Ignacy Witkiewicz: �ohari (Cockroaches) Joint autorship of: Lana Filipin, Ana Franji�, Damir Kantoci, Maja Kova�, Mario Kova�, Mia Kraljevi�, Dean Kriva�i�, Zrinka Ku�evi�, Marijan Mihaldinec, Maks Ru�inski Stanislav Ignacy Witkiewicz wrote one-act play 'Cockroaches' when he was 8 years old. Maybe this juvenile lack of patience is the reason why it is only two pages long. Some critics found vague notions of Shakespearean dramaturgy in it. For us from Nova grupa it gave an opportunity to play with two theatre components important to us. The first is connected with notion of fear of approaching vast grey mass which swallows people and cities. Living in this threatining age full of mediocracy, consumerism, religious fanatics, expansion of chauvinistic/racistic nationalism and endless legions of their nusproducts, we simply couldn't decide what we would chose for our target from such a rich offer so we left cockroaches to approach us from darkness, invisible and threatening. |
| From aesthetic point of view, we continued to experiment where we left off after 'Philip Glass...' and 'Sun�ani grad'. We were interested in what ways we can depict the fear of thretening 'greyness' with the help of unity of human body and technology. Bringing the body to the stage gradually, scene by scene, we tried to work in the conditions of consciously imposed restrictions, through unconditional play wishing to remember once more why we are enchanted with performing media. With laughter, sweat, tears and quarrels we fought our way, like a real family, between Scyllas and Charydbis of creative team work through which we deepened our relationship. 'Accept mistake as hidden intention!' Brian Eno |
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| 7 tableta za spavanje (7 sleeping pills) Dance performance '7 tableta za spavanje' ('7 Sleeping Pills') is the only performance that Nova Grupa 'inherited' from Schmrtz Teatar. It was first performed at the Non-verbal Theatre Festival in Savi�enta in 2000. During the entire evolution of the mankind, the planet Earth has been governed by forces led by greed, selfishness, hunger for fame, covetousness� Their methods are ruthless and violent. They hide behind different masks: nation, religion, clan, race, business interes� Rare flare-ups of the individual desire for stiller, happier, more creative life have always ruthlessly been crushed by superior machinery. Maybe it really IS human nature to kill, steal, rape, set on fire and cover in black. Maybe all pacifists, peacemakers, samaritans and others of such kind really ARE some weird endemic species which die out through natural selection. This pessimistic performance follows another such anti-Utopian story. |