Curators’ Statement
this is my truth, tell me yours is yet another lecture-performance in this year's festival programme, this time by Jasna Žmak, produced by the Centre for Drama Art Zagreb (Croatia) and Via Negativa and City of Women organisations from Ljubljana (Slovenia). The performance explores the author’s relationship with the artistic field of her own creation - dramaturgy. This anxious dramaturge, alone on stage, strives to conquer her inner unrest by bravely and wittily telling us of her experience which led to her developing tinnitus. At the same time, she explores themes of misogyny, working in culture, and homophobia, drawing from her personal authorial experience as well as in the broader context of performing arts in general.
About the Performance
Hi,
my name is Jasna and I would like to invite you to see my performance. It’s my first solo theatrical project and I’m quite excited about it.
The title of the piece is “this is my truth tell me yours” which is actually a quote of a quote, but the piece itself doesn’t deal with these quotes, it’s more about some of my own “truths”.
I have been working as a writer and a dramaturg for almost 15 years, but lately I have been thinking about wanting to do something else, because I think art is really fucked up and because art really fucked me up.
But then I made this piece about how art fucked me up, and I actually realised it’s more of a love-hate relationship between me and art. And I realized I actually often really like art. (Although it also gets on my nerves quite often.)
Some other topics that I explore in this piece are female orgasm, male masturbation, artistic responsibility and buzzing in the ears. I also mention Konstrakta, Jan Fabre, Oliver Frljić, Xanax and Jesus.
In short, I would be glad if you would come to the show. (Below you’ll find a more official description that my producer asked me to write.)
See you,
Jasna
this is my truth, tell me yours is a solo project by dramaturgе and writer Jasna Žmak, in which she explores her relationship with the artistic field, questioning the responsibilities and the anxieties that the role of the contemporary artist implies. Leaning on her personal experience from 2011, when she started suffering from tinnitus and hyperacusis after firing a theatre gun during the performance MandićMachine, directed by Bojan Jablanovec and performed by Marko Mandić, in this piece Žmak creates her own version of a ŽmakMachine, and explores ways in which art forms the reality we live in. Although seemingly not connected, the themes of tinnitus and patriarchy become the central motif of this work that operates at the intersection between stand-up comedy and lecture performance. Appearing on stage as a performer for the first time, Žmak deals with the questions of truthfulness and representation, participation and responsibility, guiding us through her dramaturgical and sexual experiences, asking herself and the audience questions about the importance and meaning of artistic production in the era of wild capitalism.
The Author
Jasna Žmak is a writer, dramaturg, researcher and psychodramatist from Zagreb, Croatia, working in the fields of performance, dance, literature and film. She is associate professor at the Department of Dramaturgy at the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb, teaching BA and MA courses on performance dramaturgy. She holds a PhD from the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of the University of Zagreb, graduating with the theme of lecture performance. She writes performance texts, short stories, reviews, research papers, essays, and picture books. She has published several books, including the study "Lecture as Performance, Performance as Lecture - on the Production of Knowledge in the Arts" (Leykam International, 2019) and a book of essays "Dirty Words - Essays on Female Sexuality" (Fraktura, 2020). She has organized and/or mentored several workshops about writing, feminism, dramaturgy and psychodrama. She loves playing around with language and believes intersectional feminism is the future. jasnajasnazmak.net
From the Reviews
“The performance includes modes of monodrama, lecture-performance and stand-up comedy, and throughout its duration, Žmak does not hide dramaturgical seams but runs her fingers over them; she embodies and performs vulnerability, opens up themes of power dynamics at all levels of the theatrical mechanism, touching upon explicit and implicit consent, authorship and ownership of one's own story, gender roles and their extensions in the public and private sphere, hyper-in/visibility of female sexuality and auto-sexuality. [...] The anti-elitist approach that Žmak cultivates in all aspects of her work is significant as a devastatingly rare aesthetic and political decision to open artistic practice towards views beyond the dedicated expert-professional inner circle.”
Ana Fazekaš, Novosti
