BLOG: But What About Serbia? (registan.net)

Posted: 12 Aug 2008 12:52 AM CDT

Thomas Barnett has quite a history to overcome when analyzing political events. In his books, which advocate unending war against the poor, he has written off the non-military angles of the wars the U.S. fights as “they just need more diplomacy,” while claiming that Iraq would have been a raging success if President Bush had just been more charming so we could have had 40,000 troops from Russia, China, and India… each. And that simply having more international, non-Muslim troops would have somehow avoided the insurgency (Afghanistan rarely if ever makes it into his lengthier expositions, as he relies on brief quips on his blog to substitute for serious thinking about why an actually international occupational war of connection, or whatever it is he calls those things, is currently failing). Barnett has seriously advocated the forcible annexation of post-Castro Cuba as well, and sees little moral issue with states aggressively expanding their territory.

But Barnett’s sins go much deeper. In Blueprint for Action, which contains a rather disquieting section in which he fantasizes about which countries to invade and occupy first, he highlights the Balkans as the model by which the International community should intervene in civil wars and “fix” countries. He envisions the UNSC acting as a kind of grand jury, the U.S. as executioner, and a magical international force composed mostly of Europeans then moves in for the really difficult nation-building and counterinsurgency work that inevitably follows. The former leaders of said “fixed” country then face war criminal charges at the Hague.

Of course this didn’t really work out too well in Serbia… or anywhere else, for that matter. The actual war criminals roamed free for years, some as much as a decade or more, before being caught. And the politics of the Hague make it unlikely any will ever face actual justice for their crimes. While it is nice to see Sarajevo is no longer the hellhole it was in 1993, the Balkans could hardly be called “settled.” Nearly a decade after the NATO-led war there, and even after its halfway-recognized independence, Kosovo still has tens of thousands of foreign troops stationed there to enforce a peace and prevent Serbia from regaining its lost territory. Near the border areas, U.S. government employees are still required to travel in armored convoys thanks to a constant stream of violent activities. It is still not a region that can be called a success, just a mild failure with the potential to erupt into enormous bloodshed at a moment’s notice (such as the violent riots in Belgrade after Kosovo declared its independence).

Which brings us to Barnett’s take on Georgia. While he does us the courtesy of NOT quoting “Back in the U.S.S.R.” like every other blogger whose use of “Georgia on My Mind” and variations result in me instantly refusing to read another damned word they write, Barnett can’t really bring himself to mention his previous advocacy of either nationalist expansionism or armed intervention in civil wars.

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THEATRE: THEATRE ZAR & PLAVO POZORIŠTE IN POLAND

Last time - in the end of june - I was together with my friend Knut Geißler from the 'Büro für Off-Theater' in Poland (Wroclaw) to visiting the theatre festival in the Grotowski institute. Our friends from Belgrade (PLAVO POZORIŠTE) invited us to coming there. We met us in a Geogrian Restaurant in Wroclaw.

On the table with the wrong georgian food we spoked about a performance from Theatre Zar from the Grotowski Institute that include the polyphonic singing and tradition in the performance:

... The main line of the musical structure in the performance is built on the base of Corsican polyphonic songs, into which Bulgarian, Romanian, Icelandic and Chechenian songs have been interwoven. The energy of the elaborated music owes a debt to Erik Satie and his recognition of the force conveyed by each drop of sound. The traditional music material has been transformed into a modern form
and enhanced by an intensive movement score. We are unable to express how much the performance owes to Aglaya ...

source: grotowski-institute.art.pl

The Zar Theatre from Wroclaw/Poland wil be in Belgrade in autumn 2008. Maybe I have time to be there. First part of the festival is supported by German Embassy in Belgrade, Cultural Centre "Vuk Karadžić" and Belgrade Dance Centre.

Note: Festival MEETINGS will be realised throughout 2008. Coming of theatre Specchi e memorie and performing of their latest performance "Relative Absolute" as well as realisation of the workshop led by Zar Theatre actors which will deal with using of voice in theatre through forms of polyphonic singning will be realised in autumn 2008.

After the meal we have seen the great Performance "The Wizard or Harmonic Cacophony"

Festival Openings, Wroclaw/Poland: June 29, 30th at 19h,
The Grotowski Institute - Apocalypsis Space www.grotcenter.art.pl

The Wizard or Harmonic Cacophony
Demonstration of a theatre language

27.12.2007. at 20:00, Centre for Cultural Decontamination, Belgrade
Premiere: 4.12.2007. Festival Manöver, Leipzig, Germany

Scenario and directing: Nenad Čolić
With: Maša Jelić, Ranko Trifković, Jelena Martinović, Marko Potkonjak, Dejan Stojković
Set and costume: Ivana Čolić
PR manager: Dubravka Vujinović»The Wizard or Harmonic Cacophony«, it is an attempt of transforming time into space with the help of sound. It is an attempt of creating of sound synthesis in the consciousness of actors on the stage, synthesis between vocal activity which produces sound (text, song), musical tone which produces sound, their gradation through time and intention of each performer individually for some kind of musical, sound result. It is an attempt of composing of theatre, an attempt to make scenic, theatre elements in function of orchestration of cacophony and to make spectator's perception moved from rational into out-of-time, spatial sphere.
The performance is based on a famous fairy tale written by L. Frank Baum »The Wizard of Oz« and texts of F. M. Dostoevsky, Virginia Woolf, Hermann Hesse, Oscar Wilde and Marina Cvetaeva. Actors' materials and music materials from different performances of Plavo pozorište between 1995 and 2006 have been used in this performance:

Sonnet Without a Title (1995)
It Was the Souls’ Wondrous Mine (1999)
Oscar Wilde and the Inconstant Prince (2000)
Sarcasticus or Birth of the Virus (2002)
Fantastic Gospel According to Virginia (2003)
Dialectics of Soul – Study of Freedom (2004)
I Sing Like a Bird (2006)

Marko Potkonjak & Maša Jelić


Dejan Stojković & Marko Potkonjak

Dejan Stojković & Ranko Trifković

A massive absurd spectacle about the situation in Serbia with different point of views in a multiplex mode to such subjects like policy, election, nationalism, proud to be a serbian, family, tradition, love, literature, art, religion, men, women, sexuality and much more "huge existential points of life" ...
Interesting are the similair aspects in another countries and cultures or ethic groups! I recommend the performance all people the are like to break with conventions - also with the conventions to play theatre and with the fucking script department of history. PLAVO POZORIŠTE know the rules of an own great spectacle and the way to looking for more than half the truth very good ... I was visibly impressed - it is more than an amazing piece of art!

photographies (copyright: Ralph Hälbig)

PLAVO POZORIŠTE theatre laboratory (Album)