Beauty will not save the world, because the world doesn’t care. But beauty can save people, for sure. And, if we want to be precise, beauty can be a means of escaping a dominant system. It can help us change our perspective.
We want for there to be more light shone on oppressed groups. We want to live in a world in which there is more empathy and where kindness is considered as something super-sexy. With this in mind, we want to award artists who have used radical performing tools and gestures in their work to reflect on the position of women in society.
We have decided to present two Jovan Ćirilov Special Awards to the following performances.
Sex Education II: Fight created by the director Tjaša Črnigoj draws on our shared past to explore the process by which abortion entered into the constitution of Yugoslavia and to connect this with the times in which we live when women in many countries are seeing their rights rolled back.
We were impressed by the accessible and engaging way in which the performers presented this material and with the way in which the performance reminds us never to forget the huge battle women have fought and are still fighting.
We particularly appreciate the way it highlighted the role of male violence. We need performances like this because sex education in our society is all but non-existent. And this is why we award the Special Award to Sex Education II: Fight.
The second special award goes to Cadela Forca Trilogy 1: The Bride and the Goodnight Cinderella.
Carolina Bianchi’s performance locates itself in a long tradition of female artists who have used their bodies to speak about violence. By taking a date rape drug at the start of the performance she creates an absence in the second half, even though her unconscious body remains on stage throughout. As a result it is a performance of two halves, the first of which takes the form of a lecture performance, the second half a dance piece performed by the Brazilian company Cara de Cavalo. We were impressed with the compelling nature of Bianchi’s performance, the intricacy of the text and the way in which the piece rejects catharsis which is why we have chosen to also give Cadela Forca Trilogy 1: The Bride and the Goodnight Cinderella a Special Award.
We present the Grand Prix Mira Trailović to this is my truth, tell me yours by Jasna Žmak.
This is an authentic, precisely articulated, multi-layered lecture performance in which the author discusses the traditional patriarchal and capitalist constraints in performing arts practices. Honesty, immediacy and empathy are the basic characteristics of her work, using knowledge and skills from the field of dramaturgy and lecture-performance theory, she radicalizes the question of the position of a woman who creates and consumes contemporary art. This performance is crafted with huge knowledge and awareness of the political meanings of using the stage as a public sphere in terms of appreciation of all social positions of others.
We were struck by this solo performance’s mix of tenderness, generosity and frankness and we especially wanted to highlight and support the fragility and unbreakable content of this performance. That is why we are awarding the Grand Prix of 58Bitef24 to this is my truth, tell me yours by Jasna Žmak.
Marine Mane, French director and author, presided over the 58Bitef24 international jury consisting of actresses Jelena Stupljanin and Tihana Lazović, dramaturge and writer Dimitrije Kokanov, as well as journalist and critic Natasha Tripney
