Performing Artists for Balkan Peace

After four years working closely with artists across the Balkans, the idea to bring these vibrant artists together was natural. The Performing Artists for Balkan Peace (PABP) was created to bring together professional theatre companies, individual artists, and theatre practitioners from across the Balkans to exchange, discuss, and create new work that addresses the issues of the region.

The new network is devoted to the active pursuit of social progress and artistic cooperation through the performing arts, and strengthening the role of the artist in the community. The PABP collaborates on original performance projects and involves local communities through site-specific works, workshops and outreach.

Purpose

The Performing Artists for Balkan Peace is an ongoing and expanding network of professional theatre companies, individual performing artists, and other theatre practitioners devoted to the active pursuit of peace, social progress and artistic cooperation through the performing arts, and to strengthening the role of the artist in the community.

Mission

• We confirm our united role as a centers for peace and social improvement.
• We stress the importance of involving our local communities in active peace-making through artistic media.
• We share information and resources to ensure the success and progress of each member, and to facilitate joint projects between network members.
• We aim to enrich each member’s artistic and social vocabulary through an exchange of techniques and ideas.
• We create joint theatre performances and arts projects to create relevant artistic commentary on social and political themes.
• We conduct outreach in the local communities we work in.

Founding Companies

• Teatri Petro Marko (Albania)
  
• Theatre Boemi (Macedonia)
  
• Theatre Dodona (Kosovo)
  
• Mostar Youth Theatre (Bosnia & Herzegovina) 
  
• Dah Teatar (Serbia)
  
• PAC Multimedia (Macedonia)
  
• Theatre Tsvete (Bulgaria)
  
• Bond Street Theatre (USA)
  
• Polygon Arts (UK)

The idea for the Performing Artists for Balkan Peace emerged in response to an obvious need for a forum and arena for artists to communicate and share resources.

History & Projects

May-June 2005 – Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria
From May 28 to June 12, theatre practitioners from Serbia, Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Kosovo, Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, the UK, and the USA, convened in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria, to inaugurate an on-going and expandable network of performing artists devoted to cross-border cooperation, social progress and peace. A result of years of working with artists throughout the Balkans, Bond Street Theatre of New York and Theatre Tsvete of Sofia, creative collaborators for more than six years, co-hosted this historic event.

The immediate goal of the project was to create a performance that would address current Balkan issues and tour in the region as a means to promote cross-border dialogue. The goal of this process was the free exchange of ideas without judgment.

Project Donors

Project Partners

• Teatri Petro Marko
  
• Theatre Boemi 
  
• Theatre Dodona 
  
• Mostar Youth Theatre 
  
• Dah Teatar 
  
• PAC Multimedia 
  
• Theatre Tsvete 
  
• Bond Street Theatre 
  
• Polygon Arts 
  

An amazing accomplishment, five theatre directors from regions still sensitive from recent wars, succeeded in creating a fully collaborative theatre production together in two weeks, with 20 actors representing 9 countries and 5 language groups. The process was not without its stormy moments, but was certainly successful in discovering the commonalities among the group.

We all worked closely from morning until night, shared ideas, worked on new material, and crafted a performance titled Honey and Blood (from the Turkish ‘bal’ meaning honey and ‘kan’ meaning blood) which was presented to an enthusiastic public. In addition, lasting friendships were formed and future projects planned.

August 2006 – Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina
The group re-met the following year in Mostar, this time with additional artists from across the Balkans and Eastern Europe to share artistry, vision, frustrations, and hopes. The experience was, in a word, inspirational. The group had seven days to reconstruct Honey and Blood as the opening performance of Mostar Youth Theatre’s Festival of Authorial Poetics, an annual festival that attracts students and professionals from around the world for an intensive series of workshops and performances.

The PABP encouraged the Festival participants to join the project for its next challenge: creating a site-specific work that would transform destroyed sites around the city of Mostar into performance spaces, and reflect on the themes those sites inspire.

The City of Mostar is a dramatic and inspiring backdrop for site-specific work. Ten years after the war, the scars are still highly visible, with shattered buildings still standing in central locations. With the help of the Mostar Youth Theatre, the group chose three sites: a bombed-out bank, a destroyed library, and an abandoned stadium. We used resources found on location and little else. The groups realized that this site-specific work was very useful in that it mimicked the conditions we find in our outreach work in refugee camps, prisons, orphanages – that is, few resources and much inspiration.

The final production, Going Places, took the audience from site to site where the old buildings came to life just long enough to tell one piece of the story of Mostar. The audience, a mix of artists, students and local residents gave very positive responses.